Crossing the finish line
Columbia College celebrates graduates at commencement ceremony
Kindergarten was the last time Sage Zuccaro had celebrated a graduation, until he walked across the stage Friday evening as part of Columbia College’s spring 2022 graduating class.
Zuccaro, of Sonora, moved to Tuolumne County from Florida toward the end of eighth-grade and was homeschooled through the end of junior high school.
He then left high school early at age 16 after passing his proficiency exam and started taking classes at Columbia College.
Now, the 24-year-old is on his way to the University of California, Berkeley, this fall to study astrophysics.
”Without the support that I’ve had at Columbia College, I don’t think I would have stayed in school,” Zuccaro said.
Zuccaro was among 20 students ranging in ages from 20 to 61 who were the first group to be selected for a scholarship through the college’s new Finish Line Scholars Program.
The program, which launched last fall, provides students who are at least halfway through completing their degrees up to $2,500 each semester to help them attend full time as they finish up their final year of study.
“It allowed me to focus on my studies a lot more,” Zuccaro, who graduated from Columbia with a 3.73 GPA, said. “I think if I were having to work outside of school, I wouldn’t have gotten as good of grades as I did these past two semesters.”
Zuccaro said he plans to get his bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley before moving on to graduate school to get a doctorate’s degree in the field.
Originally planning to pursue a career in animation, Zuccaro said he switched majors after discovering his passion for mathematics and physics through classes at Columbia College.
The personalized education and counseling support available at Columbia College also led Zuccaro to seek treatment for ADHD about four years through the school’s disabled students program.
“The people at Columbia College, they see students as human beings, which you don’t get in high school or at bigger universities even,” he said. “Without that personal connection and being seen as an individual as opposed to being just another student, I don’t think I would have seen my worth. I don’t think I would have pursued getting an ADHD diagnosis and pursuing my graduation.”
Mae Tippett, 25, of Sonora, had a different path to gradu
ation than Zuccaro, though she too was among the first 20 selected for the Finish Line Scholars Program.
Tippett, who also graduated with honors in the Spring 2022 class and gave the farewell address in the ceremony on Friday, said she grew up in the area and went to Columbia for about three semesters after graduating high school in 2015.
She decided to take a break to do some traveling and spent time in places like Central America, Sri Lanka and Uganda, during which she also did some volunteer work.
“I loved not only traveling, but also working with other cultures,” she said.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tippett returned to the area from her travels abroad and decided to go back to finish her degree at Columbia in the spring of last year.
Tippett said she was awarded the Finish Line Scholarship last fall, which has helped her finish her associate’s degree in behavioral sciences. She will transfer to California State University, Sonoma, in the fall and plans to pursue at least a bachelor’s degree.
She’s considering a career in higher education counseling eventually, but first wants to look into joining the Peace Corps after graduating from university.
“It helped me so much through last semester and this semester,” she said of the Finish Line Scholarship. “I was able to get money from that for this semester as well, and it helped me with finances for transferring to my next school, so I was really grateful for it.”
The Finish Line scholarships are part of a program that’s sponsored by the Foundation for California Community Colleges.
As one of the first 34 community colleges in the state that were selected to participate in the program, Columbia will receive funding for $100,000 in scholarships and $25,000 in emergency grants annually for four years.
Twenty out of the 27 students who have received the scholarships since the fall of last year have graduated.
“It’s just been a great program to bring to our students,” Amy Nilson, director of development at Columbia College, said. “We know this is making a difference.”
Tippett, Zuccaro and the other Finish Line scholarship recipients were among 294 Columbia College students who earned degrees or certificates this academic year and were eligible to walk in the ceremony on Friday (see box on this page for a full list).
An additional 32 students graduated Thursday from the Columbia College Fire Technology Program, an intensive 16-week course that prepares students for jobs as firefighters.