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Getting Started

Whether you want to earn a degree, improve your skills, get certified, train for a new career, or explore a new hobby, you can choose from many programs and courses.

Get Started
What type of student are you? New Student Returning Transfer Visiting International College Credit Plus Non-Credit All Student Types

Classes & Programs

Explore your interests and find a program that puts you on the path to a bright future. Tri-C offers both credit and non-credit courses as well as certificate programs in most career fields.

View all

Degree Programs & Certificates

More than 1,000 credit courses are offered each semester in more than 200 career and technical programs. Tri-C also grants short-term certificates, certificates of proficiency and post-degree professional certificates.

View A-Z Program List

Workforce Training & Professional Development

Tri-C's Workforce Training provides both non-credit and credit training for individuals and businesses to assist individuals with skills leading to employment. Tri-C's Corporate College provides professional development and corporate training opportunities.

Learn more

Community Programming for Adults & Youth

Tri-C offers a variety of affordable and convenient community programs for both adults and youth. These programs are designed to promote individual development.

Learn more
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My Tri-C Story

My Tri-C Story Meet Shannon My Tri-C Story Archive
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Meet Shannon

Photo of ShannonShannon Gallagher started college for all the wrong reasons.

She had no desire to continue her education after graduating from Parma High School, but her mom insisted. So Gallagher enrolled at the University of Akron.

But lacking desire and any sense of direction, she found the taste of freedom more intoxicating than getting good grades. Her GPA fell to a 0.4. Administrators didn’t even bother with academic probation and dismissed her after her first year.

Gallagher wasn't overly concerned. She figured she could cut it on her own without a college degree. Her mom, however, was not so sure. So again, to appease that demand, Gallagher enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®). But the day she walked into the Enrollment Center in 1997, that same ambivalent feeling crept over her.

"Why am I here?" she asked herself. She didn't have a good answer, and the same thing happened. She got bad grades, and before long, she wasn’t a Tri-C student.

Gallagher did, however, manage to cut it on her own. She took an entry-level job with Gries Financial Partners, answering phones and helping senior members of the firm with projects. Over the next 25 years, she moved up in the ranks. Today, she is the director of operations and client services at Gries, a Cleveland-based registered investment advisor and wealth management firm. She oversees the operations of almost $1.5 billion in assets.

And yet, something was still nagging at Gallagher.

All of her peers had a college degree, and this bugged her. A friend and mentor at Gries asked her one day, "What are you waiting for?" Gallagher had no good answer. Her excuse was that she was waiting for the right time — but the right time rarely comes. She had to make the time right.

More than proving to her mom that she could do it, she wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. By this time, Gallagher didn't need a degree — she wanted one.

She enrolled again at Tri-C in 2019, this time determined and with a clear goal. She earned her associate degree in business management in Spring 2023. Far from flunking out, she got almost all As — and the one course she didn't get an A in still irks her.

Gallagher didn't need to be smarter. She didn't need more time. She needed a purpose, and she found it years after her first attempt.

“Earning my degree 27 years after my first attempt gives me such an incredible sense of accomplishment. My college experience started off so horribly, and it was pretty intimidating to come back as an adult. Tri-C made it very easy and manageable to get back into the swing of things and provided me the guidance, support and encouragement I needed to persevere and be successful in my studies,” Gallagher said. “I’m very proud to finally be able to say that I’m a Tri-C graduate!”

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