University of Maine at Augusta
John Robinson was working in building maintenance when he decided to go back to school to explore options for a career in finance. “I did some research and found that UMA offered a very flexible learning program,” he says. “I was able to continue to work while getting my degree.” Robinson studied on a hybrid model, which allowed him to attend class in person or online and offered the option to schedule and take proctored exams at any of UMA’s eight regional centers across the state.
After five years, during which he averaged three classes per semester, Robinson graduated with a degree in business administration with a focus on accounting. Then, with guidance from his UMA advisor, Tom Giordano, he enrolled in the MBA program at UMaine Orono. After graduating, he earned his CPA and now works as the senior director of finance at the Penobscot Bay YMCA. “I wouldn’t be where I am without the flexibility of UMA’s program,” Robinson says. “There’s no question in my mind.”
When Bruno Mendes De Freitas’s wife came to him with a news article about an airplane pilot shortage, he did not take her seriously. “Everything started as a joke,” Mendes De Freitas says. “I didn’t think I was smart enough, I thought I was too old, and I didn’t like airplanes.” But after enrolling in UMA’s four-year aviation program in conjunction with Maine Instrument Flight, he realized that while he didn’t like being an airplane passenger, he did enjoy flying. “There is no fake it till you make it — you’re either going to land the airplane or not,” he says. “It is an exact science that I really love.”
Mendes De Freitas graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aviation, earned his commercial pilot license, and became a certified flight instructor. He then accepted a position in the same program he attended, giving both flying lessons and in-classroom instruction. “I couldn’t feel happier about my choice,” he says. “There is no greater feeling than seeing someone go from zero to pursuing a license. You see that development and you realize that you’re part of a great change in someone’s life.”
Sammy Thornton didn’t know what she wanted to study when she started looking at colleges. “I was attracted to the affordability of UMA,” she says. “It didn’t seem logical to go anywhere else and pay more money when I was still undecided.” Thornton, who grew up 20 minutes away, in Chelsea, completed a full year’s worth of college credits while in high school, including one class through UMA. This year, she graduated with a degree in social science with a concentration in psychology.
In her three years at the school, Thornton took classes both in person and online and stayed active in the growing campus community by living and working as a community advisor in the Hallowell dorms, playing for the school’s newly established soccer team, and giving tours to prospective students through her work-study job in the admissions office. “UMA is stepping up in the world,” she says. “We’re mainly an online school, but we’re now getting the things other college campuses have. I think we’re going to have a huge increase of students joining more in-person programs.”