<p>For those of you that attended a community college and then transferred to a "real" university, how did the classes compare? Are classes at a CC easier than a 4 year college, or is that just a generalization/myth?</p>
<p>I'm also wondering about this. I'm moving from a CC to Northwestern. I'm sure the CC classes are easier (it's not a myth), but how much easier?</p>
<p>I've looked at MIT's opencourseware, for example, and I took the calc tests and physics tests, and I actually found them to be a bit easier because they are very neat and unambiguous... My CC teachers often write sloppy tests with errors that actually make them harder to take!!! The only difference is that, according to what I've read, the MIT teachers are a bit more exact in their time limits. CC teachers tend to let you stay after class if you want, and they often let you bring in an index card with notes. Also, the competition at a four year is much stiffer, so grading will be harder.</p>
<p>The big difference between CC's and 4-years (depending on the 4-year) is probably the humanities/english/social science courses. CC humanities teachers almost expect nothing out of their students. The reason is because the math/science classes at a CC are just much more selective. For example, I took the only differential equations class at my CC of about 10,000 students, and there were only about 19 kids in the class (and about 6 of the 19 were high-school kids looking for something good to put on their college apps!!). :D Everyone takes the humanities courses... They are a joke.</p>
<p>Allena should answer this!!! Haven't seen him on these boards for a while though...</p>
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I've looked at MIT's opencourseware, for example, and I took the calc tests and physics tests, and I actually found them to be a bit easier because they are very neat and unambiguous... My CC teachers often write sloppy tests with errors that actually make them harder to take!!!
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Yes. It angers me so much when tests have blatant errors, typos, completely irrelevent questions, etc. There is nothing worse than a multiple choice question where because of professor error there is actually no correct answer.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think your approach to "humanities/english/social science courses" is colored by your focus in math and sciences. If you take a variety of humanities courses at the community college level you see that it really varies; sometimes a class can be very rigorous. It's not wholesale humanities suck at CCs.</p>
<p>lol i agree. professors at my CC are incredibly accessible, which makes it kind of sad that i have to leave (apart from the fact that I wouldn't want a degree from a no-name college and I want to experience "real" college). I think that is what attracts me to LACs now...I'm not sure how well I could adjust if I became just another number.</p>
<p>Overall, I know several ppl that go to UT and have been doing awful in the math/science courses, yet they came back here and are taking Cal 3 with me and getting A's on the tests. So that made me kind of worried as to
1) am I in for a rude awakening when I get to a university and
2) do admissions people see CCs as inferior, so my 4.0 at my CC is like a 3.5 or something which would suck!</p>
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Yes. It angers me so much when tests have blatant errors, typos, completely irrelevent questions, etc. There is nothing worse than a multiple choice question where because of professor error there is actually no correct answer.
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<p>I've had only two teachers at my CC who had a PhD. One was very good. The other was a philosophy teacher who wrote the sloppiest tests you can imagine. Typos all over the place. It was obvious he typed his tests up in 10 or 15 minutes and didn't even bother to proof read. The questions were often ambiguous, but if I dared to point this out to him he would get very annoyed. I hate that bastard. lol I honestly don't know what they paid him for.</p>
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Anyway, I think your approach to "humanities/english/social science courses" is colored by your focus in math and sciences. If you take a variety of humanities courses at the community college level you see that it really varies; sometimes a class can be very rigorous. It's not wholesale humanities suck at CCs.
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<p>I admit, this is true. I had a very rigorous English teacher, for example. The problem is that if you are applying to transfer out, admissions offices don't have a clue if you took rigorous courses or the breeze-through variety. A 4.0 from a student that delibiretly sought out the easiest humanities teachers will be seen no differently than a 4.0 from a student who took the rigorous teachers. There are really no standards in the non-math/science courses, and that's the problem...</p>
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2) do admissions people see CCs as inferior, so my 4.0 at my CC is like a 3.5 or something which would suck!
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<p>Without a doubt they see a CC 4.0 as inferior. Your 4.0 will definitely not be a big deal for selective school admissions. If you are applying to elite schools, you're gonna have to show them something other than your gpa.</p>
<p>so academically, something else to balance my GPA would be test scores (SAT/ACT)? Right? I'm not sure what else could convince them that my GPA is not simply a result of easy courses at a CC, which it is not.</p>
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so academically, something else to balance my GPA would be test scores (SAT/ACT)? Right? I'm not sure what else could convince them that my GPA is not simply a result of easy courses at a CC, which it is not.
