welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony and today we're going to get some insight on the process of college my guest today is the acting associate vice president and he is steven  kobo of cain ocean and welcome to the show thank you very much after the leisure no problem so see if i usually ask my guests where they went to college so when you go to school for sure well i'm from upstate new york start thinking about college in high school was it was it freshman year senior year actually was probably even eighth grade i went to a magnet school that true citywide that was really focused on college prep hundred five students in it but every single one of us went on to college and was good so now once you graduate from college what's the process that that you took to get to where you are today if you would have asked me when i graduated college if i would be where i am today i would have said no way i have my ph d my bachelor's in ph d are both in chemistry and when i was as an undergraduate i was in visioning myself working in industry and i really had no thoughts whatsoever going on to academics but in graduate school one of the mandatory parts of it was you in order to end the nice thing about the natural sciences your graduation is paid as long as your teaching assistant or research assistant so everybody and i start out they start out as a as a teaching assistant so i started out as a teaching assistant fell in love with the academic part  loved being in front of the classroom and said you know this might be a possible career track was fortunate enough then once i graduated to catch on again university i've been there twenty three years now so now came the university well ten years as a faculty member then i actually moved into the administration i took over what we called our center for academic success which was a lot of the academic support services from new student registration and orientation through tutoring through career services all the way through graduation while i ran that for about ten years and then vacancy developed at arcane ocean  entrepreneurial so we have in addition to our ocean location we have a campus in when joe china when joking university and we are building a location up in the highlands as well to focus on environmental studies what we're really trying to spread throughout the state from south to north yeah so you know how did how did the school come about is this school young or was it something else at one time ok notion itself is a partnership between ocean county college and king university and it's and that's the tenth anniversary actually this year the original agreement was signed back in may of two thousand and six and it resulted from a meeting between john larson is the president of ocean kind of college and dodd frank he's the president came university they both wanted they both have very similar ideals of bringing affordable high quality education to the state of new jersey and in particular ocean county john larson was very interested in finding a partner who wanted to allow students to complete a baccalaureate degree on the campus of ocean county college presence so we agreed to provide that senior institution presence and allow students to finish their bachelor's degree as well as there's master's degree program to offer and we offer a ph d in nursing educational leadership so  i think provides an opportunity to regional steve it really was under served from the higher ed perspective so now that's in ocean county new jersey i guess it's close to the beach pretty close to the beach yes and i think about six miles from seaside heights we're going to pretty close so that gives it an attraction to students as well absolutely and that's something that i'm hoping we can actually i make take advantage of in the future i have a ties in taking classes in the morning and spending the afternoon at the beach it's something that we're thinking about doing going forward is this a draw for people up north to come down and not only have a chance to have fun but also have a chance to earn some credits over the summer great so so now ten year anniversary so yes what is the school doing for a ten year anniversary is there anything in particular that we're we're having a few different events throughout the fall semester we're hoping to have a lecture series that would be open to the public we're having a few receptions a welcome picnic for the students so a variety of different events throughout the summer just throughout the fall semester just to to make everyone aware of it and also to provide an opportunity to thank the community of the greater ocean county community for their ten years of support and to the government ocean county the freeholders have been extremely supportive university or has it well it's a little different you would of the most of our programs are designed in the format of what we call two plus two meaning you would do your true years and receive an associate's degree from ocean county college then se move over to kane and complete the remaining two years of your four year baccalaureate degree so you would apply to who c c you would attend their first but then on the application you would indicate that you're interested in participating in kino she got you we are actually working on developing both schools and move seamlessly through one application one process all the way through that's something that we're excited about we're in the development stages of that at this point so a student is taking the process regular applications so on and so forth but who wants to do the two year college first before it goes to the other two years a at a regular four year college person and the be part of the agreement or partnership we we agreed to be if you will not competitive in other words we don't offer courses that who see offers and vice versa so that both schools mutually benefit from this arrangement so we have pacific articulations saying these are the courses you're going to take and o c c them these are the courses you're going to take a cane and here's how they fit together to make a bachelor's degree and i got it so now as as the vice president there at the school what are some of the responsibilities that you have at the school a little bit of everything basically view my role in two fold one to raise awareness of the campus both in union as well as throughout the state and the other is to provide the resources necessary for our programs to flourish  ok so whether it's the extra curricular whether it's the academic whether it's the facilities and of things whatever is necessary and that's basically my role ok so now you said extracurricular what's at the school that that students can take extra curricular activities other than just the classes sure one of the things that we've really tried to do and it's unfortunate because a lot of the perception of a two year school is that the students just are trained you know they come in they go they don't want to spend time on campus which is really not true but we want to take it to the next level because at a four year