Hello,
I’m starting this discussion for anyone who’s attending this program in Fall 2019 and people who have been through this program (Specifically what would you classify as the pros and cons). Anyways I’m just curious about people’s experience within this program and whose curious like me to hop in and talk about it.
Thank you
Our son has enrolled by putting the deposit down. He was originally going to go to App State. He then reconsidered as USC was his number one school. I have heard it fills up very fast which is why we put a deposit down right away. Everything I have read says the dorms aren’t very good and that some people have issues with Midlands and the advisors. Others have stated the polar opposite.
Hello micklimey1972,
I read the same about the dorms. I think my major concern about the dorms since they’re old (and I found an article regarding they they’re tearing down Bates House in 2020 to built newer dorms), is mildew because I would hate to be in a environment like that so I hope there won’t be any. About Midlands I think they have multiple campuses across Columbia so I’m curious which one that the classes will be hosted in.
I believe its one of two campuses. From what I’ve read they usually try to tie all the classes to one place for that semester.
My daugher is a current student at USC completing her junior year. She started in the Gateway program and I would like to share with you our experience. We were told that this program would allow my daughter the opportunity to experience USC as a student and provide for her a seamless transition into USC for her sophmore year. What they don’t tell you is this: The dorms are horrible and she had 2 floods in Bates from either mechanical AC conditions or plumbing issues. The students had to live through these and the mold thereafter. The dorms are far away from the rest of the campus as well so my daugher was faced with lots of uber rides because the ‘shuttle’ schedule didn’t work out for her schedule.In addition when she was finally accepted into USC for her sophmore year she was academically 1 year behind in her major and they actually had her listed for graduating after 5 years. SHe had to take additional classes each year- full course load as well as classes over the summer to stay on track for graduating in 4 yrs . This heavy course load also impacted her GPA as she had to load up on engineering course each semester to make up for lost time. USC may transfer credits but they do NOT factor in the grades into her GPA. When applying for interships they only took into consideration her GPA from USC- 3 semesters worth, not her cumulative GPA. Looking back I would have had my daughter attend a different school, pay less money and then transfer to USC. The only thing that the gateway program did for her and our family is increase stress, increase time and tuition and present us with obstacles from getting an internship.
@lorig39 Agree with you 100%! Daughter attended 2017-2018. Dorm awful and full of mold. MTC Advising is awful and was not on top of course requirements.
Hey, girl! I was a Gamecock Gateway student this past school year. As a Gamecock Gateway student, your classes will either be at MTC’s Beltline campus or Airport campus (they could be at both, depending on your schedule). When it comes to academic advisors, they can be helpful, however, if you ever experience trouble with them or feel as though you are not being heard as a student, I would recommend going through the chain of command and speaking to their boss (Dustin Ethridge). The only trouble I experienced was a couple of weeks before the start of the school year, when my advisor, Shana Ashford, was not returning my calls or emails concerning my class schedule. I contacted the MTC director of Gamecock Gateway, Dustin Ethridge, and he was the one that helped me resolve my problem (and he assigned Jessica Ball as my new advisor). After this initial issue, I never had a problem with advisement. Bates House is definitely an old building but it isn’t unbearable. My roommate and I kept our dorm room clean and decorated it the way we wanted, which made living at Bates perfectly fine for us. You’re not going to live there forever. As long as you refrain from dropping any courses (to insure you have 30 credit hours to transfer) and are aware of the GPA requirement for your major (and maintain good grades), you will be fine. The only students that dropped out of the program were the ones that didn’t care about school to begin with, went to Five Points nearly every night and got wasted, or skipped class all of the time. Then, when they realized their actions were going to negatively impact their transition to USC, they pretended to be clueless as to why so that they wouldn’t get in trouble with their parents. Gamecock Gateway isn’t 100% perfect but it isn’t hell, either. I’ll be at USC this coming fall and I came out okay. I hope this helped.
Thank you for your opinion, I haven’t checked this discussion in a while since I was wrapping up high school and etc… I’m attending this program for the upcoming fall semester and hopefully, after the program, I’ll be there for the next three. I think my biggest question about credit hours is that I have already taken courses at a UofSC campus and I have accumulated somewhere between 20-24 hours. I’m just curious if I have to take a total of 30 credit hours at MTC to transfer over to UofSC since I’m already pretty close (I’m not complaining, but I’m just curious what the game plan will be for my schedule this fall and so on). I’m going to advisement soon, so hopefully, by then that’ll be solved.