<p>Wow, you really have your head on straight. I predict much success for you wherever you go. </p>
<p>Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re missing out or settling by going the cc route. None of us knows the details of your story so none of us can say what’s best for you. You asked if it sounds like a plan, and it certainly does.</p>
<p>^^^ Payne, I agree with those who say that you sound uncommonly mature and have your head on straight. I would just urge you to see college as more than just an accumulation of credits, the college experience as something far exceeding “entertainment,” and the first two years of college as something much greater than a review of high school. I have a daughter who’s a college junior. In her first two years of college she’s sought out academic challenges and she’s found courses and professors who have significantly impacted her view of her role in the world and her aspirations for her life after college. But she’s also traveled to South America and to China on college-sponsored programs, getting most of her way paid each time. She’s been hired as a peer advisor. She’s heard well-known speakers, some of who have inspired her to reevaluate her priorities. She’s joined a singing group and toured several cities. She’s become a student manager for a program that tutors the middle-school aged children of new immigrants. She joined the leadership team of a Model Congress program and presided over a congress of hundreds of top high school students visiting the city in which she goes to school. She’s taken on a part-time campus job. And yes, she’s gone to parties and ballgames and been entertained.</p>
<p>As a result of her first two years of college, she is not anything like the 18-year-old she was when she began her freshman year. She is far more confident and polished. She plans, funds, and carries out international travel with ease. She speaks in front of groups with a comfort and flair that I’ll never know. She drops in on highly-credentialed faculty and carries on sophisticated conversations without a second thought. She has developed interests in her major that are leading her to consider internship and graduate school options which she’s discussing with her faculty. And most importantly, she feels that she has the potential to make a difference in the world, far more so than she did two years ago. I think that college is a unique and magical environment in which to find these kinds of opportunities, and I don’t think that they’re readily available in many CCs.</p>
<p>My DD did two years of cc and then transferred to a private LAC. She did it for two main reasons, we could afford a public not a private (not with the gapping they do) so she is using her education budget that would cover 4 years of flagship public to cover 2 years at the LAC. </p>
<p>She also graduated at a very young age from HS and we decided she was too young to go away to school- I know it has worked for some of you, but her sister graduated HS at 16 and in retrospect she feels she was a bit too young and not quite ready to go away. She recommended her sister stay home until she was older.</p>
<p>Both sisters did the 4 year thing, one has had the experience every one hopes for, the other did not, a lot is dependent on you and on the school. You will not have at a cc the same experience as 4 years at Princeton, but were you going there any way? Can you have a different yet equally interesting experience? You must advocate for yourself as like a public HS many counselors are focused on helping kids survive not thrive. Find your own opportunities and when you get to the 4 years school jump in with two feet, find the study abroad option, check for deadlines before you even transfer so you don’t miss any!</p>
<p>DD was hoping that there would be a cohort of HS dual enrollment kids her age, but she really did not meet or find those kids. She was able to make a friend to eat lunch with in each quarter, but many of the girls were in their 20s with little kids whilst DD was not even 18. People were overall less motivated or less well-trained in study habits, but is was still not easy to earn As. You still have to do the reading, do the work, go to class, and please the teacher.</p>
<p>It is also necessary to have one’s own motivation and focus, when other kids are not motivated you may have to work harder to stay motivated.</p>
<p>We focused on the goal, a 3.75-4.0 GPA transferring to the LAC, earning a merit scholarship, and covering all the GE requirements. DD communicated every quarter with a transfer rep at her prospective school, every single class not only transferred for credit but fulfilled the requirements. Since it is a small private, they were extremely responsive.</p>
<p>DD is now loving life at her LAC and she definitely had a few flutters of doubt, wondering if her cc As were truly As and she proved to herself that she could do the work by garnering all As first term at the university.</p>
<p>You can do it and be happy to have no loans at the end, but it is up to you to stay focused. Others may say you should go for the college experience but they will not be around to help you pay your loans!</p>
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<p>No. This is not what college should be. If it is, it isn’t worth 5 cents, much less two years of your life.</p>
<p>We are friends with a couple of docs (medical) who did 2 yr. CCs then on to finish at a 4 year before med school. They did the same with 2 of their kids and now the 3rd finishing his second year at the local CC and is moving onward. All three kids were accepted at top notch Big Ten schools after the 2 years at CC. Two friends of my S1 are completing their second year of CC and both are transferring to good universities. All these kids are not “un-motivated”. I think that is a perception, not a reality. I have taught at a local CC and did not find many “dullards.” OP, I see nothing wrong with your plan. High achievers find high achievers. People tend to group and socialize with people like themselves. No one should fear going to a CC and turning from a scholar to a lazy dullard. If that occurs…it would have occured in any university or college. Look at the kids who post here who fail out/flunk out or are on academic probation. The school didn’t cause this…the person caused this.</p>
