<p>^ Ha ha ha. They certainly could be there forever! Don’t tell me you haven’t met someone on your ccc campus who has been there for like 9 years!</p>
<p>hahaha ive met someone there thats been there for 11 years and another who’s been there like 10. The guy with 11 years just transferred out to CSU East Bay.</p>
<p>One of my friends stayed at CC for 6 years and got into Cal last year. He was a chemical engineering major and worked full time as a mechanic at a BMW dealership. I guess taking only 5-9 units a semester really helped him keep his GPA at a 3.8.</p>
<p>I don’t like it at all. You don’t get a great education. For example, as an English major, I can tell you that professors have such low expectations of students that they inflate grades like crazy…and I attend the 4th best CC in California…</p>
<p>Yes, they are THAT bad. My biggest complaint is the student body, I swear I know 10 year old who would be able to do better in classes than these people. Because of this, professors are forced to dumb down what they teach, and greatly lower their expectations and standards. I really worry that when I transfer to UCLA ( or where ever) that I won’t be at all prepared to compete with the “homegrown students”. I find a lot of the tests I take to be an insult to my intelligence.</p>
<p>I bet theduck is in remedial classes.</p>
<p>I feel like a lot of people who don’t enjoy the education they receive in CC are in classes in which the majority of people DGAF.
Night classes have a lot more adults/mature students. Remedial classes have a lot of HS drop outs etc.
Either way I try to avoid group projects at all costs. </p>
<p>Or they aren’t choosing the right teachers.
I might be biased however because I attend SMC. There’s a good variety in teachers.</p>
<p>Some standout UC level teachers I’ve taken –
Naficy: Does some really interesting research on animal intelligence if you take biological anthropology. UCLA doctorate and works in their anthro department.
Schultz: Is a lawyer and taught poli sci at UCLA for 20-ish years. Helps prepare you for 10+ page research papers at the UC level.</p>
<p>They’re mixed in with the teachers who can’t teach and the spoon-feeding ones however. But CC isn’t all too bad.</p>
<p>Don’t matter how easy the class at CC, you still can’t get an A without studying. Nothing is given free.</p>
<p>^ My history teacher last quarter at my cc gave no hw and before exams, gave us all the answers to the exam the day prior. Exams were open note too so as long as you attended class the day before the test and jotted down the answers, you were golden. He is also a Berkeley phd who teaches at Cal and SJSU. I didn’t learn much in that class but I personally don’t think Native American history is necessary for a biz student anyway. Easiest “A” ever, it was pretty much “free.”</p>
<p>I agree with everything iTransfer wrote.</p>
<p>The only thing I would like to add for the OP is that regardless of what your high school peers think of you now because of your plan, within months or by the end of the year they are bound to never be in your life again. There are some down falls to cc(i would mainly attribute this to some of the peers you’ll have at CC, but you also encounter this everywhere you go, later on in life as well), but I tend to think a lot of those who are disappointed with the experience are so because they have that mentality from the gecko and refuse to look at the positive aspects. Going in with a desire to have non academic interests(like, the media glamorized “college experience”) will prevent you from looking at things objectively.
I completely appreciated CC, and will probably continue to attend after I graduate from UCLA to take side night classes just for fun.</p>
<p>Disagree on the unqualified teachers bit, my professors last semester had PhDs from Minnesota and UCLA. Going back before that, my Calc I professor was a Stanford grad and a former high school teacher. Considering that she copied her curriculum from AP Calc to community college, I wouldn’t say that CC is easier than high school.</p>
<p>Agree with LogicWarrior. I’ve had fabulous professors and not so great ones. There are definitely quality instructors to be found at a CC.</p>
<p>^ yeah, ive had some great teachers at CC, like awesomee, prolly never have better teachers that some of them ever again lol, good times.</p>
<p>Theduck is not in remedial classes…</p>
<p>however, despite not being a hue fan of CCs, I must disagree with whom ever said that teachers are under qualified. This coming semester I have people with Phd’s for both Cal and UCLA.</p>
<p>I go to Sacramento City College and I love it here. It is one of the best CC’s in the state, and I made more friends in 3 years than I did in high school. I am also a lot more motivated in my academics unlike in high school where all I cared about was friends and guy drama. I know what my goals are, and the professors here have been really helpful and passionate with what their chosen subject . And even though junior colleges are total commuter schools, I tried making the most of what I had on campus by getting involved in these activities and working on campus.</p>
<p>Yeah, most people are in community college and don’t deserve to be there because all they wanna do is screw around. But it also is truly a place for 2nd chances. I really enjoyed my time here, although this year is a time to move to bigger and better places. And it is a total money saver too!!</p>
<p>I agree that the teachers at CC are great and there is definitely a lower price tag on the education you receive.</p>
