At age 19, Becky Gerhart didn’t know what she wanted to do for a career, so she took a job at a bank to buy time and gain experience. Years passed. Becky was consistently promoted. Eventually, she abandoned her search for a career; she had discovered that she was already doing exactly what she wanted to do.
Exactly, that is, except working toward a college degree.
Becky decided to remedy this. She signed up for a psychology course at Huntington University. She never took the class. Instead, the director of the EXCEL Program contacted Becky and explained the EXCEL concept to her. Becky thought EXCEL seemed as if it had been created with her in mind, and promptly enrolled— a decision she has never regretted.
“The most wonderful aspect of the program was staying with the same group of students throughout,” she says. “The relationships and support were tremendous. Each person added so much experience.” (Becky, in fact, stays in touch with fellow alumni by phone and e-mail.)
Becky’s college diploma and graduation cap and tassel hang on the wall above her desk. Whenever she glances up at these, she knows where her increased self-confidence came from. “Writing proposals, making presentations and speeches, working with top management—none of it intimidates me now,” she says.
Becky credits her Business Research Project advisor with greatly helping to advance her writing skills. “He took a microscope to our papers and then gave us the opportunity to fix them,” she recalls. “He was tough but fair, and because of that I learned so much.”
For Becky, the Huntington EXCEL experience stands out from other college classes she took because it was so individualized and so applicable to real life. “You were free to ask anything. The professors were always accessible to us. They recognized our needs.”