Any negatives to going to a Community College?

Parents Forum
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<p>I am inclined to agree it takes a self motivated person to succeed in community college-- whether they are an exceptionally bright student or not. </p>

<p>It seems to me like either choice could be a good option for OP depending on what appeals to him more. CC turned out to be a very intellectually stimulating experience for me because I was so freaking bored in my classes that I had to take strides toward intellectually stimulating myself that I never would have otherwise. I had the intellectual space and the free time to investigate my own interests, develop myself as a person, fine tune my study skills, and strengthen my self-motivation. I honestly learned a lot more than I would have going straight to a 4 year, I would have just gone with the flow at a 4 year and never would have taken such control over my own education. I would not have grown as a person nearly as much going straight to a 4 year, so much emphasis is put on “the college experience” and there is quite a lot of growing to be done just from turning into an adult without all that nonsense to distract you. That experience was a big part of how I came to decide to devote my life to public service, having previously planned on studying film. I do not feel that my education suffered as in most subjects (except math, which is affected by my LD) I was naturally bright enough that I was ahead of the game-- I really did not need someone to hold my hand through English 101. I took a good mix of humanities, social sciences, and sciences and a fair amount of math for a non-math/science major and have taken humanities, social science, and science at Michigan and have not found myself ill-prepared. In fact, the self-motivation I learned from my CC has prepared me for university level work and life in general better than any class at even the best university, and I have been commended again and again by professors, advisers, and various faculty here at Michigan for how driven I am just from what I got out of my CC-- I was even a finalist in a prestigious competition here mainly because the judges were so impressed by my proactive approach to education and life in general. Is everyone going to have that experience? Absolutely not. But if OP wants it, it is there for the taking and I hope from talking to me he knows that and would know how to take the best advantage of a CC if he chooses to go.</p>

<p>That said, sometimes I do wonder if I wouldn’t have preferred to go to a lower tiered 4 year all four years instead. CC has major drawbacks academically and socially, as I also explained to the OP. But whether or not those are worth sacrificing (or if they are even viewed as a sacrifice at all, for me not so much) all depends on how the OP sees the balance between benefits and sacrifice. </p>

<p>An extra note I couldn’t fit in anywhere else: CC is definitely a step between high school and university, though I don’t think one needs to see that as a downgrade so much as a DIFFERENT path-- something I wish I had understood better at the time, I might have enjoyed myself at the CC more. That is really the attitude one should have. If you REALLY think you’re getting SO MUCH more out of taking your gen eds at a 4 year school, with some progams being exceptions, I think you’re deluding yourself. If you aren’t in one of those programs that are an exception, and I don’t know what OP is planning to study, then the CC detour can be an even more valuable experience than a 4 year even for the brightest of students, if they take advantage of it. CC is not just for bad students and poor kids.</p>

<p>Now if only there had been somebody to tell me that when I was 18, I wouldn’t have made such a fool of myself being a sourpuss about it when I found out I had to go. :P</p>

<p>ETA: And all that said, I think it’s in OP’s best interest to give himself as wide an array of options as possible, keeping community college in mind if it does sound like an appealing option to him. He has until the Spring to decide and there’s nothing worse than coming up on graduation knowing you are boxed into one choice even if it’s not what you want.</p>

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<p>"I have never SEEN a resume with a high GPA from a top school from someone who transferred from a CC. "</p>

<p>But if you did how would you judge them? </p>

<p>I mean, if you saw an application that was like, CC two years, UMCP two years, and the applicant did well at UMCP…would you care that they went to CC? Or would you take them less seriously than someone who did four years at MD?</p>

<p>I mean in some ways I agree with you, especially if you are trying to go into engineering, it’s imperative that you not just waste 2 years in easier classes…for me Gen Ed classes would have taken no more than 1 year (well, one semester if I felt like knocking them all at once), and all of the engineers I knew were most assuredly taking classes in the engineering school during their first two years. Hard classes. That I can’t say would compare to any of the classes at our CC. So it’s true, I DON’T really understand how engineering/math majors go about transferring unless they want to start from square 1 once they’ve transferred in terms of the requirements for the major. It’s much easier to self study for the social sciences/english/etc. because while those subjects are hard in their own way, they don’t require a lot of building up of skills over your entire four years. If you’re inherently smart at reading/writing you can probably go straight from high school or CC into a 400 level class in English and do fine…but you can’t really go straight from CC into a 400-level circuits class…what about the 300 or 200-level pre-reqs? Hah.</p>