school the extracurriculars are often the  the thing that differentiates us from more applied school so we have student life division down with us we have a student resource room we have a variety of clubs i think we're around ten or eleven different clubs that we have as well as we have a full time student government vice president who serves on the student government of union so they do it via usually about ten meetings by skype they variety of activities trips trips to the city trips to last year i think it was we did a trip to gettysburg spend a day trip so there are some academic trips they do things like go to medieval times for fun sure there's a of different activities a lot of sporting events but they also bring in speakers there's a lot of different ways to get involved that or be committed and that what we try to do is recruit student leaders from the to your school becomes to leaders with us because they already have the interest in the experience but it really is a great expense it gives people the opportunity to expand and beyond what they learn classically develop leadership skills communication skills things that will really serve them well as they go out into the working world so what are some of the differentiator is that the school has that other community colleges wouldn't have or something similar to basically having the upper division components having the  the final completing parts of the junior senior level classes which community colleges traditionally by definition don't offer anything that's considered senior division  so we offer that component we offer the resources of king university everybody who is a keen oceans to is a king versus a student they pay can university tuition while there came a student when i was the student they pay it was a situation which when you put it together you can get a bachelor's degree for under thirty thousand dollars which is really in ages is almost unheard of yeah but they have the if they choose to they can come up to union they can take advantage of our library research facilities up there as well least if they want to stay on and many of the students don't have opinion until commencement what they really can complete the degree down with us and we really try to provide that experience and we've had i've had a number of students if it weren't  being present there they would not have gone on a complete of the baccalaureate degree well so now financially wise it does the school offer anything financial what absolutely absolutely  offer financial aid in all of its various forms being a state institution and we we do take federal financial aid as well as the any of the grants through there the  and so on and so forth we also have some scholarships specifically for k notion as well as the generals didn't scholarships up in union that a student can apply for as well one of the other opportunities that come along that's a phenomenal opportunity with the opening of our campus and when joe china students have the opportunity to spend a semester or a year there for the same tuition they would pay as if they were staying here one of us so if they pay tuition room and board they would pay the exact same amount to spend a semester china and how long that it has that been in the existence and that's i think this is about a third full year of operation the campus and we're just in the infancy of having students go over to study but there are about twelve hundred students over in china at this point there is so we really think it's going to be an opportunity for students to experience the greater global community at no additional cost and that you know you that's really unheard of to have  opportunity like that so now what are some of the majors that students are picking up at the school you said nursing was a big was a big major is there any other majors that sure that a lot of students pick up we're up to i think about thirty meters at this point down at the toms river location we just recently added communications and communications public relations those are very growing growing field which we have everything from education which is what cain is most noted for we began his new work normal school as a teacher preparation school back in eight hundred fifty five we have a long history of preparing teachers in new jersey and so obviously we offer a variety of different options whether you're interested in elementary or middle school or high school teacher certifications we are all those programs we have basically representatives from each of our undergraduate college business our business management program is a big one psychology is a huge program with us it's actually our largest major at this point but we offer accounting finance biology mathematics you name it we have a smattering of everything across the board great so you know how do how do parents and students find kayne ocean there's couple of ways you can find the notion where our featured pretty prominently on the ocean county college website we also are on the king university website and we have our own website which caned out edu slash cane ocean all one word you can find is there as well talks about the process and how to apply initially to ocean county college we are not exclusively taking students from ocean county we will accept transfer to draw from roughly a forty five minute driving radius around towns wherever god's going of are our drawing area but as long as you have an associates degree from a new jersey county college we guarantee you junior status and w ill fit you in if you don't have the complete associate's degree or you have switched majors which happens quite frequently students come in with one major they don't realize this isn't what i thought it was going to be and end up switching for right reasons we then sometimes have to send you back to take some additional classes o c c some of the prerequisites for the new major worst case scenario that we see occasionally somebody who did a business major now they want to be a teacher and so we have to tell them all unfortunately business courses don't count towards a teaching curriculum and so if you're going to need more of the basic fundamental level arts courses you're going to need an academic content area to teach so it takes them a little bit longer but as one of the things that i always try to counsel students is do what you really enjoy doing because then it's not going to be like work sure so don't do it because you think it's going to be a job or because your parents are telling you to do it but do it because it's something you're passionate about right and that's probably the best advice so now does does  notion do you go to a lot of events like other schools you know these college nights and things like that absolutely we are present and also because the students start with too so we'll go down there and have a presence down there as well and do some recruiting there so you go into the high schools as well are not as much know ok my course is the transferable because they're they really need to have  started with and completed essentially about