CBS3's Pat Gallen Goes Back To West Chester University To Take A Look At What's New

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WEST CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) - School is almost back in session, and with SummerFest in Brandywine Valley, that means I had to come back to my Alma mater, West Chester University.

It's beautiful. Let me show you the place.

Spent a lot of time here, Main Hall. Being a communications major and journalism minor, this is where a lot of my classes were. Green Library over here a lot of, uh, projects done. A lot of "studying."

Since I graduated just a few years ago, West Chester has blossomed. A huge addition to the school is the Saxbys experiential learning café, which is completely student-run.

Kelly Ingram is the CEO of the store.

"I'm just really excited to learn practical skills from this and just be able to have that experience before even graduating college of running the café and knowing all the operations, and the team building," said Ingram.

There's no better way to learn than to do.

Another addition to West Chester is their pilot program for first generation college students to help them find their footing.

"It's a program specifically designed to help students successfully navigate, matriculate into, through, and out of West Chester University," said Dr. Zebulun Davenport, VP of Student Affairs, West Chester University.

Hassan Gomes is a first gen student who knows how helpful this program will be.

"A lot of times maybe you have a situation where you go home and talk to your parents about things that are going on in college like exams, admissions, that they might not be able to relate to. So having that support system there that helps you, is super important," said Gomes.

And speaking of growing, West Chester continues to blossom in other ways.

"It's a particularly special time for us right now. We've got some great new programs, we've just gotten approval to launch an engineering program," said Chris Fiorentino, West Chester University President. "We're projected to hit another record enrollment. We're going to be somewhere around 17,500 which is the most we've ever been."

And they're about to unveil a beautiful state of the art Science and Engineering Center and they just repainted the water tower.