Iowa Western Community College

Angie Heddinger was the speaker at the Optimist Club meeting on August 29.  She is an admissions officer at Iowa Western Community College (IWCC).

The four campuses of IWCC had 5600 students enrolled last year and expect to have 6000 this year.  The Council Bluffs campus has about 3500 students with about 1000 students living on campus.  The other campuses include Atlantic, Harlan, and Clarinda.

A new student center is being built on campus.  It will be home to a new library that will include over 200 computers, but no books.  The books from the old library have been donated elsewhere.  The student center will also include the Culinary Arts department.  It will have a cafeteria three times the size of the current one.

This year IWCC will include football and marching band.  The Council Bluffs campus give out over $1M in scholarships each year.  The scholarship application is only two pages and does not require letters of recommendation.  There are a wide variety of scholarships available.  For example, everyone interested can be marching band, and everyone in marching band gets some type of scholarship.

IWCC offers three degrees: Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, and Associate of Applied Science.  The Associate of Applied Science is for students who prefer hands-on learning, such as Automotive and Horticulture.  In the Automotive program, students spend 80% of their time in the lab.

Anyone with a High School degree can be admitted to IWCC by filling out an application, completing a standardized test like the ACT, and submitting a High School transcript.

Some of the IWCC programs have waiting lists for admission.  For example, the Dental Hygiene program accepts 20 students and had 200 applications this year.  Other competitive programs include Nursing, Automotive, and Culinary Arts.  One of the new programs is a Wind Energy program, a one semester program.