sixty credits or so after we accept with thirty credits and above but to guarantee junior status you need at least sixty credit so what are some of the requirements that a student needs to get into the school what we're looking for with this partnership and one of the nice things about it is while we do have a separate application once the students are ready to come into us ocean county college students don't pay an application fee so that we do a seamless transition that way and basically what we're looking for is the transcripts of all post secondary institutions attended we prefer an associate's degree because then the statewide transfer law kicks in we honor full faith and credit with that  and we're looking for in most cases because you're coming in in our process you come in is what's called intended major so we've met you to the school first and then to the major second once you have an academic track record ok so we look for basically a two point two g p a to enter the school and then once you're in school depending on the major you don't meet the g p a requirements for the specific major so for if you're a teacher you need a three point zero g p a if you're a  biology major you need two point five if you are chemistry which unfortunately don't offer down that ocean you would have a two point zero so there's a variety of different ranges of g p s and i think are just so so a student is not just focused on one g story through a union you would we would obviously want to take the s a t s but as a transfer student you already have a track record and you've already been to college so there is some evidence and oftentimes it's pretty good evidence of how you did it the kind of college is a pretty good predictor of how you're going to do at the four year school so we look at that so that brings up a question how about living arrangements to students and live at the at the campus or is it more but that's what i would it is exclusively commuter at this point  in my long term vision i would love to get some sort of residential facility in the area because that would allow us to really start tapping into southern new jersey much more yeah and getting back to what i said about the summers we could really have sure students from the north come town spend the summer with us yeah i think that be a very viable option an attractive option for the students so there's the school become more value around type of school or is it often then it goes we do one year round we don't run a tremendous number of summer courses quite a few of our students to have short related jobs over the summer that's where they make a lot of their money to pay for school right so we don't run as many summer session classes as say union would  but we do run basically twelve months a year now you know so i can university compared to k notion what are some of the differences in the schools is there is the major differences obviously size is a big factor we have a little over fifteen hundred we're going to hopefully have about six hundred students tannic a notion union were had in the high fifteen thousand so we're about ten percent of the size  obviously because the sizes larger there's a lot more variability and worse selection of classes available we alter we offer multiple sections of just about every course because of our size we offer probably fewer choices as far as well we may offer a day and a night section as opposed to a nine o'clock or ten o'clock and eleven o'clock or four o'clock or so a little bit less variability just because we don't have the numbers to justify the larger and more extracurricular activities as well or schemes that we don't have obviously any sports teams down with us currently but students can participate in the sports the were division three n c a a division we have our own facilities up there and then that they have they have they have housing up there as well they do indeed yes we have housing for probably about three thousand students really yeah that's fantastic so is there is there any  anything that's going to be happening at the school that that you would you want to tell anybody is it oh and we really like people just to become more aware of us i mean we are you know we are ten years old as well there still is somewhat lack of awareness of what we are and sometimes even the name is confusing cane ocean what exactly does that mean doesn't say university or college or anything in there so we try to get the word out as much as possible that we are a mechanism that allows students to get an affordable four year degree yeah now and that's that's key for a lot of parents the students they they they want to know that as well  some of the so the process is pretty seamless then it's really on line they can they can do it online i can absolutely apply and i mean we're we're we have a completely paperless admission process all the way to the admissions letter everything it students will once third made it as part of their admission package they get a link so they can review to see how their credits transferred into the program has well as we call it a degree audit or program a valuation so they can see what classes they took what class they still need to take and then that becomes as they go along it automatically updates in real times when i register for classes class and register for once everything is filled out on it they know they're ready to graduate yet we try to use the technology as much as possible and a lot different obviously than when you or i were student assures so no paper for whatsoever we really try to do as little as possible financially there's a few forms we do have a paper form of we're sending a student back to c that says look we want them to take this course we give you we're giving them the permission and here's how the course is going to count towards them do you get students they go from union to ocean back to uni and they just keep on so not just sometimes what's the distance hours maybe longer there but it's it is a enough of a drive that a lot of students don't do that but we have had union students because they need a specific class and it's closed up a union that will come down to take it with us which is hard to get and we d have students who if they're out of our normal track and they need a course and we're not offering that semester to visit things we're great when we come to the end of our show and usually i ask my guests what do you know what advice do you want to give to the parents of the students that are out there that they're interested in going to cane ocean what if i say you want to give them well one of the main things about it is ask questions you know do your research ask questions we we would prefer you ask more questions than not we want you to be comfortable with your decision of a school devoted but again if you are interested in a very affordable for your quality for your education we would ask you to consider us and take a look at what we do offer to do your research start early and hopefully if we're a match for you wonderful if not we wish you the best of luck wherever you go