Sometimes you learn on the straight and narrow. Other times, learning takes you off the beaten path. That was the case for Jessica Allen, the first graduate of Northampton Community College's honors program. A graduate of Easton Area High School, Jessica says she was attracted to the Honors program because it was new at NCC “and I thought it would be cool to be in the first group.” Not only was she the first student to complete the program, she also got to participate in NCC's first winter commencement.
The program’s overall goal is to provide an academic atmosphere in which students learn to think critically, creatively, and independently, and to take responsibility for their own learning, which Allen certainly found to be the case. “The program was very user-friendly. The professors offered open-ended syllabi, so, in a way, we got to design our own program. I got to explore things I was interested in, in addition to what the professors wanted to teach me.”
The small class size in the Honors Program also made an impression on Allen. “There were not more than 15 students in my classes, so I really got a lot of one-on-one with professors. I got to know my classmates really well, and that allowed for a lot of great discussion,” she says.
Allen’s favorite class was Irish Literature, the highlights of which included “picking apart” the symbolism of W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” and a field trip to Princeton University to see a production by an Irish playwright. Allen’s professor for the course, Cara McClintock-Walsh, says Allen was “the kind of student a professor dreams of having: dedicated and creative, hard-working and inspired.”
Asked if she would recommend NCC’s Honors Program to others, Allen’s response is quick and enthusiastic. “Absolutely! It’s a good program for anyone. I don’t think people should be discouraged by the ‘honors’ designation – it’s just a different style of learning. It helped me reorganize my thinking so it’s not so ‘one-track.’ I look at things now in ways I wouldn’t have looked at them before the program. I call it ‘off the beaten path’ learning.”
Allen currently attends Moravian College, where she’s majoring in English Language and Literature. She hopes to enter the field of publishing or editing, “something where I can do what I love, which is reading.”
Professor McClintock-Walsh has no doubt Allen will succeed. “She’s really a singular, talented student who I am sure will do very well wherever she goes.”
To find out more about NCC’s Honors Program, see the webpage here.
