New Brunswick colleges look to draw in future students

It was a busy weekend for future students in the Moncton, N.B., area as two different local colleges opened up their doors on Saturday.

Oulton College, a private college in the city, held it’s open house from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. giving potential future students a chance to explore and see what classes and programs would look like.

“Our faculty are here, our students are here and we get the opportunity to look at all those exciting faces, eager to come back to post-secondary education,” said Darcie Reidpath, the president of Oulton College. “At this open house, we expect there to be lots of activities, some good munchies and lots of faculty here displaying what’s so exciting about their program.”

Overall, Reidpath says enrolment at Oulton College has been growing and is an inclusive space for everyone.

“We are approaching around that 1,000 mark for number of students,” she said. “This has been an exciting year as we’ve seen our first cohort of international students, we have about 100 international students which has just totally been fantastic for the dynamic and culture here at the college.”

As the world continues to find a new normal after COVID-19, she says the college is mainly back to in-class lessons and labs now, but there are still a few classes that have adapted to a hybrid teaching method.

“Trends… health sciences are always very important here, cyber security, the dental industry is booming,” she said, adding that the practical nursing program is also very popular and that the college is currently looking into a Bachelor of Science and Nursing program.

On Saturday, students in the area could also check out New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) where open houses were held at six of its campus locations.

“Students are coming and they’re getting hands-on learning experiences, there’s applied learning experiences and [then] they are job ready essentially,” said Shawn Ethier, the director of enrolment management at NBCC. “They come here for one, two, three years and we see them cross the stage and get into a job almost immediately.”

It was the first in-person open house in two years and drew out large numbers of potential students.

“Last year we hit a record enrolment and we’re still just finalizing our enrolment data for this fall,” he said. “Things are looking really, really good.”

He says there are a variety of programs available and many that seem to be popular among future students right now.

“Some of our most popular programs are anything under health sciences, which is very popular, trades, business,” he said. “We have a large number of international students now at NBCC, almost one out of three students is from outside of Canada.”

More information can be found on each school’s website.