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When Becky Lehman walked into her first class at Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ, she was in her 30s, raising kids and working at an embroidery shop in nearby Mogadore, Ohio. Today, she is the health commissioner for the Portage County Health District – a career milestone she credits directly to the degrees she earned close to home at Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ State. 

When Cameren Hicks graduated from Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and a minor in finance, he knew he wanted to build a career rooted in numbers, problem-solving and analysis. Today, Hicks is a fraud modeling and analytics lead associate at KeyBank, where he helps protect customers and the company against fraudulent credit and debit card activity.

Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ graduate Emma Sherrie, '09, always had a feeling she would study anthropology, but still she took the time to check out all the other options available before finally settling on her original plan. Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ State’s Exploratory Program, which helps undecided students sample different disciplines before committing to a major, was a key part of Sherrie’s experience, and the main reason she chose Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ State in the first place.

It's 10:30 on a weeknight. Will Kalkhoff, Ph.D., a professor and graduate program coordinator in Â鶹¶ÌÊÓƵ State's Department of Sociology and Criminology, has just settled in after a long day. Then his phone goes off. A possible drowning. A local lake. The clock starts ticking. Within minutes, he's on his way. And in that moment, everything he teaches in the classroom becomes something else entirely.