More than 5,000 students use the facility every week. The open lab features Pentium II computers and may be used by any Orange Coast College student during regular Computing Center hours. The college's computers are linked by 60 miles of fiber cabling installed five years ago across the 164-acre campus. All buildings are linked to the network. Orange Coast has increased the value of its annual donations by more than 400 percent in the last decade.
Orange Coast is the community's college, and the community has been extremely supportive.
OCC showed a remarkable 130 percent increase in in-kind gifts in 2000, compared to 1999. The 2001-02 South Pacific sail will be Alaska Eagle's sixth such trip with Orange Coast College students aboard. The boat has never before been sailed by students to South America or Antarctica, however. The upcoming trip will include stops in Hawaii, Tahiti, the Tuamotos, Bora Bora, Pitcairn Island, Easter Island, the coast of Chile, Ushuaia and Antarctica . Alaska Eagle will be specially equipped to handle the cold weather of the extreme southern seas.