Albany Technical College Blog
The education that we provide is relevant. What we teach fits. The curriculum taught at Albany Technical College addresses the workforce skill sets needed by employers in Southwest Georgia. Periodic research is conducted by the college to determine what skill sets need to be adapted, added, or deleted. Each program is formally evaluated every three to five years. Albany Tech’s curriculum has a 70 percent overlap with Georgia’s strategic workforce initiatives.
The administration, faculty, Board, and Foundation of Albany Technical College take pride in being known by the company that we keep. We serve and hopefully maintain positive relationships with employers in Dougherty and six other nearby counties. Our responsibility continues to focus on providing workforce education at the collegiate / postsecondary level. Under the auspices of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) and congruent with its workforce development mission, we offer a myriad of academic programs with certifications at the associate degree, one-year diploma, and technical certificates of credit levels. Workforce training through adult education and economic development programming is also an integral service within Albany Technical College’s (ATC) portfolio.
During the past six months I have purposely doubled the time that I allocate for meetings with area employers. Acquiring in-depth feedback about the current workforce needs around the quality of workforce skills and the work ethics required for entry level workers is proving to be of great benefit considering our dynamic and ever evolving knowledge-based economy. The conversations reinforce and better quantify my assumptions about employment projections for certain artisans and technicians in Southwest Georgia in the coming years. I know more about how the average and median age of the current regional workforce factors into the plans of local hiring managers for the upcoming years.
My life’s history and most of my experiences are tied to the south. I was born one year before Brown versus the Board of Education. Yet, I still attended segregated schools from Kindergarten through the eleventh grade. My education after high school was provided by a Historically Black College or University (HBCU), a state university, and flagship university. I was educated in South Carolina and Georgia. I’ve lived all my life in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. I was a high school student when Dr. King was assassinated.
Read more: The Legacy of Martin Luther King – My Perspective
We work because our parents cared about us enough to teach us the value of earning a living. The laws of nature are such that parents usually die before their children. Parental instincts focus on our children’s safety and security. How do we provide security for our children after we die? You can leave them money, or you can teach them the value of work so that they can make a living. We work because we love our families. As we become spouses and parents we work because others depend on us. We work to make our families proud of us. We work to support our families.