A Place of Possibilities

Did you read the recent New York Times' column by actor Tom Hanks about his experiences at a community college? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/opinion/tom-hanks-on-his-two-years-at-chabot-college.html?_r=0 It was terrific: honest, funny, inspiring, and insightful.

Also true.

Hanks writes about graduating from a California high school in 1974 and having neither the grades nor the bucks to attend a competitive and expensive university. So he enrolled at nearby Chabot College, a two-year college that not only accepted everyone but was free (nice, huh?).   

Hanks's classmates included recent h.s. grads, Vietnam vets, women returning to school, and middle-aged men seeking to boost their careers.  Together they commuted to campus each day, studying everything from accounting and auto mechanics to physics and journalism.

Though never (by his own admission) a great student, Hanks writes that he found himself--and his passion--at Chabot, discovering that he loved oral interpretation, public speaking, film, and literature. His experience wasn't perfect--he detested some required courses (sound familiar?) and almost flunked zoology--but the positives far outweighed the negatives.  He recalls taking a drama course that "filled my head with expanded dreams."  He also remembers sitting in the Chabot campus library and listening to recordings of actor Jason Robards, with whom he'd someday co-star.

I tell you all this because there are probably at least a few of you out there wondering whether enrolling at Nassau, a school in many ways similar to Chabot, is worth the time and investment.  It is--provided you give college and yourself a chance to see what you're both all about.   

I'm not saying you're going to wind up as rich and famous as Hanks.  But I am saying that if you're open to college--if you approach Nassau with curiosity and with the idea that college holds plenty of possibilities (which it clearly does)--good things will happen.  I can't be more specific about what those good things will be; you'll have to fill in the blanks yourself.

Hanks writes that community colleges give people low-cost opportunities to explore "the next chapter of their lives."  He's right.  For those willing to give college their best shot, two-year colleges, including Nassau, do just that.   

"That place made me who I am today," Hanks says he told his kids when passing Chabot recently.  

Wouldn't it be cool if someday you could say the same thing about your time at NCC?