CARRICO PROMOTED AS FINANCIAL LITERACY ADVISER FOR SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CARRICO PROMOTED AS FINANCIAL LITERACY ADVISER FOR SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE

Fort Myers, Fla., (December 29, 2009) – Originally from Louisville, KY., Kris Carrico has called Southwest Florida her home for the past four years. She started her career with Southwest Florida College in October of 2007 as Financial Aid Planner and recently earned a promotion to Financial Literacy Advisor for the institution.

“Southwest Florida College has been a family to me,” Carrico said. “I have met some of the greatest people here who have aided in my professional and personal growth. SWFC is very close to my heart.”

Carrico earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Louisville and has had previous experience in sales and training while working at a marketing company. Over the past year, she has proven very adept at understanding the intricacies of the federal, state and institution’s regulations. She has worked towards training her peers on the subject of student financial literacy and also as the Tuition Assistance department’s liaison with Admissions to foster increased understanding of financial aid.

Carrico hopes that her promotion will benefit the students at Southwest Florida College by having on campus assistance with personal debt management.

“My role is to educate students on how to manage their personal debt and how to use the tools their loan program provides to manage their student loan debt, by educating them in their classroom and one on one,” Carrico said.

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private, institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College offers programs in Health Care, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 888-526-7973 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.

SWFC CADD STUDENT ENTERS ADDA COMPETITION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE STUDENT ENTERS ADDA COMPETITION
Fort Myers, Fla. (December 28, 2009) – After selling his wood shutter business in 2007, David Slabosz decided to attend Southwest Florida College because he said it seemed “to offer the best degree with the most Computer Aided Drafting classes.” What he hadn’t realized was that his CAD classes at SWFC would almost immediately help him gain employment with a fire alarm company – after just two classes. In addition, Slabosz’s college enrollment qualified him to enter a prestigious drafting competition.

Slabosz, now in his second year, submitted an original design for a special-use office building to the American Design Drafting Association's 43rd Annual Design Drafting contest. "My entry is a stand-alone, single-level office building for an attorney that had to meet ADDA requirements, which are very realistic and exacting," Slabosz said. "My design had to accommodate six visitors in the lobby area and couldn't exceed the contest maximum 3,000 sq. ft of office space." Slabosz submitted five drawings, which delineated the foundation, floor, roof, framing and electrical drawings.

“Probably at least 150 hours went into the set of drawings, so a lot of drafting time was needed,” Slabosz said. “I was trying to submit a very functional, but unique design.”

Slabosz completed his drawings using the college’s Architectural Desktop 2010 and Auto CAD 2010 programs, which he learned during his training at SWFC. He said the initial drawing took the most time, but his program manager, Paul Engler, helped him to stay on top of the deadline.

“I am always saying quality over quantity,” said Slabosz. “At this point in our degree, CAD needs to be as easy as walking.”

ADDA is an international organization representing the drafting and design profession. Entering the contest gives Slabosz the opportunity to showcase his work at the national level. According to the ADDA website, the purpose of this contest is to “encourage excellence in effort and discipline, and to give recognition to outstanding students and design/drafting programs.”

To be eligible to enter the contest, a student must be a member of an Association Student Chapter, enrolled in a school with curriculum certified by the Association and enrolled in a school having Educational Institute Membership.

Entries had to be submitted by the deadline of December 15, 2009. Entries are judged on appearance, neatness, accuracy, linework, linetype differentiation and layering standards. Additional factors include view selection, organization, dimensioning, title block, creativity, reproducibility and legibility of plot. Winners are to be announced by late February of 2010 and awards are to be presented at the ADDA Annual Conference in Louisville, KY., on April 12, 2010.

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College offers programs in Health Care, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 888‐526‐7973 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.

DONAHUE RECENTLY JOINED THE SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE TAMPA CAMPUS AS CAMPUS DIRECTOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DONAHUE RECENTLY JOINED THE SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COLLEGE TAMPA CAMPUS AS CAMPUS DIRECTOR

Tampa, Fla., (December 28, 2009) – A Denver, Colo., native and a 16-year veteran of career college recruitment has been named director for the Tampa campus of Southwest Florida College.

Veronica M. Donahue has worked as Director of Recruitment at ITT Technical Institute in Thornton, Colorado and most recently as Director of Admissions at Brown Mackie College. She has also held director of admissions positions at Hamilton College, Concorde Career Institute and Denver Technical College, which was later known as DeVry University.

Donahue has a background in sales, marketing/advertising and training and was responsible for developing and delivering training presentations at the National Director of Admissions training seminar. She was also selected as one of the Directors of Recruitment to train and mentor newly hired Directors of Recruitment and she co-developed the National Training Video to be used as the primary training tool for admissions in all ITT Technical Institute schools nationwide.

Donahue looks forward to supporting the students, faculty and staff of the Southwest Florida College Tampa campus as the newly appointed Campus Director.

“I am honored to be a part of this team,” Donahue said. “I am impressed by the people at Southwest Florida College. I have yet to meet anyone at Southwest Florida College who is not dedicated completely to the mission of enrolling, educating and employing our students. The environment is both uplifting and professional. It is a pleasure to come to work each day.”

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private, institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College offers programs in Health Care, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 877-205-2074 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.

Season's Greetings from our family to yours.

Happy Holidays from Southwest Florida College!