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<p>Teacher recommendations and really good essays. Also, things like being a tutor or some self-directed study will help. As long as everything "clicks," your 4.0GPA will be seen very positively, I think. What would make them scratch their heads is if you had the 4.0 GPA, mediocre essays, and generic teacher recommendations. </p>
<p>High SAT/ACT scores will also definitely help!</p>
<p>IA w/John. Get to know at least one of your profs really, really well (like one who you actually like, can have a great intellectual conversation with out of class and who you KNOW can write a good recommendation). Are you in something like Phi Theta Kappa? I think that could definitely help. Write a really good essay.</p>
<p>As for the quality of CC classes, yeah most of the humanities/social sciences are much easier than at elite four years. I went to Colgate before I went to CCP and I was really shocked at first by the fact that my humanities/social science classes were so much easier. I had tests with multiple choice questions (which I never had at Colgate). Even my Comp Sci exams at Colgate were short answer. Instead of having two-three 5-6 page papers and one 10, 15 or 20 page paper per course per semester, most of my classes had ONE 4-5 page paper per semester with maybe a 2-3 page essay stuck in somewhere.</p>
<p>I did take one science course at CCP which was my General Bio course which was actually really great. </p>
<p>As for SAT scores, I've read in a few books that the longer you are out of college, the less they count. Basically, your GPA and other things like prof. recs and essay(s) will be much more important.</p>
<p>thanks scoobygurl</p>
<p>My cousin is studying at a CC and one of my coworkers taught classes at CC as a side job. FYI: I live in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>I helped my cousin with her econ. Her exam was definitely a lot easier than mine at Northwestern. Other than a few harder ones, most questions ask for stuff that came straight out from the lecture notes--i.e., if you put in reasonable hours to study and memorize, you should find the test fairly easy. At Northwestern, the econ exams I took required you to think more. To get an A, you need hard work AND intelligence.</p>
<p>My coworker gives really lame exams to his geology class students and they are just bunch of straight forward MC and fill-in-the-blanks.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that I had a chem class where 2 of our 4 tests were group+open book tests!! That was the worst class I have ever experienced in my life. The teacher was completely incompetent (she shouldn't even be allowed to teach middle school). I shiver when I think about that class. I didn't learn crap about chemistry and I still got an A. (I mostly just winged it from my knowledge of physics and math.) </p>
<p>I can't wait till next semester at NU!</p>
<p>How could you possibly do chemistry using only physics and math? In general chem, you rarely use any math beyond basic algebra (except perhaps using integrals to derive integrated rate laws) and physics doesn't overlap with chem too much except for thermodynamics (and modern physics I've been told).</p>
<p>I guess I attend a bit better CC than most then. :)</p>
<p>My teachers have been quite knowledgeable. My Cal 3 teacher in particular got his PhD from UCSD and posts in math journals often, as well as my Cal 1 teacher.</p>
<p>Wow, I guess I'm kinda lucky then. </p>
<p>My community college has been great. All teachers except for one have had PhD's (intro. chem teacher only had a Master's), no open-book tests, and several term-papers (10-12 pages). Most answer emails within an hour or two, make themselves super-accesible for help, and are just really enthusiastic about the subjects they teach. I do have a tendency to pick the hard teachers from rate my professors, so maybe that has something to do with it. Overall though, I feel like it was definitely the right decision.</p>
<p>brand_182 & zpmqxonw:</p>
<p>Maybe I'm the one who is unlucky! At my school there were no math PhD's. All had their Master's. I thought this was the norm at CC's, but I guess not. But I'm not complaining about them... My math teachers were all pretty solid. My physics teacher, who was also very good, had a Master's from Yale... But no PhD.</p>
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How could you possibly do chemistry using only physics and math? In general chem, you rarely use any math beyond basic algebra (except perhaps using integrals to derive integrated rate laws) and physics doesn't overlap with chem too much except for thermodynamics (and modern physics I've been told).
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<p>LOL That's exactly the point, I shouldn't have been able to get away with it. I'm not saying I didn't learn elementary stuff like balancing chemical equations and drawing Lewis diagrams... But if you could correctly calculate molecular weights and stuff like that, you would be ahead of most of the class. If you understood heat capacities from physics, you would be even further ahead. The more complicated stuff like the orbitals and quantum mechanics was tested open book... So there was really no need to study. If I wasn't working 40 hours a week and taking 18 units, I probably would have learned the stuff on my own anyway. But it was a hectic time, so I cut some corners, didn't learn much chemistry, aimed for a B on each test, and thanks to the fact that lab and a short paper were about 35% of the grade, I got an A anyway. :D</p>
<p>I could have never gotten away with something like this for physics, calc, differential equations, or linear algebra! But I love those subjects... I don't really like chem. It's too haphazard and illogical. ("Here's a rule... Now here are a million exceptions" <em>bleh</em>)</p>
<p>I must be lucky then, my CC's math department is pretty darn good. I had a professor who previously taught at UCLA and several who works full time at JPL teaching at my CC as a part-time math professor. They often teach us the application of the math they taught.</p>
<p>One of the worst CC I've been to was in Los Angeles. I took a physics class there and the professor would test us on stuff he didn't lecture on or he would lecture the chapter to us right be before we take the test.</p>