<p>I am dismissed from UC Davis, with guaranteed readmission if I complete my lower divisions at a community college with a 3.1 or over. I always hear that community colleges are easier than universities, and, sometimes even high school. Is that true, from your experiences (if you have transferred from a cc to an UC)? Or if you have a peer or friend who has and has struggled after transferring to an UC? </p>
<p>In your opinion, do community colleges prepare their students for the rigor of UC's? I've heard that cc transfers often get lazy due to the lack of work of rigor in the cc's. I'm scared that I might fall behind after attending the cc's. How can I prevent that from happening? </p>
<p>I was lazy, which why I got dismissed. I discovered that my failure is caused by quite a few factors, including: poor reading skills, poor time management, lack of exercise, bad studying habits,and lack of willpower. I am training myself to change, self-studying and reading self-improvement books over the summer before attending community college. I hope that attending community colleges will not make me lazier.</p>
<p>In all honesty from my experience, CC can potentially be just as hard as a university or just as easy as high school. It really depends on the teachers you choose and your workload you plan to have. If you really want to prepare yourself for going back to the university, try to find the the best teachers you can take at your CC. You will find out a lot of professors at your CC are actually professors from universities—these professors will most likely teach the same way they do at the university level. At the same time, there a lot of crappy teachers that won’t care for preparing you for college–you just really need to do your research on ratemyprofessor and not take the easy way out. Content-wise, most classes taught at the CC level are the same as the university level, as long as they’re UC transferrable.
The other thing i would recommend is not take online classes. From my experience, all of my online classes were watered-down versions and didn’t really teach me anything or prepare me at all for the next class in the subject. The only plus-side to online classes is that they kind of help you with your time management skills since most online classes have a strict deadline for turning in stuff. </p>
<p>On what you said about cc transfers getting lazy from CC…
I actually think the exact opposite. While there are definitely a lot of lazy students in the CC level who end up staying at that level for an extended amount of time, there are definitely a lot of hardworking students who are extremely focused on transferring. Statistically, transfer students have a higher graduation rate than students that enrolled from freshman year. I believe many transfers that have successfully transferred to a UC usually have a better study habit and often are more determined to graduate quicker since transfers often spend extra time in school than a regular 4 year student.</p>
<p>So in the end, I believe CC is not too different from the university. The classes you will take are exactly the same class you’ll see at the university. However, it’ll be an excellent time to refine your study habits and work on self-improvement. Use the experience to push yourself towards a better person, a better student, and towards a deeper desire of getting your degree.</p>
<p>It depends. CC won’t magically make you become ‘prepared’ for a UC; rather you make yourself ready for a UC. The key to doing well is self-discipline, study, sacrifice, stay on top of your work (don’t procrastinate), and attend all the lectures.</p>
<p>It depends. If you use ratemyprofessors you can make sure you are in challenging, but fair classes. You can also find easy As. Just depends.</p>
<p>For the record, I have taken several lower div classes at Berkeley and I did just fine. I had an A in both of them, then completely skipped the last week of class (it was a 6 week class lol) and ended up with Bs. I just completed 2 upper div classes at UCB (8 units in 6 weeks) and got a B+ and A- while working 30 hrs/week.</p>
<p>Oh and by the way, I only did 2 years of high school and didn’t get good grades. So all of my education has been self taught or at community college.</p>
<p>It depends on the community college and major. </p>
<p>My CC has a very high transfer rate to Berkeley and Davis. The liberal arts classes here are a joke, way easier than high school. But the technical classes are grueling. Some of my friends who transferred to Davis/Berkeley engineering programs said they had an easier time there than at our CC.</p>
<p>i can vouch for what the resistance is saying. lower div physics at uc is probably alot better if you want to learn material compared to a CC. I had a hell of a time trying to figure physic with our teacher skipping all over the place and the material was kind of just skimmed over. Another class was software engineering for me @ the cc it was pretty hard to do well in that one and the grading was kinda iffy since no more than 1 person in your group can get an A, so it was pretty much subjective to who wants to be friend with who. Plus the teacher never covered anything since it was open note test lol.</p>
<p>Sounded like resistance was from DVC, I was right XD The math/science department at DVC is generally top notch and will prepare you for anything - but when I say prepare you, I don’t mean straight As lol.</p>
<p>The only thing that can burn you is when classes are considered equivalent by assist and your university, and they really aren’t. I had a comsci class that counted as equivalent to a class that it really wasn’t… this sucked.</p>
<p>Diablo Valley and the Peralta district CCs (e.g. Laney) appear to model many of their math and science courses on UC Berkeley courses, as evidenced by one-to-one course mappings on [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) .</p>
<p>That makes a lot of sense, because they’re the closest community colleges to UCB! Many of my friends wanted to go to UCB because it was nearby and thus easiest for them to just go there instead of having to relocate.</p>
<p>As far as similarity, yes they tend to use the same books for the classes as well, but you’ll be well prepared regardless of what UC you end up going to. :)</p>
<p>Ironically, Berkeley City College was the worst CCC for me. It was the only CCC where I had ever had a professor that didn’t have a PhD, and I actually ended up having 3 of them that only had masters. I thought it would be the best since it was right next to UCB but it was the worst.</p>
<p>Why would a PhD matter in regard to ability to teach at the CC level? If anything, I would think someone with a doctorate teaching Calc 1 or whatever at a CC would be less than enthused… /shrug</p>
<p>I remember that there was professor who taught at both Meritt College and UCB. On rate my professor, she had therefore had two separate pages. On the community college page, she was given a 4 for easiness rating, but a 2 point something on the UCB for easiness. That means that the professor was much, much easier on the community college kids, given that the UCB kids were all academically well- prepared students. But that is just one teacher.</p>
<p>This means nothing, my favorite Philosophy professor at CC “only” has a Masters (and a JD) and didn’t even study Philosophy as an undergrad. Why would you need a PhD to teach intro courses? </p>
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<p>It probably means that upper division classes are harder than intro classes, and/or the classes are graded on a bell curve to weed out bad students.</p>
<p>Well, all of those professors were bad. I personally think you need a PhD to teach most subjects. I’m taking classes right now with GSIs and PhD professors at UCB and the difference is dramatic. The GSIs really aren’t capable of teaching. And neither were any of my professors at BCC who only had masters.</p>
<p>Or could it just be that the environment at the Berkeley is more competitive and if the class is curved with a more competitive group of students, it’s going to be harder to succeed and achieve a high grade?</p>
<p>Or maybe she graded everything at the community college but her GSIs graded everything in her UCB class (UCB professors rarely grade anything), and it was more difficult for students to use her lecture to write papers/tests for someone else. Lot’s of different factors here.</p>
<p>A four-year institution is going to be leaps and bounds more difficult than any junior college. I used to take 16-20 unit semesters at my junior college without much effort, but at a UC, the same feat is substantially more difficult. The most important factor at excelling is work ethic and discipline.</p>