The smell of the cosmetology lab and lockers welcomes you to the east entrance, of Marquette's closest collegiate neighbor, of the Milwaukee Area Technical College's downtown campus where they focus on providing a diverse and well-trained work force to the city.

Pat Roberts is the Manager of Admissions Office at MATC, and she said MATC has170 programs including their cosmetology program that are equally as rigorous as a four-year university.

In order to graduate to students needs to have completed 66 to 72 credits, Roberts said. She said that many students pace themselves and spread the credits out for three to three and half years.

The programs include a two-year associate degrees, and a transfer program for students to attend MATC and then a University of Wisconsin college, Roberts said.

The most popular programs are health related, welding, automotive and the two-year liberal arts transfer program, Roberts said.

"The beauty of tech schools is you can work and go to school," Roberts said.

Ed Lewis, 26, is in his first year studying network management and working full time at Tri-City National Bank. He said he chose MATC because of its good network management program.

Of the 28,592 students that attend the downtown campus, Roberts said the average MATC student, like Lewis, works and is between the ages of 24 and 25 years old.

However, she said anyone from 18 to 100 years old can attend. The administration is trying to push the age closer to right out of high school to help seamlessly transfer students from MATC to a university, Roberts said.

Norma Ortiz, a freshman studying liberal arts at MATC, is one of these students who wish to transfer to the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee after two year. Ortiz said she chose the college because she was undecided about where she wanted to go and it was affordable.

MonQuisha Russ, a freshman studying criminal justice, said she, also, chose MATC because she was undecided as to where she wanted to go.

"My parents and I came up here and I toured it and I thought it was a good school," Russ said.

Many of the students interviewed said they chose MATC partly because of it being affordable. Roberts said Wisconsin residents pay around $100 a credit for their classes.

Roberts said, along with the affordability, a draw for students is that their professors are professionals in their field.

"[The professors] are really nice they are in small classes so they get to help you out more," Ortiz said.

Lewis said there is a lot of one on one time with the professors, and there are many resources available in the classrooms to help the learning process.

These students favorite classes range from physical education for Ortiz, where she learns about health, to Cisco for Lewis.

Many of the students said that they spend their free time studying or working, and because of this, they do not participate in campus activities. Ortiz said there were many campus activities such as Chess and Student Senate.

Russ said she was not involved in activities on campus because she worked as went to school, but she said that the college had recently held a open house to promote student activities.

Ortiz said even though there were campus activities available she did not feel like she was in a community.

However, Russ said she felt like she was able to be apart of a community and get to know her classmates because of the professors.

"We do group work so we get split up so you know you can't just sit with people you know [you have to get to know your classmates]," Russ said.

Ninety percent of her classmates are part time students on one of the five official campuses in: downtown Milwaukee, Oak Creek, West Allis and Mequon, MATC's 2006 annual report said.