The week of October 21-25 is National Transfer Student Week. Onondaga Community College will host a Transfer Fair today in the Gordon Student Center Great Room from 11:30am to 1:30pm. Students will have the opportunity to have in-person conversations with representatives of colleges and universities where they are interested in continuing their education. Throughout the past week-and-a-half we have shared stories with you daily of students who earned their associate degrees at OCC and transferred to four-year institutions. Below is our final story.
Kyle Goff '23 is sure he wouldn't be a successful student at Ithaca College today had he not come to Onondaga Community College first. "Everything I learned at OCC helped me establish myself at Ithaca College quickly. Because of my experience at OCC, I was more vocal when I arrived at Ithaca and got involved in things right away."
Goff graduated from Bellport High School on Long Island in 2017. With no idea what he wanted to study in college, he decided to go to work. After three years of painting and carpentry work, he enrolled in OCC's Broadcast Media Communications (BMC) degree program. He arrived determined to pursue a career in the film industry, but BMC Professor Mark Ballard convinced him to think more broadly. "He opened my mind to the fact you could find creativity and art in anything. He told me not to have tunnel vision and say yes to anything. He was a really good mentor."
With Professor Ballard's constant encouragement, Goff became one of the top students in BMC and the entire campus, earning a 3.9 grade point average and membership in the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society. He was also an RA in the residence halls, and extremely active in campus life. He completed his degree in the spring of 2023 and decided to transfer.
With the strong foundation Goff had built at OCC, he enrolled in Ithaca College's Television and Digital Media Production program and made an immediate impact. On his first day at Ithaca's student-run TV station, he worked as a production assistant on a show called After Hours. "After we wrapped up on the first day, I walked into the control room where I knew how everything worked from my time at OCC. I was using the switcher and the producers and directors were surprised I knew how to use it as a new student. They made me a technical director right away."
Goff became one of the production crew leaders on After Hours, along with another student-produced show titled Looped In. He also became a member of the Delta Kappa Alpha cinema society, and vice president of Ithaca College's chapter of the New York Film & Television Student Alliance. "I knew as a transfer student I needed to be more extroverted. I had to catch up to people who had already been here for two years."
His experiences at OCC also helped him finance the much pricier cost of a four-year college. He continued to serve as an R-A, successfully navigated the financial aid process, and benefitted from a scholarship he earned through his membership in the PTK Honor Society.
In the summer of 2024, Goff returned to the OCC campus and worked in a variety of capacities. He was a crew member for the live video productions of high school graduations held in the SRC Arena, designed the poster for the fall semester's Unity Day (at the bottom of this story), worked as a photographer at Micron Chip Camp, and was the Residence Director for the Educational Opportunity Program's Pre-freshman Summer Institute. "It was a great experience. OCC has always been a second family to me."
This semester he's taking 18 credits, and in the spring he'll be doing an internship in Ithaca's Los Angeles program which provides students the opportunity to gain professional experience in their chosen fields while taking industry-related courses. As he learned from Professor Ballard, it's best to think broadly and keep your options open, but he definitely has a favorite path at the moment. "I watch late night TV and shows like Saturday Night Live and think it would be great to be involved behind the scenes with one of those someday."
