@WorkGwinnett Staff

First, Kenya. Now, a GTC nursing student.

A journey to Kenya three years ago charted the course for Amber Pekelder’s career. Traveling as part of a mission team to Peru, Jamaica and Kenya inspired her to become a nurse. “The need for healthcare is so great,” she says, that her experiences motivate her still today.

Amber is a first year nursing student who will graduate in May 2013. She appreciates the fact that her instructors are passionate about training the nursing students to be prepared. “We participate in simulations in the Life Sciences Center clinical suites – and then we repeat,” she explains. That repetition, Amber feels, is vital to get her ready for real clinical settings. Her first clinical rotation was at Eastside Medical Center and she will return there for her second rotation.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Office of Veterans Affairs Helps Ease Transition For Vets

Gwinntt Tech cares about its veterans. That fact couldn’t be more apparent than inside the school’s Office of Veterans Affairs.

Every day the office’s friendly staff helps advise student veterans on a range of issues, from which classes to take to navigating the often complicated application process for GI Bill benefits.

“Because we have a dedicated office of veterans affairs we have staff and resources that are solely focused on assisting our veterans in transitioning from military life to civilian life,” says veterans affairs advisor Lorri Chin-Shue.

The office is also equipped with a computer lab where veterans can do homework, check email and network with other students who share their military background.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Vet Tech Students Volunteer At Gwinnett Animal Shelter

Gwinnett Tech Veterinary Technology students are helping dogs at the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter find  good homes.

Using skills they learned at GTC, the students are assisting with spay and neuter surgeries, making the animals more likely to be adopted.

Vet Tech instructor Ryan Cheek says the volunteer work benefits not only the dogs but also the students, who’ve spent long hours in the classroom training for the valuable hands-on experience.

“Everything they’re doing here we’ve spent the last six to eight weeks learning about,” says  Cheek. “It’s applying what we’ve learned in class to a real-world situation.”

Cheek says helping out at the shelter will prepare students for the work they’ll do once they enter the work force. Now vet techs in training, the students will one day assist doctors of veterinary medicine who perform spay and neuter surgeries every day.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

GTC Students Receive Awards and Scholarships at 2012 Ceremony

Gwinnett Tech’s 2012 Awards Ceremony marks the end of another year of success for GTC students. Family and friends filled the Gwinnett Center Performing Arts Theater to watch their loved ones receive awards and scholarships in honor of their outstanding achievements.

“It’s a night where our students are able to be recognized for their hard work [and] enthusiasm and get to share it with their family and friends,” says Gwinnett Tech Foundation Executive Director Mary Beth Byerly.

Throughout the course of the evening nearly $200,000 in scholarship funds were awarded through the Gwinnett Tech Foundation with the support of local business leaders like Clyde and Sandra Strickland and Matthew Holtkamp.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Interiors Students Enjoy “Living Learning Lab”

Gwinnett Tech’s interiors department has everything needed to give the home makeover pros on HGTV a run for their money. Students in the program are able to put their hands on the latest in home decor, kitchen and bathroom materials and more, thanks to what program director Susan Arnold calls their “living learning lab”.

“They can utilize all the products that are currently available to interior designers and kitchen and bath designers and we call it a living learning lab because every space is so fully utilized,” Arnold says.

Situated in a quant brick house on the edge of GTC campus, the lab boats a full kitchen complete with high-end appliances by Sub-Zero/Wolf along with a stunning array of fine wooden cabinetry. Crates of carpet, paint and tile samples line the upstairs walls and even the bathrooms are decked out with designer flooring, wallpaper and fixtures.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Computer Science Students Train For the Jobs of Today and Tomorrow

These days, computers play a crucial role in nearly every aspect of our society, from the vast digital networks that help us communicate to the video game systems that give us a little down time after a long day at the office. Computers control it all and there’s no sign of that changing any time soon. That’s why Gwinnett Tech offers training in all the skills needed to keep those systems in tip-top shape.

Students in GTC’s numerous Computer Science programs work daily with the latest and greatest equipment used in the Information Technology industry. Whether it’s the cutting edge networking hardware found in the school’s Cisco Lab or the leading digital software tools used by Computer Programming students, at Gwinnett Tech real-world experience always comes first.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

GTC Student’s Worldly Advice: ‘Trust Yourself and Don’t Give Up’

Lian Xue arrived in the United States as a 19-year-old bride to work alongside her husband in his family’s nail salon business. After 10 years, Lian wanted a career change, but she realized the only way to make a living and become ‘mainstreamed’ into U.S. life is with more education and good English language skills.

Although she graduated from high school in China, to enter college here she needed her GED. Lian turned to Gwinnett Tech for both an ESL course and to achieve her GED. She then enrolled at GTC for another course, decided she wants to go into the medical field and is finishing her general health sciences coursework.

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Teamwork Is Key in GTC’s Dental Assisting Program

Gwinnett Tech’s Dental Assisting students know exactly what it’s like on both sides of a checkup.

That’s because each student spends an equal amount of time filling the roll of both the dental assistant and the patient en route to graduating with a Dental Assisting diploma.

Program director LeAnna Harding says that kind of teamwork helps students learn some important concepts.

“It gives them a sense of how to calm down a patient, especially a very nervous one, because they know exactly what they’re going through,” she says.

Students work together training on all the latest techniques used to help dentists provide quality oral healthcare.

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Gwinnett Tech Names Briauna Howard 2012 GOAL Winner

Nursing student Briauna Howard is the winner of Gwinnett Technical College’s 2012 Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL).

The Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) sponsors the GOAL program, which recognizes outstanding technical college students and honors excellence in academics and leadership. Local GOAL winners are selected at each of the state’s 26 technical colleges.

Howard began her education on a different path, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. But after helping her husband battle brain cancer, she quickly realized that her true calling was in healthcare and decided to change course.

“This is the field that I’m meant to be in… I’m meant to touch people’s lives,” says Howard. “The [nurses] treated my husband so well when he was hospitalized… [and] it touched me. I wanted to be that person making a difference in someone’s life the way they were making a difference in my life.”

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@WorkGwinnett Staff

Medical Assisting Gives Students A Gateway Into Healthcare

Whether they’re checking vital signs, drawing blood or filling out paperwork, medical assistants are the backbone of any physician’s practice. GTC’s Medical Assisting program gives students the skills they need to fill that crucial role.

“With medical assisting they have administrative skills and they also have clinical skills,” says instructor Terry Forrest. “It gives them a pretty large platform.”

Students come to the program from all walks of life and educational backgrounds and, for many of them, medical assisting is a way into the thriving healthcare sector.

“It opens a lot of doors, especially for our nontraditional students, for careers they never would have thought of,” says Forrest.

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