by Geoff Dittberner, MSCSA Vice President, Student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College 

As a teenager I was troubled with drug addiction. As a result, all areas of my life including my connection to civic engagement and my education were negatively affected. I moved from school to school being kicked out twice until I barely graduated from a Community Learning Center.

I worked in warehouses for a few years and after being laid off, I decided I would try college. College was something that had always been a daunting prospect given my history. I chose to enroll at Minneapolis Community and Technical College because it was much cheaper than any university I could attend, and it had one of the nation’s first and most respected Addiction Counseling programs. My goal was to help others who had struggled like I had in the past.

In my second semester I became active in student government and decided that while I respected the field of chemical dependency counseling, I wanted to work in politics and government to advocate for causes that are close to my heart. MCTC and MSCSA provided that platform to pursue that future goal.

I soon found out that old adage “you get what you pay for” is not always true. At MCTC I found a school which had a group of faculty and staff who were dedicated to student success. Community Colleges, in my understanding are labeled as “Community” because of their close ties to the communities they are in. After enrolling I realized I had found a school that encouraged civic engagement. Many of the faculty at MCTC can be considered “overqualified,” but they choose to teach there because they know they are helping out a demographic which may have otherwise fallen through the cracks of society. Most importantly I found a school whose faculty and staff took initiative to mend those very same societal cracks.

The sticker price of MCTC was the initial appealing aspect in the choosing of my college, but it was in the community that I knew I had made the right choice.