Southwest Florida College has helped to make dreams into reality for thousands of our students. Isn't it time you focused on your own dreams? Make it a holiday season you'll never forget. Let us help you secure a solid education and a fulfilling career.

For more information, call toll free 888-279-2342 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.
Best wishes from Southwest Florida College.

Digital Portfolio Show Roundtable A Confidence Building Success for Graphic Design Students - Event

SWFC's 2009 Digital Design Portfolio Students

The Graphic Design Program at Southwest Florida College held Digital Portfolio Roundtable event where we invited local business leaders as our guests to hold mock job interviews with this quarter's graphic design portfolio students. Usually, it is their last class and it is up to each designer to present themselves with a clear and creative vision.

Our honored guest "employers" with Aaron Belchamber and Jan Rhonehouse from Career Services

With our 12 "employers," each job interview lasted about 4 minutes and put the spotlight on our students' creativity while providing them a challenging exercise in performing a confidence-building job hunt.

Brendan Stanley and Brian Thompson from Alliance Digital Solutions & www.CapeCoral.com interview Jarred Gaddis

According to Aaron Belchamber, the Digital Design Portfolio Instructor, "All students were under a tight deadline. In 10 weeks they had to collect the best of their materials and create new designs, produce a compelling portfolio in digital form as a stand alone website, design and print their resumes and business cards and mentally prepare for the Portfolio Roundtable Event. Mr. McElroy, myself, and all the Graphic Design adjuncts are very proud of our Graphic Design students."

Students begin another round of interviews

As a wrap-up after the event, the employers were gracious enough to spend some time providing constructive feedback for our graphic designers. This event was an incredible opportunity for our graphic design students to learn from real business people with a real world perspective.

"The roundtable"

When asked about her experience, Belinda Duclos replied: "We were all pretty nervous, but when it was all over, I felt pretty good about myself."

All students who participated received all the comments the job interviewers evaluated them on and a copy of their feedback was emailed to them. Some of the comments are worth noting:
"Her design skills are beautiful!" ~ "Great stuff, this guy is going to be a start!" ~ "Needs to be stronger at selling her work" ~ "Outstanding! Well rounded in all aspects" ~ "Student needs to use SPELLCHECK!" ~ "Needs specific call to action, has great stuff."
Here is a list of all of our "Guest Employers" who conducted the interviews. Thank you so much for your time!

• Brian Thompson – Alliance Digital Solutions – (Co-owner) also owns Cape Coral.com
• Nichol Blanco – Associate for Larazza Films
• Daniel Herrera – Producer, Director for Larazza Films
• Brendan Stanley – Alliance Digital Solutions – Creative Director
• Scott Jacobs – Allstar Marketing – President
• Katie Romano – Get Groovy – CEO
• Jodi Hopper – G.M.P. Employers Retiree Trust/Dzine Gallery
• Shell Redfern – Get Groovy – Creative Director
• Manzie Lawfer – 2 Way Radio Express – Owner/President/Book Author
• Denise Spence – Dunbar High School – Magnet Grant Technology
• Nancy Coker – Child Care of SW Florida – COO – Early childhood services in 10 counties

A lot of the student samples can be viewed on the SWFC's Graphic Design student website at http://www.creativesouthwestflorida.com/. Special thanks to Brooke Fisher from Marketing for providing photos from the event.

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College has been providing post secondary education to Floridians since 1974 and offers programs in Allied Health, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 888-279-2342 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.

Institute of Interior Design: An Interview with Program Manager Linda Peterson

If you see an empty room as a blank canvas, then why not look into a career in interior design? The Institute of Interior Design at Southwest Florida College can help turn your passion into a rewarding career.

Whether you want an education and training for a new career or skills that will enhance your performance in your current career, the Institute of Interior Design has a skilled team of professionals and tailored interior design programs that are suited to meet your needs and the needs of the industry.

To learn more about Interior Design, call us today at (888) 279-2342 or visit our website at http://www.instituteofinteriordesign.com/!

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College has been providing post secondary education to Floridians since 1974 and offers programs in Allied Health, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 888-279-8342or visit www.swfc.edu.

SWFC Graphic Design Program: Straight From the Students

Southwest Florida College prepares digital design students for a successful career in both design and production through an emphasis on developing the student's capacity for critical thinking, and stimulating imagination and innovation.

The critical skills of perception, interpretation, and inventiveness are fostered as well as an understanding of digital design business practices. Industry standard software applications are used while solving design problems, planning, and executing solutions. The Student’s focus is to sharpen their ability to visually translate ideas of an intended message to a targeted audience.

Special thank you to Phil Rood, Angeli Chin-Franz, Jessica Kelly and The TJ Kelly Band! 3D animations in this video were modelled and produced in 3Ds Max by Aaron Belchamber, the Graphic Design Department's full time web design and 3D animation instructor.

Southwest Florida College is an accredited, private institution of higher learning centrally located in Fort Myers, Tampa, Port Charlotte, and includes the Institute of Interior Design located within the Miromar Design Center in Estero. The College has been providing post secondary education to Floridians since 1974 and offers programs in Allied Health, Business, Design, Education, Information Technology and Legal Studies. Its mission is to provide educational opportunities for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills that will help prepare them for rewarding careers in fields with high growth potential. For more information, call toll free 888-526-7973 or visit http://www.swfc.edu/.