SOWELA soft launches evening program to expand access to high-demand workforce training

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - Balancing the demands of college, a career, and family can be an overwhelming juggle for many students trying to advance their education. To help ease that burden, SOWELA Technical Community College has soft-launched a new evening Industrial Instrumentation and Electrical (I&E) program for the fall semester.

The program allows students to complete their coursework later in the day, making it easier to balance outside responsibilities.

“We make the program such, so that our students are getting what they need to get jobs when they get out,” said SOWELA Dean of Industrial Technology Robert Null.

To make the evening courses possible, SOWELA consulted with industry partners to find qualified instructors available to teach at night. Many of the selected instructors currently work in the industry themselves.

“We’ve been fortunate, our industry partners have stepped up,” Null said. “We’ve worked together to identify instructors, and we have identified a good group of instructors who are really doing a bang-up job in the evening time teaching our students. And we continue to see strong support from our community with people interested in teaching.”

The schedule flexibility is already paying off for students like William Richard, who has a background in accounting but is now using the evening courses to transition into the industrial field.

“I’ve been doing this for about a year now, taking these evening classes,” William said. “They’re very accommodating with working a full-time job and transitioning into this field.”

William added that the curriculum is highly hands-on, giving students valuable, practical experience before they graduate.