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<p>^Some people see CC as a positive. Like the guy is as smart as his peers at the top school with similar GPAs, yet he had to work up the ladder and didn’t have things handed to him. This country likes the Scranton kid who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, not the kid from Greenwich who drives around in a BMW.</p>

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<p>Go to the community college. They will have a 2+2 transfer agreement with any state university. There is a common course system used by all universities. There is no shame going to a 2 year college. It is the same as a 4 year institution. Those that say otherwise don’t know what they are talking about. Take the first 60 hours of your major. That is the history, english, language and through calculus II (math). Check with the counselors and they will provide you with a list of the courses that will transfer for any college major.
Good luck.</p>

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<p>I think the high GPA from UMCP would carry a lot of weight. If they managed to do some interesting research and take some advanced electives in subjects that I cared about, they’d probably get a phone screen. I suspect though that with the CC start it is not likely that they would be in a great position to do those things. </p>

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<p>Not on the face of it, but the person who did 4 years at UMD probably got off to a faster start and had an opportunity to go further. It really depends on the actual beef that’s on the resume.</p>

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<p>“This country likes the Scranton kid who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, not the kid from Greenwich who drives around in a BMW.”</p>

<p>That’s certainly how my parents look at hiring, they definitely have a “bootstraps” attitude about it, where they love seeing things like CC/paid my way through school/working a lot of hours as a waitress or doing hard labor/etc. over “captain of the debate team” or “cushy government internship my dad got me” or even over research done early freshman/sophomore year.</p>

<p>But I can see how there might be TECHNICAL difficulties with going to a CC for engineers. I mean, there’s ENES100 and some other class that freshmen here take their first and second semesters. And most ENES majors (that’s electrical engineering btw) would have taken Calc II by the end of their freshman year, not sophomore year…at least here. It seems like CC would put you behind in highly technical majors, not saying you wouldn’t be able to catch up, but I can see classicrockerdad’s point.</p>

<p>But OP is an economics/poli sci major right? Again there might not be a lot of classes offered in that field at CC…at least not for 2 years…I would say going to CC for one year might be ok but it seems you’d run out of classes after that :P. Well he’d def. have to check the classes and program out to make sure he wouldn’t fall behind. OP, have you checked it out? What’s it look like? ;).</p>

<p>Good news is I’m pretty sure there’s high chances for you getting into UMCP after even simply 1 semester at CC…provided you got like straight As in decent classes, but I don’t see any need to waste more time than necessary there.</p>

<p>That might be a good compromise between classicrockerdad’s point and others’.</p>

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<p>^^ I went to CC as a poli sci major. I needed two prereqs to declare the major upon transferring, which I met easily with a few poli sci classes to spare. I was busy finishing my gen eds anyway. English, science, math, humanities, social sciences, foreign language, etc. There were PLENTY of those. And we had seriously like 50 different sections in some courses, it was even easier to get the courses I wanted there than it would have been here at Michigan,</p>

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<p>Exactly, and I can see how that’s true with other majors too. I think the same material can be covered at varying degrees of depth in the same amount of time. At the more rigorous schools, I think there is an opportunity to go at a faster pace and get more out of it. At CC, I think there is a limit as to how rigorous things can get. </p>

<p>I prefer the Scranton kid who is hungry too. The Greenwich kid is often off to Wall St or an MBA. No need to actually engineer anything.</p>

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<p>Something that is to your advantage is that with base realignment in Maryland, the state is working on some good programs at the community colleges. STEM (science, math, engineering, math) programs are being developed at the community colleges and you might benefit from that. There are also scholarships available and you may be competitive for some of that money. Because the government is such a large employer in Maryland, it may be different from the standpoint of what is being emphasized at the community colleges. You might go over to your local CC and talk to the STEM coordinator. You might be very pleasantly surprised by what is available and the work that is being done to ease the transition for base realignment. Don’t be too disappointed and don’t think that the CC option is the worst that could happen. You are in a great area of the country. Our local CC in Maryland had a Coca-Cola scholarship winner last year and music students heading to Maryland and Peabody. Good luck.</p>

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<p>I really can’t come back to this thread. I just feel too sad for the discrimination against my students.</p>

<p>Some say they are not, but they are.</p>

<p>The life stories of some of these students might have an impact on the judgments made. The level of responsibility some have in their personal lives (usually far greater than the kids mom and dad are sending to a four year school – mind included) and a glimpse into their work might change your minds, but it might not.</p>

