By Lisa Dennison
Shortly after leap day 2024, NCRA staff hosted a Virtual Open House for prospective court reporting and captioning students. After piloting the event in 2023, our first event of 2024 saw an increase to more than 50 prospective students. The event afforded the opportunity for them to attend breakout sessions via Zoom to get their questions answered directly from court reporting program representatives.
“I enjoyed the Open House,” said Marie Olson of Tucson, Ariz., a recent graduate of the NCRA A to Z® Intro to Steno Machine Shorthand program. “It was a great way for me to ‘preview’ several schools at once. I loved that we had the opportunity to shop around. I was very impressed with the new writers, how light they are and the fact that they’re electric, not manual now. I also loved hearing about updated opportunities such as CART and freelance.”
This event strategically overlapped with three NCRA A to Z programs hosted by our headquarters. Our first asynchronous session just ended with more than 40 participants earning certificates. “I loved that I could complete it on my schedule (my work schedule changes from day to day),” said Olson, “and spend time writing based on when it worked for me!” Olson recently enrolled in the Allison Hall Reporter Education program.
Currently, we are in the middle of our first live session, and registration is now open for our March asynchronous session. It is NCRA’s hope that we can captivate those exploring the career to decide to enroll in a program. To learn more about upcoming A to Z sessions, please visit our website.
We are grateful for representatives from Alfred State College, Alfred, N.Y.; Anoka Technical College, Anoka, Minn.; Clark State College/Stark State College, Springfield, Ohio; College of Court Reporting, Valparaiso, Ind.; Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Parma, Ohio; Green River College, Auburn, Wash.; Lakeshore Technical College, Cleveland, Wis; and Macomb Community College, Clinton Township, Mich., for hosting breakout sessions.
Lisa Dennison is the NCRA A to Z Program Coordinator. She can be reached at ldennison@ncra.org.
