While many of my fellow seniors were deciding where to go to college, I was pretty much set on trying out Mercer County Community College in Trenton. My SATs and GPAs did not allow me to pick any school,  and there were no other colleges in New Jersey that had a decent TV production program. MCCC on the other hand was inexpensive, close by so I could see Robin, and it had an established television production program. Dad’s cousin Priscilla Edwards was the librarian at Columbia University and when she heard what I wanted to do for a living. She sent me a number of the best 4-year communications programs in the country, USC, University of Missouri, Syracuse, and Temple University. I filed those away in case I might want to transfer some day. So I applied to community college. I was given a date and time to sign up for classes. At registration, they gave me a punch card with my name on it. My freshman counselor informed me most of the classes were filled already and that I had to take certain courses like communications, film, math, english, science, and electives to graduate. Then I walked around a large room buzzing with dozens of new students where there were administrators standing behind tables with boxes of computer cards in front of them. Each card represented a class seat. As I walked around I collected cards for a Communications 101, Film 101, signed up for English, and Trigonometry, making sure there were no scheduling conflicts. I then bought a ton of textbooks from the college bookstore. There was something different about the environment and the way people treated me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. On the first day of class, I parked in the city lot, and walked to the various classes. There was no campus per se, just one main administration building. The rest of the classrooms were in buildings and storefronts spread out and around downtown Trenton. Periodically I passed by one of my old classmates from high school. Every classroom was packed with barely a place to sit. The professors were not particularly welcoming, and mostly just told us to keep up or drop out. So day after day I attended every class and took notes, and read what I was supposed to read. They would post the test scores outside the classroom door and a stunning thing happened — I was on the top of the chart in almost every class. I figured a number of things contributed to this:

• Everyone was accepted into MCCC, so the bar was pretty low. Many of the students couldn’t read well.
• I had graduated from an academic high school, and most of my classmates, primarily from Trenton and Ewing had not. So,  I knew how to study and take notes.
• I was finally in a place where I could learn about what I loved and wanted to do for a living.
• Maybe, just maybe, I was smarter than I gave myself credit for?

By the end of the year I had excelled in school, a lot of students had dropped out, and I was looking forward to taking my very first video production class. During this time a brand new campus was being constructed outside of Trenton in West Windsor. I was so excited! In the Fall the new campus opened up. It was a contemporary landscaped complex with a beautiful green quadrangle, a student activities building, a theater, an athletic complex, parking, and tons of new clean classrooms. The television facility was huge and was said to be the finest college studio in all of New Jersey. Being a sophomore, I had my pick of classes but still had to take a Chemistry class. My television production professor was a great guy who used to work at New Jersey Network as a director. He was a graduate of Temple University and talked up the program big time. I learned to be a crew member and direct basic productions and I ran camera for college soccer games. The Chemistry class didn’t work out though. It was taught by a Korean instructor who I could not understand, so I had to drop the course to save my GPA. By the end of the year I had a great GPA, but I didn’t have enough credits for a diploma. I applied to Temple University anyway, and was accepted. I was on my way! Thinking back, there was something that I couldn’t put my finger on about college life that I think I understand now. It was the first time I realized I was in a truly competitive environment, and I was on my own. I was just a number, and professors couldn’t care less whether I passed or failed, showed up for class, or even understood what they were saying. It was the first time I took a class and said to myself, “this is important. In order to be successful in producing and directing, I need to know and fully understand this.”  To this day, I think community colleges are the secret to success for people like me. It is relatively inexpensive, the facilities are oustanding, the instructors are good and have real world experience to share, and once you get through it you can go anywhere. Universities that accept transferrees from two-years colleges don’t look at high school stats and SATs. In their minds, you have already proven yourself, and the four-year degree looks exactly like everybody elses, only you spent thousands of dollars less. Good deal! In my case, MCCC  gave me a high-level of confidence that carried me throughout my academic experience and career. High school guidance counselors are dissuaded from sharing this information because many high schools pride themselves on the number of students accepted into 4-year college programs. Robin ended up up attending the same community college the next year and did even better than I did. When she met with her guidance counselor in her second year at at MCCC, he told her with her GPA, she could literally be accepted anywhere. Someone below her rank had recently been accepted to Princeton. Sister Lisa had gone through a community college program as well. She ended up going to Rutgers and finally earned her doctorate at Widener.