Blue Mountain Community College is setting its sights high for the coming years.

The unmanned aerial vehicle piloting program was tested this summer to see how much interest students would have. The response was enthusiastic.

Ive never seen this strong of a demand for a program, said Jim Whittaker, the vice president of instruction at BMCC. Because of the demand, were looking down the road and were looking for this to be an accredited course by winter and it may morph into a certificate or possibly a two-year degree.

In the class, students learn safety, history, maintenance and flight planning and how to pilot UAVs on laptops. The real flying for students starts in the gym, where they start putting small remote-controlled devices in the air. After that, they learn how to pilot much larger UAVs.

Because the class was conceived and on the summer schedule in just three months, the state was not able to review the curriculum and the course had not yet been accredited. And although theres a high demand for the class, there are only two instructors which means they can only teach ten students.

But once the class is accredited this winter, more instructors may be able to come on board to help increase the number of classes and their size. The program is also looking to partner with the Oregon State University ag research center, which has its own airspace.

Because of the newly approved test site in Pendleton, Whittaker said all ten students in the program are hoping to pursue a career in UAVs.

That has become a new prominent career choice in Eastern Oregon, but its not the only one with increasing demand. BMCC is hoping to introduce a mechatronics associates degree program in fall 2015.

We wanted to create a program that meets local needs, Whittaker said. What were doing with this program is that itll troubleshoot and maintain food processing lines.

At the Port of Morrow alone, there are seven food processing plants. When Whittaker spoke to the managers of the plants, they said for every hour a food processing line is down it costs the company $100,000.

Along with the new programs comes a new way to get your books. Mike Derrickson, assistant manager for the BMCC bookstore, said they will start offering online access to textbooks. This will cut down the price of the books, and the price will be part of the course fee instead of a stand-alone purchase.

Were going to start doing it with classes in business administration, accounting, human anatomy, intro to computers and upper level math, Derrickson said. Were just trying to remove the unnecessary hurdles that come with education, and we want to give students the cheapest option.