<p>However, for me high school was much harder than CC. I used to get 5 or so hours of sleep a night in high school because of the difficulty of classes. Now that I am at Diablo Valley College, most of the time I spend only a couple of hours a day on homework and studying, and I took 18 units fall semester. I find that it is much more difficult at CC to make friends, because no one has the same class times as you, and thus no one has the same times off to do things together. Sure, making connections in class is not too difficult, but maintaining them once class has ended is a problem for me. Coming from high school with a GPA and test scores that could have gotten me into a good 4 year university, I feel like I could definitely have made a better choice of college. A lot of students are unmotivated. The older, non-traditional students seem to be the exception to this. However, this could be a good thing, because it is easier to be recognized by teachers when not everyone is fighting to beat the curve.</p>
<p>I’d like to add my experience.</p>
<p>There’s definitely a measurable difference between community colleges, even in a community as small as one city. A college only 15 miles away from another can be vastly different based on curriculum, academic performance, transfer rates.</p>
<p>For example, in my hometown there’s a community college called Imperial Valley College. The transfer rate is abysmal, the retention rate is really high and the graduation rate is low too. It’s something like 15% transfer, 10% graduation and 75% retention. </p>
<p>But at San Diego Mesa college, the transfer rate is something like 20% with a 15% graduation rate or something. Facts like that, especially when you consider that community colleges admit a much higher amount of students than a university, can be a pretty big number. </p>
<p>The other thing you have to look at, are certifications, professor’s previous teaching history, any news they have circulating the campus. The college I went to before going to the one I’m going to now, had a lot of news about the president being incompetent, professors giving out easy A’s and it wasn’t TAP acknowledged. The Phi Theta Kappa charter had been inactive for 3 years. But it did have a highly competitive chemistry department that even UCSD respects.</p>
<p>So in the end, it all depends. </p>
<p>Here’s what I can say for sure:
- You save a lot of money. Especially if you qualify for the BOG waiver and Pell grant and Cal Grant (If you’re in California) or Hope scholarships if you’re in Georgia. </p>
<p>2) You can get a high GPA because you don’t have to worry about having a second job to pay for tuition.</p>
<p>3) You don’t have to worry about SAT scores or high school GPA, because universities consider your community college performance a “fresh start”. A lot of emotions and complications happen in high school, but community college shows you grew up.</p>
<p>4) You can change your mind about your major with “minor” repercussions. At a university, a drastic major change can have drastic ramifications like thousands of dollars in tuition and “fees”, books and you’re not even guaranteed to be accepted into that major/department.</p>
<p>5) You’re being taught by teachers, not TA’s. I took a calculus class at UCSD this quarter, and I might just drop it because only the lecture is with a professor, and the discussion and problem solving sessions are with a TA and the worst part is, we’re not getting the same TA in every class so how do we know we’re getting the best one? My TA definitely isn’t as confident in teaching as another TA. The worst part is, most TA’s don’t want to teach. They’re only teaching because it’s a requirement of graduate school. And no one can deny that teaching when you don’t want to teach seriously undermines your experience as a student. </p>
<p>But, like every decision, it’s not honest or realistic to only look at the positives, there are negatives:
- Going to a university as a freshmen is an amazing experience. You meet all kinds of people, you can join clubs that you’ll be a member of for four years. </p>
<p>2) You’re getting the same general education as everyone else, so you don’t have to worry about a professor expecting something that you didn’t learn. This is especially true with sequences like Chemistry (General Chem is 3 quarters at UC, but two semesters at CC). </p>
<p>3) You’re surrounded by more focused students. I can’t stress this enough. I was a bit of a loner because I didn’t enjoy the “high school gossip” mentality a lot of my coeds exhibited. I had friends, sure, but I was an outsider about my focus when it came to my education. I only knew one student who had a high GPA and he’s transferring to American University in Washington DC. At a UC, you’re surrounded by students who either worked hard to transfer there, or got there as freshmen so they have high SAT scores, disciplined study habits. </p>
<p>4) It’s much easier to make friends as a freshmen than a transfer. Of course, you can and will make friends, but it requires breaking that initial barrier. Some will see that as a benefit, but for people who are challenged with social encounters, this is a negative and a huge one. As a freshmen, everyone in the classes you’re taking has that common ground you can use to associate yourself with them. “Hey you’re a freshmen, I’m a freshmen too!” As a transfer student, not everyone in your classes will have that background, and you’ll want to make friends that aren’t transfer students, so you have to find a different way to meet. Plus they already have friends so they might not be AS eager to make friends as they were when they were first year.</p>
<p>I know it’s been a few months since the last post, but I just wanted to stay that it was a truly excellent one. That’s exactly the kind of response I was looking for, thanks.</p>
<p>In most cases I noticed if you want to actually learn something go to ratemyprofessors and search for the worst rated ones haha</p>
<p>^^ yep thats what i do.</p>