Driving Our Economy Forward: Chattanooga State Community College

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Chattanooga State started out as a technical school.

Now it’s a full-on community college, with lots of opportunities for students in the Tennessee Valley.

On Wednesday, News 12 looked at their nursing program, other classes they teach, and how they work with area businesses.

It’s one way Chatt State is driving our economy forward.

“We have a variety of programs that we offer for our students and people in the community,” said  Stephanie Hollis, Director of Career Services, Chattanooga State Community College. “We offer one-year TCAP programs, which are skilled trade programs. We offer programs for students who just want to come to school for two years for an Associate of Applied Science degree and go into the workforce. And then we also offer those first two years of a four-year bachelor’s degree. We assist our students and our alumni so when students come to Chattanooga State, we help them maybe decide on a major, if they’re undecided on what they want to do career wise, we help them explore. We also help them with developing just those job search skills, like writing resumes, mock interviews, job searching, but then we also try to connect them directly with employers.”

“We also have, like I said, apprenticeship program,” Hollis said. “Those students can actually go into whatever type of work environment they’re learning and taking classes at the same time and will be able to gain employment once they finish.”

“So we do have those two-year go into the workforce programs, and those are designed for those folks who don’t want to spend a lot of time maybe training or going into the getting that four year bachelor’s degree,” she said. “And then they can just come here for one to two years and have really great job opportunities when they leave Chattanooga State.”

“We have a variety of programs. We have some apprenticeship programs that students can actually learn while they earn. And one of those might be the Google It program that we have where students can spend a short amount of time in learning about that particular program and then go into the workforce. It’s just a few months of training, so things have definitely changed. This is not your parents’ or your grandparents’ college anymore. So many avenues that people can take to getting education and then going right back out into the workforce.”