Athens Tech Graduates look ahead
Athens Technical College handed diplomas to its biggest class ever Friday night - and almost all this year's graduates will be moving on either to jobs or more education, say college officials.
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Nearly 800 students were eligible to participate in Friday's graduation ceremony in downtown Athens' Classic Center, where Ron Jackson, director of the State Technical College System of Georgia, delivered the commencement address to an overflow crowd.
View photos from the Athens Tech's graduation ceremony.
"Congratulations on a job well done," said Andrea Daniel, the college's vice president for student affairs.
Many of the graduates weren't thinking back on the job they did at school, but ahead to the job they hope to get.
With unemployment in Northeast Georgia hovering around 10 percent, jobs have been harder to find in the past couple of years, and enrollment at the college has swelled by 30 percent to more than 5,000. Many of the new enrollees are older students looking for new job skills after layoffs.
Typically, annual surveys by the college's teachers show that more than 90 percent of those who stick it out to graduation either have jobs or plan to continue with more education by the time spring quarter ends, college officials say. This year's statistics show that only about 4 percent are looking for a job but haven't found one, said Dan Smith, Athens Tech's vice president for institutional effectiveness.
Even those who didn't already have a job before Friday's
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