Stories: Samantha Coccia | Start College Here

Samantha Coccia

Samantha Coccia is excited about fast-tracking her future. By carefully monitoring her transfer credits and having regular check-ins with her transfer advisor, she should graduate from York Tech this fall, transfer seamlessly to Winthrop University, and move into the exciting world of broadcast journalism!

“As a transfer student, meeting the requirements at two colleges can be a challenge. But York Tech and Winthrop University both helped me so much.”

Inspiration

Samantha’s older brother Ethan, who is in his final year at the College of Charleston, suffered multiple concussions as an athlete and was medically advised to refrain from participating in sports. As a result, he decided to study the brain and become a neurologist. But anybody who knows him would say that education is his calling and working with kids – whether tutoring, coaching, or teaching – is his natural gift. When he switched his major to special education, Samantha was inspired.

“I thought, If he can make a big change like this, I can figure out what I want to do and not what other people want me to do.”

Samantha and her brother Ethan at a Charlotte Checkers hockey game

First Journey Stop:
York Technical College

After graduating high school from York Prep, Samantha enrolled at York Tech, where she’s taken fast-track and summer classes to accelerate the completion of her associate of arts degree and graduate a semester early. Surprisingly, one of her favorite classes has been astronomy, a lecture course taught by instructor Jim Curley.

“I like how he taught with information and facts rather than a bunch of group projects. I learned so much in that class.”

Samantha appreciated other things about Curley’s teaching too: the way he would stay after a 2 ½-3 hour-long class to help his students, the way he provided feedback on paper copies of work so that she could see what she got right and wrong, and even the way he never let students out early – which she wasn’t fond of in the moment but which, in hindsight, made her respect him more!

Samantha’s high school graduation from York Preparatory Academy, soon to be followed by graduations from York Technical College and Winthrop University

Second Journey Stop:
Winthrop University

When thinking about her future career as a journalist, Samantha is most excited about how Winthrop will offer more speaking classes.

“I’ll need to do presentations and ask questions for my career, so I never want to shy away from those classes because I can learn so much from them.”

Check out a sample Pathway document here

Those things are definitely on the agenda when she looks at her Pathway document, a major-specific document that outlines exactly what courses she should take at York Tech and then at Winthrop, as well as what advising topics she needs to address at each college/university and when.

Third Journey Stop:
The National Hockey League

“I love cameras! I want to be in broadcasting. I want to report. I want to speak to people not just in the room, but in their living room.”

And because she’s loved sports from a young age and has family from Pennsylvania, her journalism aspirations are very specific. She’d like to be a reporter for the National Hockey League (NHL), with her dream team being the Pittsburgh Penguins!

Iceburgh, the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot