It'll soon be back to business as usual for Southeast College staff and students.

The college is getting ready to welcome in a new batch of students with most fall programs beginning in early September.

One change the college is excited about is returning to in-person learning for many of its courses, particularly the hands-on trades programs.

"Especially with our full-time programs...we have a lot of hands-on full-time programs," said Sheena Onrait, the college's marketing and communications manager. "You can't really learn a trade without actually doing the work, and doing the hands-on, and having the labs and those kinds of things."

"Those are really important to be able to have that space to be able to perform those tasks in those course modules and be able to have that feedback from your instructor face to face, and have the camaraderie with your fellow students as well," she continued.

Depending on the subject matter, Onrait added that certain courses will still be incorporating virtual learning, while others will keep it as a secondary option should the need arise again.

Onrait said that the shift back to on-campus classes won't be that much of a pivot for the college.

"Because we're a smaller college, and we generally have smaller classes...it wasn't as challenging for us to adapt (to virtual classes) as it was for the larger institutions," she said. "We still had a lot of students on campus last year, we had a lot of students in person."

"We were very grateful in that manner...in that we still got to see our students on a regular basis for the most part."