FLCC opens doors for student from India Alaiza Dominguez-Hover of Bristol, left, and Yuvraj Bhati of Delhi, India, pose with shirts handed out on May Day, a traditional student celebration just before the end of the spring semester. Yuvraj, who goes by the nickname Roach, attended entirely online from India. He visited FLCC for the first time in early May, before transferring to Columbia University in New York City. Roach’s plans to study in the U.S. in person were delayed due to a backlog in immigration proceedings following the pandemic, so he decided to start online. “When I went on the SUNY online website, I found three community colleges that had online programs. I emailed all three,” he explained. “Only FLCC responded, and they told me everything I needed to go to school here. They were very concise and enthusiastic even though I was just a prospective student.” Roach took advantage of Student Life activities for online students and, after his first semester, became vice president of the Student Corporation. He enjoyed seminar-style Honors classes, which he said “create a real safe environment for people to get their ideas out.” His favorite class was Dark and Dreadful: Development of Modern Horror with Professor Trista Merrill. He took it as part of a bargain with Alaiza, whom he met in Honors English 101. “She challenged me that if I take this class, she’ll take the Lord of the Rings class. I am a very big Lord of the Rings fan. So I took a horror class, and I realized that I liked it. I just avoided it because I thought it would be scary, but the class really opened up my horizons, and now I can enjoy a completely different form of media.” Photo by Jaylea Ransom partingshot
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