<p>Like everyone is saying, it depends on the college. There are some great ones. Given the current financial climate, community colleges should boom.</p>
<p>As long as you have a plan on what college you want to transfer to and their requirements, CC is a good route to take.</p>
<p>How is georgia perimeter college?</p>
<p>I would say it’s what you make of it. I am about to start my 4th semester at a CC (South Texas College) & before I even started I made a list of goals I felt I needed to achieve in order to transfer to a decent/solid university. I’ve reached almost everyone of my goals & I’m having a blast. I’m taking Honors classes & have been blessed to have a very good rapport with my professors. I regularly visit them at their office and I’m allowed to participate quite a bit in class discussions. I was even a founding member of the history club (it’s my major). I would say I’ve gotten a LOT of my undergraduate/core curriculum classes more so than if I had been in a class with 100+ students as in a big college. It’s looking good to the point I’ll probably be transferring to Texas A & M University for Fall 20104.</p>
<p>Community college is centered around the people who are typically not university level yet. That being said, I don’t think the courses are uni quality because of the following:</p>
<p>A.) Huge mix of people, and I don’t mean ethnicity wise. You have a range from high school cut ups who just barely got their diploma or GED and freak out at a 5 page paper to the AP monsters who either didn’t get the scholarships they need or don’t want to move away. Naturally, CC’s focus on the middle ground. A lot of them don’t have study habits and put off stuff to the last minute like in HS.</p>
<p>B.) Weak grading policy. Out of most of my classes, I’ve been getting high A’s on everything just by studying a few days to a week before the test. No need for consistent study. And to be honest, if you want a C in a class all you need to do is pick a well rated professor and listen in class, do homework if it counts, and study a bit. And I’m taking English with a “tough” professor, her ratings were almost all how she graded harshly and people got low grades, but we are taught well along with many students not being completely dimwitted.</p>
<p>C.) Mediocrity complacency. It’s almost common place to procrastinate, tell people about it, and blow off grades. Mostly because C’s get degrees runs rampant. The easy grades, low bar set, and lack of incentives really hurts productivity. The smarter kids usually realize even if they get into UVA or whatever, they are not as likely to get into their desired program. </p>
<p>D.) Adjunct faculty. This means they don’t work there full time or simply don’t stay long, whichever it is I don’t like it. Professors come and go too quickly and a group of students can easily get screwed by a REALLY bad professor, IE one that doesn’t teach, is off topic all class, or just doesn’t show up.</p>
<p>If you can go to a college, don’t be afraid to just go to a lower ranked one and take a nice scholarship instead of going only for W&M, UVA, etc. Even if you don’t like huge gen eds, they really aren’t that bad considering the shortfalls of CC.</p>
<p>Only use CC if you blew your GPA into the ground in Freshman or Sophomore year and don’t have a means of really getting anywhere.</p>
<p>CC student here. I am currently located in the Los Angeles area. Let me give you my perspective as I have spoken to many friends who enrolled into more of the reputable UC schools and how their experience has compared to mine. The student to teacher ratio is MUCH lower in a community college compared to UCLA and Irvine. This allows a student to actually have 1v1 talks with their professor and actually get to know them. They will even go out of their way to extend office hours and in one case I went out to lunch with my polisci professor. All my professors have come from reputable schools and tend to have many life experiences that make the instructors at the CC superior to the TAs my friends are getting at the UCs. It is almost laughable how much more they are paying for an inferior education when society has it backwards that University’s are the way to go right out of highschool. THIS IS A LIE unless you are going to a private school where you actually get what you pay for. I have had one chemistry professor who conducted research and taught at Caltech. Another polisci professor who worked for the CIA and taught at USC for most of his career. It is what you make of it. There are alot of kids there because their parents make them go who could not care less about their education and alot of adults. I would label about 10% of the population at my community college as actual intellects or scholars. Depending on what CC you attend, mine being college of the canyons. You have a higher rate of transfering than any other highschool or CC around. They even have programs that pretty much gurantee admission into schools like UCLA and not that many people take advantage of them so you will be more than likely to get into your school of choice. By the time you transfer, your going to be in all the classes where the student-teacher ratio has dropped compared to students who transferred right out of highschool. I am only one person and can only inhabit one perspective but after talking to many friends at UCI, berkley, and UCLA I am sure that going to a CC for your freshman and sophomore year is much more cost efficient and will not affect your education negatively. Message me if you want any more information regarding programs like TAP (guranteed admission to ucla from CCs) or transfer rates at different CCs.</p>
