I get that you fulfill classes for all the areas but do the courses you take have to be transferable to the school you transfer to? Like say you took a Greek History (random example) class to fulfill the History requirement of IGETC but the school you transfer to has no equivalent, would that be a problem? Or is IGETC completely separate?
If the Greek history class fulfills the history requirement, it would likely be considered UC/CSU transferrable. In which case, it would count. Also you could look at the course in the CCC catalog you are planning on transferring from, and it will tell you whether or not it’s transferrsble.
Good questions.
IGETC is certified by your community college. So, if you complete the IGETC pattern at your CC, all general education requirements (not prerequisites, of course) will be cleared when you transfer.
No, it does not matter if the UC you wish to transfer to does not offer a similar course. It’s important to note, though, that equivalency is not transferability.
You can find whether or not a course is transferable by checking assist.org, inputting your school at the top, clicking “UC Transferable Courses”, and choosing a subject. What you see should be something like this: http://www.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=tca&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=28&ia=DIABLO&ay=15-16&arc=N&dora=HIST
Chances are, a class like HIST 122 (History of California) will not be offered at any of the UC’s - but it is transferable.
A course is transferable if and only if (forgive me for that) it is deemed transferable by the UC system. I don’t know much about that, as it’s really not important to know. Essentially, CC courses are evaluated by the UC system to determine whether or not they are transferable. Most generic classes (like Greek History) are transferable. Non-transferable courses include things like non-college level math (Intermediate Algebra, etc.) - those will not affect your GPA, and will not be considered in the evaluation of your coursework - but you still need to include them in your application.
Here is where it gets tricky. A course may be transferable, but it may not articulate as a prerequisite. I’ll give you an example - my CC offers a History of European Modern Philosophy class (PHILOS 20B), and UC Berkeley requires a Modern Philosophy class to clear the Modern Phil prerequisite to declare the major. The class at my CC does not clear the requirement, despite being a Modern Philosophy class. This is because the class at my CC is structured in a way that Cal does not recognize as equivalent to their course. So, I will get unit credit for taking the class at my CC, but it will not satisfy the prerequisite for the Philosophy major at Cal. So it’s a tricky business.
Again, to reiterate, IGETC certification is handled solely by your CC. If you are IGETC certified, you have completed all general education requirements at the UC. Period. They do not scrutinize the courses you used to fulfill IGETC. I can go more in depth about this if you’d like, but it’s probably not too beneficial for your understanding.
Edit: Also, most classes you use to certify IGETC will be transferable. I am not certain if all classes one can use for IGETC are necessarily transferable, as there is a requirement for CSU’s. So it’s good to check through assist.org (or your school’s course catalog) to see if the courses you are taking are transferable.
IGETC stands for Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum, which is basically a checklist for general ed requirements.
If you follow IGETC like a rule book/checklist, your course will transfer to a UC/CSU. If you have trouble understanding how to navigate it, talk to a counselor at your CC. I like to look at it divided up by boxes and number of credits in each box. The fun part of IGETC is you can meet requirements while taking classes for your major or whatever you’re interested in. For example, I really dislike biology, so for my Life Science req, I took a class focused on human sexuality and it was a lot of fun.
Before you complete it, however, like @goldencub stated, you should look at ASSIST.org if you have a major/school in mind. Different schools have different requirements for different majors, and you’ll want to complete those before the end of your last fall semester at CC. Thankfully, most of these classes fulfill IGETC.
TL;DR: any class you take through IGETC will transfer to the UC/CSU, but try to take a few of them within your major requirements for the specific school.