Curriculum Plan at Community College

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

<p>I'm a College Now student, so I'm technically somewhat of a High School Senior/College Freshmen hybrid. I have my first meeting with a transfer counselor on January 2nd, but I'm dying to know a little bit prior to my meeting with her. </p>

<p>I want to be able to transfer within two years, using fall-08 as my first semester. I'm a business major.</p>

<p>Before my "first" semester I will have completed the following:</p>

<p>Econ 101 (Macro)
Spanish 102
Political Science 103 (U.S. Government)
Cultural Anthropology
U.S. History
......and most likely a couple of Arts/Humanities requirements over this summer. </p>

<p>So Areas 6 (Foreign language), CSU required American Institutions/History, and Area 4 (Social Sciences) will all be done, and I will only need one more class to complete area 3 (Arts/Humanities). </p>

<p>So in my first semester I think I should complete Area 5 (Physical/Bio Science), which is 7 units, (Astronomy 100, Physical Antrhopology, + lab) and the last course for Humanities, which will be Spanish 103 (5). </p>

<p>My second semester I can complete Area 1 (English-9 units) and get started on math. I have to take Applied Calculus and Elementary Statistics, although I will have to start at Geometry most likely, being that I will have forgotten a lot of math at that point. </p>

<p>At that point, I will be done with IGETC, and get focused on all my major prereqs from that point on. My major prereqs will be the following:</p>

<p>Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting
Business Law
Economics 101
Economics 102
Applied Calc
Elementary Statistics</p>

<p>.....Both Econ classes will already have been completed, so we can omit those. The rest will be pure math. I'm not sure on the math sequence however. Assuming I start off at Geometry, what classes will I have to take to get to Applied Calculus? </p>

<p>And does this sound like a good plan, or should I go back to the drawing board. Also, I plan on taking summer classes, and working about 20 hours per week during the school year. </p>

<p>I appreciate all the advice I can get.</p>

2

<p>it seems fine to me, i'm sure there are some things to work out with the counselor, but the only thing I don't like about it is it seems you put all your fun classes into one basket and all your work classes into another basket. Basically you're taking all of the fun classes now, and then your last two semesters are going to be all generally 'difficult' classes.</p>

<p>Make sure you take good teachers! I was a business major and one terrible econ teacher changed that forever aha darn you Mr. Olds!</p>

<p>As for the math classes...i'm not sure. What math did you get up to in high school? I'd recommend going to the different community colleges in your area and picking up samples of their math placement tests. There should be different levels, so try to find one you can do pretty well. Don't do the easy ones because you can only get placed so high even if you do really well. One thing about community colleges is they are all a little different in their placement systems (at least in different districts). So I was able to place really high in math at one community college and only moderately at another. The glory of this? Most CC's let you bring placement tests from other schools instead of taking them there. So if you bomb a placement exam just study up and try again elsewhere.</p>

<p>At least for me, math comes back really quick, so if you've already learned it once but have just been out of practice i'd recommend against starting at the bottom and working your way up, and rather get put at the middle/top and just refresh yourself through hard work.</p>

<p>Did you check your CC website for a math sequence? Some have them posted, if not i'm sure your counselor will know</p>

3

<p>Well yeah, I just figured I'd get all the easy/fun ones out of the way, so as to make sure and get a solid 4.0 my first year, rather than having to devote extra studying time to the more difficult classes, at the expense of the classes where I'd have a "for-sure" A. </p>

<p>I think the math sequence is as follows:</p>

<p>Geometry
Algebra II
College Algebra
Applied Calc</p>

<p>I'll probably have to go back and take Geometry, as I've probably forgotten nearly everything. </p>

<p>And BTW, there's only one CC in my area. I live about 30 miles south of San Luis Obispo.</p>

4

<p>your plans looks great but my schedule
for winter:english literature/cultural anthropology
for spring:gen. chem1/gen. physics1/archelogy
little bit too much or good enough?</p>

5

<p>NO your plan does not look good. DO NOT DO THAT!</p>

<p>You should take english and math 1st, dont put that off, you will screw up your two year plan. </p>

<p>If you need to take that much math, that is easily going to add up to over 2 semesters of math. If you start with geometry you will need to take college algebra+trig (offered in 1 or 2 semesters depending on school) then you will able to take stats and calc courses. </p>

<p>If you need 9 units of English that is 3 courses based on semester system. Two of them will be in sequence, and thus take a year to complete. </p>

<p>For the Bio/Physics section, what course do you start at? IGETC requires the GENERAL of each not the prep or intro ones. In a lot of community colleges you will either need to pass the intro/prep course or take an exam to register for the general version of the course. </p>

<p>You need to know where you stand in terms of math/english/sciences courses b4 making a plan like this. And no matter what, get out classes that have preqs first, and do the courses like humanaties and arts last.... only one of those is required usually, they arent in sequence</p>

<p>when you say "complete english in second semester" it is not possible, you will at most be able to take english 1 + communications. Then there is an upper level english requirment on IGETC, for which English 1 is a pre req. Unless you test out of english 1 that semester will not work</p>

6

<p>I can perhaps take English 101 AND critical thinking (Philosophy-Critical Thinking) in the same semester. Perhaps I can just request such a thing from the instructor. I skipped Spanish 101 without ever taking a Spanish class in High School, and without passing any tests, because I talked to the professor and she approved it ahead of time. </p>

<p>Oh, and are business courses like financial accounting and managerial accounting and business law, okay to take online, or would those be the kind of courses which require on-site attendance to learn thouroughly?</p>

7

<p>yeah you really need to hammer out sequence courses. Doesn't the Logic class have the english prereq also?</p>

<p>I wouldn't suggest taking any major pre-req classes online unless you are a dedicated student who knows how to self-educate very well. I leave the online classes to the IGETC gen ed.</p>

<p>For your first semester i'd recommend English(3), Math(3), Science+Lab(4), Language(5) = 15 units, thats full time right? If working makes this schedule a little too packed for you I'd suggest dropping the science class, but that puts you at 11 units. If you use Ratemyprofessor, and get some respectable teachers who aren't going to waste your time I think this is very doable and you could still get a 4.0. But yeah you should really do math/eng chains first.</p>

8

<p>I have taken a lot of courses online. I DO NOT recommend accounting online EVER. Also if your community college is good they will most likely have financial be a prereq for managerial. ... it is bes to take them in sequence. Accounting does require understand of all the little ins and outs and it is best to take it in a classroom especially if it is your major.</p>

<p>Second..... you want a BALANCED schedule every semester. You do not want to take 9 units of english. You will end up having to write about 12 papers in one semester. That is poor planning on your part. ... and no one is going to pity you if you end up with B's where you could have had A's.</p>

<p>You need to always have at least 1 easy class as filler in your schedule, one math or science that requires lots of work and one english . </p>

<p>You are getting overly confident and ahead of yourself. Community college is not hard, but it does require effort and good planning if you truly want out in two years. ... most students do not test into the courses that let them out in two years, most have prereq to meet b4 they get to transferable courses. Additionally, you need 60 units so you want to leave some filler class space as well.</p>

9

<p>Malishka,
Thank you for your advice. Also, in summer school, working 20 hours a week, how much of a workload is too much? Do you think two eight week courses over the summer would be too hard? They would be easy classes like humanities or art of course.</p>