Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Arnold makes education work for students

Photos and Story by James Hill

Terry Arnold likes to be hugged. While shopping recently at Home Depot, a woman stopped her and gave her a big hug.

Why? The woman, a former PCC Computer Information Systems program student, was excited that she had just been hired full-time by the City of Beaverton and Arnold was a big reason for her success.

Arnold is the college’s cooperative education and student employment specialist, primarily working with students in the Computer Information Systems, Computer Science and Computer Applications and Office Systems programs. Cooperative Education is a program that lets students earn college credit while gaining valuable on-the-job experience in their area of study. She helps students find paying jobs or non-paying positions to help further a career in their field of choice.

"It’s important that PCC students get work experience in the industry they want to work," Arnold said. "Work is the most important thing they can do. The sooner they start working in their industry the faster their career will progress."

The Nike Corporation recently completed a nationwide study to determine the colleges and universities offering programs that match their computing personnel requirements. PCC’s CIS program ranked in the top 10 percent overall and number one for computer languages offered. They’re facts like these that have Arnold smiling.

"PCC has a high reputation in the community," said Arnold, who has seen students regularly find work at places like DEQ and Intel. "Many employers tell me that if someone understands the programming, the better it is for them because they can teach them new concepts."

Local employers list work experience as the most important factor in hiring. And it’s the non-paying jobs that typically aren’t desired, but can make a world of difference, Arnold said. She just has to point to one special student who went to PCC and worked in a non-paying job and now is big success.

Ida Jones, who came to the United States from Africa, divorced and brought her child to the West Coast to settle in Portland. It was tough for Jones, being a single-parent with limited English skills and working 40 hours a week. She also was getting her degree in CIS and volunteered with no pay in the Computer Resource Center as a tutor. But this dedication paid off as Jones was hired full-time as an IT specialist with PCC.

"The result of all that work experience for Ida paid off," said Arnold. "I’ve been doing this so long and it’s wonderful to see what students can do through Co-operative Education."

Arnold knows all about what a degree can do in the job world. She is a third generation Oregonian and was the first in her family to earn a college degree. She eventually worked as a middle school teacher before being hired by PCC in 1992.

"What education was for me was a sort of therapy," she said. "I am extremely dyslexic. I had a counselor in school who said education wasn’t for me, but here I am."

And now she makes it easy for Computer Technology students to make their education work for them. When they accomplish their goals and get that dream job, they are always ready to hug Arnold.

"In cooperative education, the students get great work experience while completing their education," Arnold said. "People say they can’t afford to take non-paying jobs and I say they can’t afford not to."