San Bernardino Airport employees work toward FAA airframe and power plant certification at nearby campus.
Leaders at San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC) listened to feedback from employers asking for classes to be offered during the evening to accommodate students who work during the day.
The newly-launched evening aeronautics program will prepare students currently working as mechanics helpers to receive FAA A&P certification in two and a half years. Twenty students are currently enrolled in the lecture class and 18 students are enrolled in the lab.
Nearly all of those students are working professionals from the nearby San Bernardino International Airport and related businesses like Unical Aviation, said David Casillas, an aeronautics instructor at SBVC.
“This is an opportunity they don’t have anywhere else in this area,” Casillas said. “The San Bernardino Airport is just a few miles from campus, so many students are able to go to work during the day and come straight to SBVC after.”
One challenge that comes with designing an evening program is finding faculty to teach it. Luckily San Bernardino Valley College found a great instructor in Rory Hook, an industry veteran who has worked for Continental Airlines and United Parcel Service Airline Division.
Casillas said students relate to Hook because he is better able to speak of theory and relate it to real life experiences he has had in the industry.
“He engages them really well because this is someone who is doing and has done what they want to do,” Casillas said. “When you are bringing in students who are already working in the field, they are looking for a different dynamic and someone who is in the industry teaching them brings this to the classroom. They really hold him in high esteem.”
Casillas and other organizers tried to be sensitive to students’ schedules when designing the curriculum. They extended the Aviation Maintenance Technician Certificate program by half a year so working students would not need to be in class until late in the evening and have to go to work the next morning with little rest.
“We’re extending the program by a semester or two and the students are in school for a little longer but their quality of life is a better if they’re not in classes until 10:00 each night,” Casillas said.
Bringing the program online was a team effort, from administrator buy-in to assistants who helped students register for courses. The program has been so well-received that SBVC and other Aero faculty are considering adding a second evening cohort.
For more information about SBVC’s aeronautics programs, click here.
Video on SBVC website: https://www.valleycollege.edu/academic-career-programs/degrees-certificates/aeronautics/videos-and-pictures.php#PromotionalVideofortheAeronauticsDepartment
