Nathan Constancio was a homeschool student who graduated at 16. He enrolled at National
Park College (NPC) in the fall of 2019 and is now in his third semester. He is working
toward a transfer degree in Computer Science, Computer Gaming and Animation Design.
This degree is a partnership degree between NPC and Southern Arkansas University (SAU).
This partnership will allow Constancio to stay at NPC while obtaining his bachelor's
degree.
Constancio attended Kids College at NPC in 2014, attended 3D Bootcamp, Engineering
Camp and Young Manufactures Academy in 2017 and CSI camp in 2018. He enjoyed the structure
of the camps stating they “were fun and Mrs. Castleberry is great and does a good
job.”
He stated that he “wasn’t sure if he was going to college but the summer camps piqued
his interest in technology and kickstarted the idea of attending college.” The hands-on
nature of the camps helped inform his decision and he was surprised by all the programs
NPC had to offer.
Constancio has been interested in computers and gaming since he was 6 or 7 but became
bored with just playing. He developed an interest in building and programming computers.
He says, “NPC faculty member, Mr. Ivers, is fun, easy to understand and makes the
class enjoyable and Mrs. McCord, my trigonometry teacher, has gone out of her way
to make things easily digestible even during the pandemic.”
Though he did not know about the partnership with SAU when he started at NPC, Constancio
has since researched SAU’s technology program. He was excited to find that SAU has
high rankings at the national level and is enthusiastic about the partnership.
Though he did not know much about NPC, it made sense for him to start his college
career here. “At 16, I knew it was too early to move away from home. NPC offers me
a quality education on a beautiful, well-structured campus that lets me stay close
to home,” he said.
