Night enrollment numbers down from previous years

Night classes allow students at North Lake to have full-time jobs and still receive an education.

According to the Planning and Research Department at North Lake, there are 2,324 night students enrolled in this year’s spring semester. Although the enrollment trend has decreased from previous years, many students find night classes to be helpful and convenient. 

Justin Dougher, a North Lake sophomore, works 40 hours a week installing speakers and fire alarms in churches and shopping centers so he can pay for his college education. Dougher, an engineering major, is taking 14 hours this semester, all of which are evening courses.
“Its easier to go to class at night; I am more awake,” said Dougher.

Michael Morales, a 19-year-old night student, feels that evening teachers are different as well. “Most of them either teach at other colleges or are employed somewhere else, and they deal with people all day, making them more lenient, because they are tired, too,” said Morales.

Night courses not only are convenient, but a choice for some students who prefer night classes because of the older, more mature crowd. Almost 3,000 students who attend North Lake fall between the ages of 21 and 25. “The teachers speak more at a college level, and I feel more like an adult,” said Dougher.

Students who attend classes at night have trouble finding time to study in their limited spare time.

Jennifer Marin, an education major at North Lake, has to wait for her 4-year-old daughter to go to sleep at night before she can hit the books. “I do not have time to study on the weekends because that is the only time I can spend a full day with my daughter,” said Marin.

“Even though I do not always have a lot of time, going to class at night keeps me focused on my task,” Marin said.