<p>I can assure you that some of what I read here is discrimination even if there seems to be rational justifications for it.</p>

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<p>Sigh. This is adding all sorts of things beyond the original post.</p>

<p>My understanding of the initial post that brought about this debate was that assuming all the upper division grades were the same, and let’s assume all the research, and work experience, and upper division classwork, and GPA were identical, the CC attendance for the first two years would immediately relegate the resume to the reject pile. I think that’s shortsighted. </p>

<p>I will admit that I have also not seen a huge number of resumes featuring CC. That doesn’t mean that some applicants just chose not to put it on the resume. But the people who have burned me in the past, for example (and there were only a couple) have been the superstars who came in and stayed a couple years then moved on to greener pastures, went back to academia, or hung out hteir own shingle with a some colleagues. Now, granted their numbers are not great, but I’ve never had that experience with somebody who maybe took a brief sabatical and started back at CC to get their feet wet, or who were supporitng a family and going to school at night.</p>

<p>As for myself, I went four year school the whole way, my only experience with a CC was taking classes my senior year of high school and teaching Visual Basic.</p>

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<p>The course titles and descriptions are a little vague, so I really can’t tell. I will probably place out of the Intro Courses (AP Credit) and there seem to be very little advanced classes. Math courses are pretty good (Up to Linear Algebra - and I plan to retake Calc I). There are a lot of History courses too. 2 years theoretically wouldn’t be a problem, but I agree, I should probably transfer out after 1 year. I heard the longer you’re out of HS, the less your HS record matters…that’s more or less why 2 years @ CC look so attractive.</p>

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<p>Your understanding is not correct. Hopefully, I’ve since clarified my original post. Hypothetically, if everything was the same, it would be the same result. I personally have never seen that. My experience in seeing resumes had CC followed by a lower tier school. Always. I have never seen a resume with a CC on it make high enough in my pile for me to do a phone screen. Maybe because they eventually went to a better program they got good advice to take it off there and I just didn’t know. I don’t recall the issue ever coming up. None of the people that work for me went to CC. </p>

<p>Hopefully sharing my actual experience provides some insight. </p>

<p>I am open to a better approach but I haven’t heard one, just criticism.</p>

<p>We can debate whether my approach is specific to engineering, and I argue that it isn’t. Actually, I think it’s even more of an issue in finance and investment management, so DW and Hmom5 have said. If an employer gets a stack of resumes and ranks them, I think that those that have pushed themselves further will rank higher. How you fared and what you accomplished in the context of the quality of your program and the quality of your competition is sometimes the only thing an employer of entry-level people has to go on. To say that it should not be a factor I think is incorrect and wishful thinking.</p>

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<p>ClassicRocker: In a few years you may finally see those CC-to-prestigious college resumes come across your desk. With the economic downturn, more students of all ability levels are choosing less expensive alternatives like CC.</p>

<p>The '09 graduating class from our extremely wealthy HS district had more students heading to our local CC than in prior years. These were kids who would have headed to 4-year colleges in the past. </p>

<p>I am not an engineer so I cannot judge if you are discriminating along a relevant dimension. It sounds like you evaluate your applicants on objective, concrete criteria. There is safety and wisdom in that approach. The sorts of unique and valuable contributions a non-traditional student may offer are difficult to discern on a resume, I would imagine. You don’t give them a chance to shine if they don’t get a phone screen. </p>

<p>This thread has me a bit worried, I must confess. We had entertained thoughts of having our second daughter attend a CC to fulfill basic educational requirements. She is young and immature, and we have suffered a grave financial setback. CC seemed a logical consideration. Now I am not so sure if it means she will be scrutinized and viewed in an unfavorable light by potential employers, at least initially. It is difficult enough to find a job – I would hate to guide her toward a decision that would make it any harder for her. </p>

<p>Sorry to have veered from the OP’s question.</p>

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<p>I’m pretty sure there’s not been a single comment on this thread saying that anyone would discriminate against seeing CC on an application - in fact the consensus is that you get hired BEFORE an application is even seen. </p>

<p>The problem seems to lie in the fact that some people are concerned that going to a CC could put you behind - ex. you may have 1 or 2 years less to network with professors, pursue research activities, rise to leadership positions in a club, etc. Or there may be concerns that the classes wouldn’t be rigorous enough, though I think that’s going to depend on the student and the CC combination. All of these things take some time/acclimation and for a really good student, it’s better to get them started at uni right away so they can start building the groundwork for a stronger resume earlier on. </p>