<p>barakasauras, your comment “Only use CC if you blew your GPA into the ground in Freshman or Sophomore year and don’t have a means of really getting anywhere.” is pretty short sighted. How about people who dont want to blow $50k+ for their freshman and sophomore years when they can get a better interpersonal and CHEAPER education at a CC. Unless you are going to a private school; DO NOT GO TO A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY FOR YOUR FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEAR.</p>
<p>Perhaps my experience is rare but all my professors were extremely knowledgeable and the only adjunct one I had was the Caltech guy I had for chemistry. Yes, his teaching was bad but after talking to him he is very smart and I have had been to enough office hours to make up for the slacked teaching. Before everybody grabs their pitchforks, my point is, is that going to a California community college is superior to going to a public university the first two years. It is a matter of preferring a large lecture room with TAs and 50+students for your freshman and sophomore in addition to the cost compared to a classroom at a CC that at most will have 30 students where the professors come from all walks of life and experiences. I did not have an instructor that was not willing to go the extra mile to help a student.</p>
<p>Well, I am a pre med student here at a community college and just recently finished a medical program at UCLA over the summer.</p>
<p>I am taking OChem right now and I have a lab partner who came from a UC and she literally said, “I came here thinking the classes would be easier but it seems that I have to work harder than what I did at thE UC.”</p>
<p>Our professor graduate from Berkeley and got a PhD in Chem for crying out loud. Community Colleges have good professors as well!</p>
<p>Forty years ago, if a student went to community college in my state, it was seen as a sign that, ‘You couldn’t get into a ‘real’ college’ – implying that four-year programs were the only ones worthy of our attention. My pals and I would laugh at the thought of attending a community college. As someone who now teaches at a two-year school, I wish I had started at one myself back then. Yes, the irony of it. I would be on a different professional track, and would have gotten a very high-quality education in the field I originally wanted. Community colleges often have smaller classes, great tutoring assistance, and as several people have posted, good developmental/ ESOL programming. The teachers are just as educated and dedicated as what one can find in four-year schools, and the students who attend my school transfer to programs all around the country. The only drawback is that our system is totally commuter-based. There are no dorms, so that piece of a ‘freshman’ experience can be missing for someone who wants to live away from home. A lot of our students do live in apartments near campus, but just as many live at home. Also, while we have lots of clubs and organizations, we don’t have sororities/frats. Thus, there are aspects of it that are different at times from a four-year college experience. Two-year schools can be more affordable, have technical majors that other colleges don’t, and can get people into good careers at a fraction of the cost/time of a four-year college/ university. That’s my two cents.</p>
<p>It really depends. I went to a community college in the central valley and my experience was pretty great. You get what you make it out of it. I know that the CC I used to go to is getting more and more competitive because some can’t afford all 4 years and it’s much cheaper. But you have to deal with CCs that are so full you can’t get all the classes you need.</p>
<p>Education wise, the STEM classes I took (physics, math, chem) were on par with the UCs. Actually I would go as far to say they were HARDER than the UCs. I’ve actually compared tests with my friends who’ve gone to “bigger and better” straight outta high school and I was easily to do their test like it was nothing. They had trouble with mine. I’ve never felt that I was undersold an education at my CC since I got UCI. For that matter, neither did any of my friends who went to Cal Poly SLO, UCB, or UCLA. I can’t say that for UCI.</p>
<p>It’s also great if you want to get out in 2 years for a technical job. I was considering this (still kind of am) and the ability to take all-online classes and work (or not) at the same time makes it so incredibly attractive to some people.</p>
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Ha it’s funny. I remember this chick that was from UC Davis who drove an hr away to my CC to take Calc 2. She really honestly believed that it was gonna be stupid easy and was so super cocky about it but she couldn’t have been any more wrong. She always complained about the work, failed the tests miserably and ended up dropping from the class.</p>