{"id":59760,"date":"2021-05-13T10:47:59","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T15:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=59760"},"modified":"2021-05-13T10:48:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T15:48:01","slug":"fhsu-online-a-rewarding-experience-for-graduate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=59760","title":{"rendered":"FHSU Online a rewarding experience for graduate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By UNIVERSITY RELATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cody Erwin has visited the Fort Hays State University campus just once. This weekend, he will leave with a diploma in hand and a self-described new lease on life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erwin, who lives in\nWichita, will graduate with a bachelor\u2019s degree in geosciences with an emphasis\nin geography during FHSU\u2019s first on-campus commencement ceremonies since May\n2019. Graduates from the spring 2020 and fall 2020 semesters were honored\nthrough virtual recognitions because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He will then begin online\nclasses for a master\u2019s degree in GIS (geographic information systems) at Kent\nState University this fall. Erwin\u2019s undergraduate work also was done remotely\nthrough FHSU Online. Although he earned his degree from afar, Erwin wanted to\nwalk across the stage to receive his diploma, because it\u2019s an accomplishment\nthat took a lot of determination to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erwin started working on a\ndegree online in 2017 because of the flexibility it offered. He could take\nclasses at his own pace while still working full-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searching for a school\nwith a strong online presence is how Erwin first discovered FHSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was looking for an\naccredited online college, and I learned that Fort Hays State has an enormous online\npresence,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t say enough positive things about the geosciences\ndepartment and the faculty there. They have kept me intrigued and moving\nforward.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erwin was furloughed when\nthe pandemic forced WSU to remote operations for the remainder of the spring\n2020 semester. He took a job at Target to pay the bills and he was able to keep\nmaking progress on his degree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly thereafter, he\nlearned about a position with the City of Haysville, a suburb of Wichita. It\nturned out to be the perfect fit \u2013 for Erwin and the City of Haysville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haysville was in search of\nsomeone to help make its public works department more efficient, and\nErwin said he was able to \u201chit the ground running\u201d while working with the ESRI suite of applications to implement\nworkflow management throughout the Public Works Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I learned through\nthe online program at FHSU \u2013 such a strong foundational understanding of GIS \u2013\nI was able to put to use at my job immediately,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With secure employment\nonce again, Erwin was able to finish his degree this semester. He has no qualms\nabout beginning his online master\u2019s program at Kent State because of a positive\nexperience through FHSU Online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He especially enjoyed\nvirtual field trips taught by Dr. Ken Neuhauser, who retired from FHSU in 2018\nbut continued teaching those classes through 2020 as an adjunct professor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKen Neuhauser\u2019s virtual\nclasses are phenomenal,\u201d Erwin said. \u201cI emailed him and asked to take every\nclass of his before he retired. I can\u2019t say enough good things about the geosciences\ndepartment and the faculty at Fort Hays State. They are an amazing group of\npeople.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erwin encountered a\npositive experience from the beginning of his undergraduate work when he took a\nclass with Dr. Richard Lisichenko, a professor of geosciences, whose\nconcentration is GIS.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve always been intrigued with the study of\nthe earth and geosciences,\u201d Erwin said. \u201cMy first course with Dr. Lisichenko,\nIntroduction to Geographic Information Systems, had me hooked.\u201d\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By UNIVERSITY RELATIONS Cody Erwin has visited the Fort Hays State University campus just once. This weekend, he will leave with a diploma in hand… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Cody20Erwin20NEWS.jpg?fit=1080%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59762,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59760\/revisions\/59762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}