A Path to Lifelong Learning that Starts at Home – Montana State University Lives & Landscapes/Fall 2o25

Roughly 35% of college students in Montana are enrolled in distance learning programs. Stephanie Gray, Dean of Gallatin College MSU, welcomes Montanans from across 56 counties to explore how to advance their futures and those of their communities.

Nine miles south of Montana’s border with Canada lies Eureka, a small town of about 1,500 people. For 46-year-old Catherine Parker, it’s home. It’s where her two children go to school. It’s where her mineral and jewelry shop is based. And now it’s where new homes and a community aquatic center will go, with help from the business she started after graduating in 2023 from Gallatin College, Montana State University’s two-year college.

Parker earned an associate’s degree in drafting and CAD technology completely online, six hours from Gallatin College MSU’s campus in Bozeman. Uprooting her life and her two children to pursue an education far from Eureka wasn’t an option. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020 and her shop closed temporarily, she decided it was time to learn a new skill — one that could apply to a variety of fields and had flexible hours.

She learned to create digital models of buildings and machine parts for architects, engineers and manufacturers. After graduating, she launched Parker Drafting and began designing construction plans and 3D models for her community using Revit, a computer program she mastered in college.

“Any kind of education is worth it,” Parker said. “You may not know where it’s going to take you, and it may be different than what you expect, but education is just part of life.”

https://www.montana.edu/extension/lila_extn/fall_25/apathtolifelonglearning.html

Published in Lives & Landscapes/Fall 2o25

A Montana State University Extension program publication

Written by Frankie Beer, a writer and editor for MSU Communications