Normally whenever we hear about a nontraditional student it is when they go to a big state school, or a private university. However, Bucks has a couple of students that live outside of Pennsylvania or even the United States as a whole.
I was able to have an interview with Liv Golling who is a nontraditional student at Bucks. Liv lives in the Bahamas and is a Journalism major.
When I asked Liv advising and picking classes at Bucks, she had this to say. “It was easy, canvas and bucks planning are always easy to navigate. which makes registering for classes easy.”
Between this and zoom, where someone can meet with their advisor, and they can help them pick their classes it is easy for nontraditional students to register for their classes. This led to me asking Liv if there were any classes that were not available due to not living by campus.
Liv said that this was not an issue for her. She said, “Pretty much most of the classes that I have to take are available for synchronized classing as well as zoom classes.”
This is a great thing as it means that if someone wants to take a class, but they do not live near any of the campuses there is still a good chance that they will be able to take it. Obviously, this may not be true depending on what classes someone is trying to take, as some classes require face-to-face interaction.
I then asked Liv how easy it was to make friends at Bucks, while living so far away. Are people less willing to work with her in groups because of how far away she lives from Bucks.
She said that with group projects it is the exact opposite and as people are nice and it is easy to make friends with others at Bucks “I have made a ton of friends at Bucks; group projects are always fun. With being so far away from Bucks it is always nice meeting new friends.”
People do not care that she lives so far away, and occasionally she has shown the people in her class what it looks like in the Bahamas. This tends to make people jealous of the nice weather, especially if it is a class during the early part of spring semester, where it is cold in Pennsylvania.
I then asked Liv why she chose Bucks over a school that is closer to where she lives currently. Her response was “I used to live in Pennsylvania, which is why I attend Bucks’ I plan on transferring to the University of Boulder after I graduate from Bucks with my associates degree in Journalism.
Due to how convenient Bucks makes registration with Bucks planning and canvas, Bucks is a realistic option for any nontraditional student that is looking to get their associates degree before transfer to another school or getting a job.
It is an easy and great way to get an associate degree, without spending all the money that a bigger university would charge.