<p>Just to clarify . . . </p>
<p>I_Payne:</p>
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</p>
<p>AND</p>
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</p>
<p>Do you see the inherent contradiction in what you wrote? If scholarship and study are important to you (as well they should be), any CC program that merely repeats high school would be a terrible disappointment and waste of your time (assuming you mastered the high school material on the first go-round). Should you choose the CC route – and I don’t deny that there are many good reasons to go that route – I would think it will be really important to make sure the CC program <em>will</em> offer you something worthwhile. </p>
<p>Remember, the complaint that the CC was just a high school do-over is exactly the complaint that my niece had about her CC, and she found that to be terribly disappointing.</p>
<p>What have you done to make sure the CC curriculum you are considering won’t just be a do-over? Would it be possible to attend some classes to see how challenging the work is?</p>
<p>I’m not sure how they do things in NC but here in VA, people are loving the two-years-at-CC-and-guaranteed-acceptance-to-public-four-year-college thing. I believe with a 3.4 GPA coming out of a Virginia CC, you’re guaranteed admission to UVA. (We have friends with twin boys who are taking this route and it’s working out really well–awesome/inexpensive way to get a UVA degree if you didn’t quite have the grades to get in right out of high school!) I also know professors at UVA who think the students transferring in from CC are great–very motivated, hard workers, not the sense of entitlement some of the four-year kids have. You sound like a great kid. You’ll do just fine.</p>
<p>Attending the CC first is fine but a couple of points -</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Meet with the CC counselors up front to plan your schedule given the 4 year colleges you have in mind. It’s important to take the ‘right’ courses to ensure you meet all of the requirements for the 4 year colleges you have in mind. Have several 4 year colleges in mind since your desires/goals might change in the next 2 years. If possible, determine the transfer requirements of your target colleges from the colleges themselves since the CC counselors may or may not know what’s required by a particular college. In California there is a pre-defined pathway from a CC to a UC or CSU. Check in your state to see what they might have if you’re considering transferring to a state 4 year school.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s easy to just mess around at a CC taking odd classes here and there and end up after 2 years without the required courses to be accepted at the desired 4 year college. A lot of CC students do this and I think are surprised to find after 2 years that they can’t really move on. You just need to be focused as you typically would be at a 4 year college. </p></li>
<li><p>Working a part time job is fine and an on-campus job is ideal since they’re convenient and they usually are very flexible with scheduling for mid-terms, finals, etc. Just don’t get caught up in making even more money and thus working more and more hours until you find yourself spending more time working and less time taking classes. This can cause some people to never finish and move on. Keep the 2 year goal in mind.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Well, then perhaps the first two years of course work help solidify what you learned in high school? I’d work just as hard, and I’m not afraid of repeating anything. I’ll just know it better in the end.
I hear (from friends who actually attend CC) that the first year or two are fairly easy because it is basically stuff they had already grasped well. However they do say that it does carry some challenge because it is college work, and they are expected to perform like college students. So, yes, it probably does have to do with the type of CC.</p>
<p>UCLA Dad is right, you must have a plan and stick to it; my nephew spent time at a CC and upon transfer had many units which could not be used to fulfill his requirements, making them a waste of time and money</p>
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<p>No again.</p>
<p>In college you should be able to study subjects that most students have no opportunity to study in high school, for example: philosophy, anthropology, geology, political science (as opposed to history), history of periods and places not covered in the HS curriculum, sociology, linguistics, history of art, languages not offered in HS, math not offered in HS, and so on across the board. </p>
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Know WHAT better? The point is to expand and advance your learning, not to repeat high school.</p>
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<p>Frankly, I find it hard to imagine what kind of courses these people are taking. Endless iterations of Comp 101? A repeat of high school chemistry and math?</p>
<p>I went to CC, got my first job and let various employers to pay for the rest all the way thru MBA.</p>
<p>Consolation:</p>
<p>I’ve studied plenty of things outside of my high school curriculum that are considered college level, or otherwise not associated with high school. In my 8th grade year (not even high school) I enrolled in a four-year foreign language university in China. I entered in the middle of the school year. I took a few semesters and did well. Most of the students were college students studying abroad. So then, I (at the age of 13 in 8th grade) experienced a college student’s travel abroad/learn language in a different country experience well before I was even in college.</p>
<p>Things one studied in high school aren’t completely void of educational significance.</p>