<p>But there are two things you present that make the case different. One, you say she’s young and immature. So going to CC might actually IMPROVE her career chances if she is able to progress into better studying habits there and therefore earn better grades at the 4 yr when she transfers. This sounds like the case for the OP - not only does he want to improve his chances at a top school, but he wants to do well at said school when he gets there, and he knows he could use some work when it comes to focusing on school. Building skills for success in college, especially when it comes to grades, it going to be more important than a year you couldn’t be sucking up to profs (not a lot of freshmen do that anyway) or being in a club.</p>

<p>Two, you say you’re having financial problems…debt could set her back from relocating to find good jobs, for instance, or could prevent her from going to grad school (or prevent you from assisting a little in either of these things). Both of which again, can be greatly more important than what you gain by opting for a 4-yr.</p>

<p>So, there are positives and negatives, and it seems you just have to weigh them in every circumstance.</p>

<p>Other things to consider: will she be angry/resistant, or is it something she would understand is a good fit, like OP? Will she be able to fit in socially once she transfers to the better school? (I.e. is she good at making friends, is there on-campus housing, etc.). </p>

<p>What I wanted to do was apply to school, defer admission for a year, and spend that time taking classes part time at CC and working. Then, I could potentially graduate a year early (with AP credits combined with the part time school for a year), saving money, but I could still also get into the freshman dorms and have that same bonding experience and whatnot.</p>

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<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, I’m sorry for your difficulties. These are scary times indeed. I hope you are right that those kids that are financially forced to go the CC route will start rising through the ranks. </p>

<p>Also keep in mind, that I can afford to hire people at the top of their game. There are plenty of firms that need to be less selective. They typically pay less. That shouldn’t be too surprising. </p>

<p>As for your D, CC seems perfectly appropriate for an immature kid, I hope she matures. My sister was too immature and flunked out of a 4-yr college and ended up at a 2-yr college for an early childhood degree. </p>

<p>My concern for the OP was that he scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. In many countries that would be enough to put him in the upper echelon of higher education. The OP applied to UChicago, one of the most rigorous schools in the nation and got deferred. The rigor of his HS load demonstrates his determination to challenge himself. Combine the ambition, desire for challenge and the potential demonstrated by the ACT, and I feel like he would be selling himself short not to at least try to get into a school that will nurture and challenge him and allow him to meet people from all over the country and the world and learn from their experiences. If it doesn’t work out, he has a backup plan. </p>

<p>I’m sorry for any anxiety I may have caused.</p>

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<p>Some more words of advice for the OP: Make sure that you really apply yourself and good grades during your senior year. If you want to transfer colleges, whether it is from a CC or a 4-yr school, your complete high school transcript will be examined. A solid senior year - mostly A’s, a few B’s, no C’s or D’s - would be very helpful, especially if you want to transfer quickly.</p>

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<p>Well, this is what led me to my original discussion -</p>

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<p>It appears this position may have changed somewhat, I guess.</p>

<p>However, I then read this -</p>

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<p>I’m not going to go into details about where I have worked, or how much we pay, but believe me they are well known top firms and pay very well. Obviously, if your dream is to work at JPL the odds are probably not that great if you start at a CC. But I don’t think they improve significantly just by attending a mediocre 4 year university just because it happens to be a four year university.</p>

<p>So -

  1. As I think I’ve said before - If you can find a decent, reasonably priced four year university, I’d go there. There is a lot about a four year university that is beneficial - the ambience, opportunities, enthusiasm maybe. But there are a lot of lousy four year schools too.</p>

<ol>
<li>Will the mere blemish of a CC on your resume hurt your future employment prospects? Apparently, in some cases it will. I wouldn’t have thought so until I read this thread, but I guess I was wrong. However, if it comes across my desk you’ll get a shot.</li>
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<p>^But wasn’t that a misunderstanding? </p>

<p>ClassicRockerDad said, in the end, it comes down to the resume…he just said a TREND he noticed was that those from CCs didn’t have as good resumes. He’s suggesting it might be causation, not just correlation, as if CC less prepares even bright students, but he’s not saying just the fact that a CC is on there would hurt your chances, everything else equal.</p>

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<p>^^^^
Like I said, it seems he’s clarified his position. But that’s what I got from the original post, and that’s what I was responding to.</p>