Inside a lecture hall at her former college, Emily Lukasiak was one of many. But in her biology classes at UNH Manchester, she was the woman who worked in the library, the woman in the biology club, the woman with lots of friends and plenty of activities. In those classes, she wasn't one of many, she was Emily. Her professors knew her, her classmates knew her, they were a team in it together.
"The first thing that struck me about UNH Manchester, and I say this to anyone who will listen, was the size of the classes," Lukasiak, 21, a Biology senior at UNH Manchester says. "At UNH Manchester, the biggest class I had was 44 students and most of them were typically 20 to 30. But at my former school, it was an auditorium of 200-300 people…. At UNH Manchester, the professors know your name, they know all about you."
Lukasiak graduated in 2011 from John Stark High School in Weare. From the time she was a freshman in high school, she knew she wanted to be a Physician's Assistant. In the same way, she knew she wanted to go away to a residential college. So she did. She was accepted to a residential college in Massachusetts and away she went.
But it wasn't quite what she expected.
"I liked the people that were there, I liked what I was learning," she says." But it took professors an entire semester to know your name, even if you went up to them every day to ask questions. I just never felt like I had a connection to any my professors or anyone in the class."
And at the time, that's what she needed most. Her parents had divorced during her senior year. She started school still reeling from the change in her life when her mother told her they were having financial troubles.
Lukasiak made the decision to come back to Manchester. She would live at home and go to UNH Manchester to save money.
From the first day of her new school, she was in love. Her small classes allowed her to get to know her professors and feel comfortable to let them know when she needed a little extra time or support.
"You know, they'd see you coming to class every day, so if you were having a personal issue and needed to miss a class, you could just go and talk to them," she says. "They were just so understanding."
They also knew her learning style and were able to offer help and advice based on that knowledge. Furthermore, when it came to her dream of becoming a PA, her advisors helped her map out a path to to MCPHS University, with whom UNH Manchester has a partnership with. Not only that, they helped her to get the classes she needed to be able to graduate a little bit early.
"If I would have graduated in the spring, I probably couldn't have started at MCPHSU until the Spring of 2016," she says. "This way, I get to graduate a little earlier, I get to get started at MCPHSU sooner and then hopefully get out and get a job much sooner."
In addition to the small class sizes, Lukasiak says she appreciated the sense of community she felt in her classes. She says it was so refreshing to be in a classroom full of people who were so focused, who really want to learn and to be there. Further, they were all able to get to know each other, which made school feel more like home.
“I feel like I’ve gotten an education that’s second to none at UNH Manchester… Come spend a day here, just spend a day. You will feel that sense of community. I would say to [prospective students] that if they came here, they are going to be challenged. They are going to make friends, they are going to have opportunities they wouldn’t have somewhere else.”
