3 Campuses Bustling on 1st Day of Class

Moorpark, Ventura and Oxnard colleges all opened Monday with more students than last fall. At the hillside Moorpark campus, where enrollment swelled 18.5% to 10,677 students, that change was manifest in longer-than-usual lines in the school bookstore, the financial aid office and, yes, the parking lots.

“The opening of school is always stressful,” said Floyd D. Thionnet, vice president for student and educational services. On the first day in particular, he added, students don’t know their schedules and few people carpool.

For its more than 10,000 students, the campus only has about 3,500 paved parking spaces and two unpaved lots, he said.

“It looks more crowded than last year, but the first day is usually crowded,” said student James Walker, 24, as he waited in line to buy his algebra and sign language books. “The parking lots were nice and full.”

At Ventura College, where enrollment is up more than 700 students from last year--a total of 9,733--parking was a little snug as well, President Larry Calderon said.

And the new students are clearly in evidence, he added. “You can tell who the new students are. They have this inquisitive but cool look,” Calderon said. “They’re trying to maintain their composure, but they’re clearly lost.”

For all three of Ventura County’s community colleges, more enrollment also means more funding. Even though snagging a parking space is tough, Thionnet said, he’d rather have more students than fewer.

The students themselves didn’t seem bothered by the extra bodies on campus. Most were more than happy to extol the virtues of community colleges.

“First, it’s a lot cheaper,” said student Patiel Bedrosian, 18, of Agoura. “And it’s more convenient.”

Waiting in a book line behind Bedrosian, criminal justice student Suzie Oberlander, 27 agreed. At Moorpark, she added, “I’m going to learn the basics of justice and law before I hit a university.”

Not all students were in pursuit of an associate’s degree or transfer options, though. Holding a blue-and-white Moorpark College mug and a sketch pad, 50-year-old Wilma Higbee said she was ready for her first and only class of the day: beginning drawing.

“I’ve always liked to draw, so we’ll see where this leads,” the Simi Valley mother of three said. “One thing always leads to another.”

Despite themselves, many of the students owned up to a bout of the first-day jitters. “I just want to get my first day over with,” first-time college student Bedrosian said.