One new class that resulted from a reading of the proverbial tea leaves is called "Surviving Volatile Financial Times." The $39 two-hour course will be offered Sept. 15, starting at 7 p.m., on the Gateway Campus. The instructor will be Harry Slade, an Ellicott City-based financial adviser at Edward Jones, who was asked by Cangiano to teach the course.
Slade, who has taught at the community college before and will be running a six-week course on investing this fall, said the class is a good fit for the times and will "discuss a lot of things that are on people's minds right now," including rising costs of everything from gas to health care, the volatile stock market and the weak real estate market.
Slade said he likes teaching at the college, partly because the classes get his name out there and educate people about financial advisers. He also likes that the college "tailors its classes to the needs of the community."
Another class being taught this fall is about being street smart, Cangiano said. She said the instructor is writing a book on the subject and approached her about teaching a class.
The college offers a wealth of language classes, including ones in Hindi, American Sign Language, Czech and Japanese. Many are taught with specific goals in mind, including "French for Travelers." One new offering is "Spanish for Landscaping," designed to help people at landscaping companies communicate with their Spanish-speaking co-workers and employees. The course focuses on basics such as giving specific instructions and eschews the complications of verb conjugations and other nuances.
Not every idea is accepted, but all are given consideration. "We can't accommodate all the hundreds of ideas that come in, but we do look at every one of them," Erickson said.
A class generally needs at least six enrollees to be viable, and the college sometimes cancels classes that do not generate enough interest. In some cases, momentum for the topic builds, and the class is offered again, Cangiano said. Other times, it never returns.
"We don't have a crystal ball," she said. "I wish we did."
Cangiano added: "We choose based on past history, what we've tried before, what's worked and what hasn't worked. A lot of times, it will be something new and different, and we have no idea if it will work. We'll put it out there and see."
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