Just four miles from its previous location, the Career Training Academy (CTA) on Friday officially celebrates its newer and larger North Hills campus in the West View Shopping Plaza.
The previous campus operated within Northway Mall since 1996. Classes there ended April 23 and began in West View four days later.
“We have the space to expand, we want to expand, currently we’re offering three programs here: massage therapy, medical assisting, and medical billing, and we offer diploma and degrees in all of those programs,” said Carla Ryba, campus director of the new facility.
The academy was founded back in 1972 in Pittsburgh and has since offered career training designed to help students achieve professional advancement in the medical fields, according to Ryba.
Since then, CTA has expanded to two additional locations from its main campus in New Kensington, to the North Hills and Monroeville.
But why the move?
According to Ryba, the mall was undergoing a revamp and the academy had the choice to stay and find a temporary home during the construction or move to a new location.
“We have larger classrooms, our teaching facilities are much more conducive in our new location to outcomes lab access, lab space, clinics that we have here,” said Melissa Raber, vice president of marketing and admissions at CTA.
Raber said the academy currently has about 200 students enrolled at the three campuses and just had a graduation ceremony in July for 148 students.
The median age for a student at CTA is around 26, according to Ryba, ranging from recent high school graduates to 50-year olds and up.
The academy is a modular school, which means a new class is started every month, rather than each quarter. The academy offers day programs, as well as evening ones, with a typical day program lasting from Monday to Thursday, which starts around 8 a.m. and finishes between 1 and 2 p.m.
This allows students to work with their busy schedule, such as if they’re currently working in the industry, according to Raber.
Raber says the move gives a small school like CTA the exposure it needs, along with important partnerships.
“We’re a little bit closer to the city, we maintain those relationships that we have with the area hospitals, the medical practices, but we’ve also made some new … support here locally within this area with just finding new opportunities and bridging the gap for our employers,” said Raber.
Raber says the local businesses will love CTA’s “externship” program, where students can log 300 to 400 clock hours at nearby workplaces.
“We’re supporting our health care infrastructure and our local Pittsburgh city with our students who ... bridge those career opportunities in the high-demanding fields of medical assisting, dental assisting, filling and coating, as well as massage therapy,” said Raber.
Ryba says community engagement is part of a student’s coursework where they might perform blood pressure screenings or massages in clinics for locals.
“Our new location really affords us the acceptability to not just our students but community members to take advantage of their (the students’) services as well,” she said.
Attendees to the ribbon-cutting ceremony can tour the new North Hills campus facilities and learn about CTA’s mission to prepare students for medical and message therapy jobs in the region.
