McCabe earns two degrees, plans to continue at CU Denver
Molly McCabe was working full time in the Vail Valley in 2018 when she enrolled at the Colorado Mountain College campus in Edwards to “feed my academic curiosities,” she said. She started taking business courses, and one semester she registered for a political science class.
“I found myself spending more time following up on the concepts we learned throughout the course and realized that political science was where my passion is,” she said.
McCabe turned her interests into academic goals, and in May 2020, she earned two associate degrees – one in political science and the other in business.
Transitioning to attending classes and studying while working required some adjustment for McCabe, who had been out of the academic pipeline for about 10 years. However, it didn’t take long for her to thrive at the campus.
McCabe became actively involved in TRIO Student Support Services, a federally funded program available at the Edwards campus, which helped her discover available resources to succeed in college. She received the CMC Vail Valley Emerging Leader Award and was selected for the highly competitive Keith Sherin Global Leaders Program in the Netherlands.
McCabe also served as president of the F1RST GEN Club and established the Student Community Alliance to help connect students to opportunities within the community.
“I constantly hear people say, ‘I thought about taking classes again,’ followed by an excuse on why they haven’t,” she said. “CMC’s affordable tuition and grasp on student demographics have made the classes accessible for people that were in my situation.”
McCabe now plans to continue her studies in political science at the University of Colorado Denver.
“Colorado Mountain College provided me with the tools necessary to take charge of my life,” she said. “I hope to use my education to help create change.”
Due to efforts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, like most colleges in the country Colorado Mountain College decided to hold a virtual commencement this year. Launched at noon on May 15, 2020, CMC’s 2020 commencement website will be on view throughout at least the summer.
The site contains videos for seven different commencement ceremonies and information about the nearly 1,200 students invited to participate. Each ceremony features recorded speeches from the college president and Dr. Angie Paccione, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education. Each campus’s ceremony also includes a keynote speech from one of seven trailblazing Colorado women (in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage), well as speeches from a student speaker and campus representatives.