Full of drive – that’s the best way to describe Irvine Valley College (IVC) student Wilfredo Perez. The 22-year-old Perez chases after his goals with enthusiasm and a laser focus. It’s that kind of effort that went into researching his community college options. He wanted a college where he could take courses that meet the general educational requirements for a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Perez recalls what initially stood out about IVC was the staff’s attentiveness.

Irvine Valley College student Alexis Nguyen has been named a 2021 Coca-Cola Academic Team Silver Scholar and will receive a $1,250 scholarship.

Irvine Valley College (IVC) student Lea Castaneda recently completed a successful journey as shift supervisor at the Irvine Target as part of IVC’s Cooperative Work Experience (CWE) program. CWE is an academic program offering students the opportunity to earn college credits while learning on-the-job, whether paid or unpaid.

Irvine Valley College (IVC) and Saddleback College students Yasaman Nassab and Preston Hong are two of only 20 college students nationwide to be named to the prestigious All-USA Academic Team and will receive a $5,000 scholarship. More than 2,000 students were nominated for this award. The scholarship is sponsored by Cengage, an education technology company, with additional support provided by Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).

​Irvine Valley College (IVC) and the Irvine Valley College Foundation are proud to announce the first-ever naming gift for the IVC Performing Arts Center. Masoud Rezanoor, an Irvine resident, pledged $250,000 to provide enrichment opportunities for the music department at IVC. To acknowledge Mr. Rezanoor’s generosity, the Main Stage of the Performing Arts Center will be renamed the Rezanoor Stage.

Theresa Olah already had a career when she started taking courses at IVC in fall 2019. She signed up for classes because it had been years since she earned her bachelor’s degree, and she was a bit rusty when it came to school. She wanted to be ready when she started the master’s degree program at San Jose State University the following year.

It turns out, IVC did more than oil off the rust for Olah. It gave her knowledge she could use immediately in her work and put her on the path to another degree she hadn’t been planning on.

Irvine Valley College alumnus and musician Nicholas Sitton has released his second album, Necessary Empathy.

Sitton says he wanted to create a piece of work that encapsulated and interrogated his personal experiences at this time in his life, but also takes into account the political and systemic contexts in which they occurred.

Learning new skills on a regular basis has become a necessity in our ever-changing world of work. The days of earning a degree and launching into a career for decades to come without earning any additional credentials along the way is a thing of the past. 

They say that great leaders are great communicators. Learn quick tips on how to improve your elevator pitch from IVC Professor John Russo, who heads up IVC's entrepreneurship program​, in our very first episode of the Flashcard Series.

​After she graduated high school, Shiva Maggard explored her career options before setting her sights on medical school. She enrolled at IVC and picked biology as her major. Maggard planned to transfer to a four-year college, and like the majority of American college students, she changed her mind along the way.

She decided med school wasn’t for her. She dropped out of college and found work in the restaurant industry, as a bartender. She made decent money in that job, she said, but after a few years realized it wasn’t what she wanted long term.