Registered students at Hocking College in southeast Ohio will soon have the chance to apply for a new major. The small college with about 3,500 students received final approval from the Higher Learning Commission to start a new degree program in biomedical sciences. The primary objective of the major is to educate students for employment opportunities including cannabis lab technicians. This is a significant advantage for students who are seeking employment after graduation; the medicinal and adult-use cannabis industry is has a lot of employment opportunities.
After graduating from this college, the first-place graduates should consider applying for work as cannabis lab techs are their college. At the beginning of the year, Hocking College’s application was approved by the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program for a cannabis testing lab license, which makes the college to become one of only two public institutions to be granted a permit at the time.
When Hockings College was granted its testing lab license, Prof. Jonathan Cachat who is the Director of Laboratory Science at Hocking considered it as a chance to implement the college’s plan to establish new majors in concurrence with the college’s lab. During the previous years, he was working on new, cannabis-centered syllabus. Currently, Hocking has been licensed for two, two-year associate degree programs for laboratory technicians. The most recent approval for its Cannabis Lab Technician bachelor’s degree is an addition to Hocking College’s list of Ohio firsts.
According to Dr. Cachat, the new major will mainly teach students hands-on lab experience with the use of chemicals and advanced machinery to carry out cannabis related tests. However, it will also offer students with full access to the history of cannabis and the industry. Dr. Cachat also said that the courses on marijuana would mainly focus on the origin of the cannabis industry, its ancient history, current battles with the federal government and future trends.
Moreover, the students who will be admitted in the new degree syllabus will be training themselves for more than careers in the cannabis industry. They’ll additionally have job opportunities in the agricultural and all types of environmental analytical lab work.
Because Hocking is providing a lab tech major in cannabis, instead of offering a major in potatoes, it has led to the attraction of students who may never have favored a degree track or career in the biomedical sciences. The president of Hocking, Betty Young also aspires that the major will bring in more students from Ohio and out of state to add to the college enrollment list.
After the final approval, Hocking will have to take the remainder of this academic year to establish the new major. The objective of the college is to start providing courses in the significant next academic year, in the fall 2019 semester. College application season will soon be over, and high school seniors who have plans of enrolling into biomedical sciences career in cannabis and its various associated fields might want to apply to Hocking’s college. Undergraduates in Hocking might even want to establish a new major.
