CMTC’s new student of the year began her studies wary of the classroom.
By Lindsay Tice
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Caroline Ward was afraid of school.

Although a quiet, competent student, she didn’t mesh well with the local public school and left in the seventh grade to study from home. With her own motivation and help from correspondence courses, she earned a high school diploma at 17.

Ward yearned to continue her education, but she was plagued by worries about stepping back into the classroom. School had been a negative. And all she knew about college was that her older brother hadn’t liked it.

“I was a little bit afraid that would happen to me, too, since public school hadn’t been fun for me,” she said.

Two years ago, Ward took her first steps to overcoming that fear by enrolling in Central Maine Technical College.

On Friday, the 20-year-old will conquer it completely. She will graduate as CMTC’s student of the year, with plans to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

Passing time

Ward was a teenager when she decided she wanted to go to college. Studying biology would be fun, she thought. Marine biology would be even better.

Like many high school seniors, she studied for the SATs and looked into more than a dozen colleges.

But she never applied to any of them. Fear stopped her cold.

Instead, Ward took a year off. She baby-sat her young niece and nephew and spent time with her sister. She traveled the state with her sister-in-law.

When Ward’s best friend asked her to join her in an introductory computer course at CMTC, Ward hesitantly agreed to tag along. She had grown up using computers and knew she could handle the academic work. For her, the introduction would be to the classroom.

“It was something to occupy my time and earn a little college credit,” she said.

But school quickly became something more than a way to occupy time. Ward, a bubbly young woman and an eager student, found that she loved her computer instructor’s energy and excitement. The class was small. The subject was fun.

College was nothing like grade school.

“I thought, ‘If my teachers are half as interesting as she is, I’ll be fine,'” Ward said.

That summer, she enrolled in CMTC’s liberal studies program and threw herself into her schoolwork.

A summer intermediate algebra course boosted her weak math skills and gave her the confidence to tackle more difficult courses. Psychology, college writing, algebra and chemistry showed her that she could take challenging, interesting courses and succeed.

The teenager scared of school became a young woman known for her fearless pursuit of knowledge.

“If it’s out there, she goes after it,” said Lucy Coombs, director of the humanities department.

Soon, Ward plunged into college life just as she had her coursework.

She began working as a work-study student in the humanities department. She joined the college’s honor society and became its secretary. She joined the Student Senate, worked on the college’s campus literary magazine and is helping to form CMTC’s first campus newspaper.

It sometimes seemed, school officials said, as if Ward knew everyone on campus.

“Everybody knows her name,” said humanities instructor Ethel Bowden.

‘Ideal candidate’

When faculty members were asked to nominate students for CMTC student of the year, Coombs immediately submitted Ward’s name.

“I had no choice,” said Coombs. “She’s just an ideal candidate.”

Seven students were nominated. Judges unanimously chose Ward.

“I think it was that well-roundedness she brought,” said Dean of Students Charles Collins, who has been routinely impressed by Ward’s confidence.

Last fall, Ward used that newfound confidence to take her education a step further. She applied to Smith College in Northhampton, Mass. And got in.

Officials believe she will be the first student in the Maine Technical College System to transfer directly to such a prominent college.

Ward will major in chemistry- a subject she discovered at CMTC. She hopes to go on to graduate school and, eventually, to conduct research.

But all of that will have to wait a while. Winner of a George Mitchell Peace Scholarship, Ward will spend next fall in Ireland, studying applied chemistry at the Cork Institute of Technology.

It will be the first time the 20-year-old has lived away from her Winthrop home.

But she’s ready.

“I don’t think I’d be quite there (without CMTC),” she said. “CMTC was definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

ltice@sunjournal.com