How much harder is a 4-year than a CC?

Transfer Students
1

<p>I'm transferring to a top engineering school next year that is notorious for weeding people out. They have very little grade inflation.</p>

<p>I'm wondering how much harder it's going to be than these classes?</p>

<p>My experience at my CC has been that the classes tend to move at a fast pace despite the fact that there are some screw ups in the classes. It doesn't make it easier for them and a lot of them fail. The class average for my first test in Calc 1 was a D.</p>

<p>How much harder is it likely to be? Is my GPA likely to go down when I get to the big school?</p>

<p>What was your experience?</p>

<p>I prefer responses from people with experience in a community college, please! A lot of people seem to think that CCs are like special ed classes or something. That really isn't the case!</p>

2

<p>It really dependes on the community college, and it depends on the teacher at the community college. There are some community colleges that are rigorous, and challenging, and some that are not. And even in the different CC’s, you will find different level of teaching. The different levels of teaching will be at the 4 year you go to as well.</p>

3

<p>I think it depends on your transferring school. Faculty: student ratio and class size counts. At CC, we all get to tap on the professor’s shoulder after lectures, right?</p>

<p>Picture that at 4 year…</p>

4

<p>First of all, congrats on getting in if you have already been accepted! </p>

<p>I myself am a community college student, overdue to transfer to my university. I have met and know many others who have already transferred, and while of course each community college will be different, here is what I have learned about my own (in comparison to the local university):</p>

<p>My partner is an upper-level engineering student at said university, after taking the calc series/diff. eq/physics/chemistry at CC. He was also told, by students at orientation as well by advisors, that he should expect a significant GPA hit coming in from a CC.</p>

<p>However, he has found himself to be much more prepared and better off due to a much more solid working knowledge of calculus and physics. He feels that both professors he had for these series of courses were demanding, but he came out knowing his stuff. In his experience he is actually found himself to be ahead of his peers who started at university. In fact, he has the highest engineering GPA of anyone he knows.</p>

<p>A fellow engineering student and friend of his did not take one required course, chemistry for engineers, until university very recently. I was a bit confused in my own CC chemistry course last term, and when my boyfriend asked his friend for any ideas since he had had the course very recently, the friend could give no reply. He admitted that he had learned next to nothing in the chemistry for engineers course. (I was taking Chem I at the time.)</p>

<p>I know premed students who began at CC before transferring, only to find that the science courses left to take at uni were ‘next to a free A’ compared to what was expected from the CC students.
These students feel that at the CC, the material is taught to a much greater extent/detailed, and because of the smaller class sizes, more is expected from each individual student.</p>

<p>It is unfortunate that CCs have the negative stereotype that they do. Perhaps this does exist for certain CCs, or certain class levels (intro courses), but these negative views just do not seem to hold true for core science and math courses…</p>

5

<p>Thanks Tin! One question… are you referring to your experience in the US or are you from Canada or somewhere else? I notice you refer to it as “university” so I thought I’d ask.</p>

<p>I really hope your CC is like mine :wink: I’m in General Chem 1 and it is a LOT of work. If all of my classes were as demanding as that one, I’d have to drop something. I’m scared all of them will be like that at the big school!</p>

6

<p>I am in the U.S., and the uni I speak of also happens to be the largest university in our country currently (number of students). :)</p>

<p>Gen. Chem 1 can seem like a lot of work, but it’ll get better once you get used to it and working those types of problems. Definitely use any online resources your prof. or school may suggest (masteringchemistry for example- I wish my school used this like they do for biology!)</p>

<p>But at the worst, your other science courses will be as heavy as your chemistry class now. I hardly doubt that they will be so much more difficult just because you’ll be at university- unless of course it’s just because you will be taking 3/4000 level courses which are harder anyways!
I personally really do think those who began at CC have an advantage…people pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to very small private schools with small class sizes for a reason! I have even had a prof. or two at the CC who also taught at the local private university (costing 30k/year)!</p>

7

<p>I might be easier to give you an idea if you named the school–there are people with experience with these schools if named (direct and anecdotal).</p>

<p>One general rule of thumb is that a CC to private school transfer will generally experience a .5 gpa drop the first semester from their average. But that is just a rule of thumb I heard and obviously this has a lot of variation. But it is a good way to help a transfer student mentally prepare for transfer–to not overload that first transfer semester with too many credits or too many killer courses and allow for some time to ease in. My daughter transferred from a CC to a private school with ZERO drop in gpa, but she took that advice seriously. It gave her time to adjust, learn the campus, develop new routines, etc.</p>

<p>However, for an engineering student, that .5 drop could be moreso–and especially if the new school’s design is different from the CC. CCs often have smaller classes and a giant public (like Berkeley) has giant classes and a sink or swim mentality. So, the best advice is to just plan that first semester wisely and not take on too much right away so you can adjust.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for your responses!</p>

<p>Tin - Yeah, I am starting to get the hang of the Chem workload, and I am kinda thankful for it since it’s going to prepare me.</p>

<p>Vlines - The school I’m transferring to is Georgia Tech and the community college is Georgia Perimeter College. A lot of the students in STEM classes here are heading to GA Tech, so I feel like (and hope) the class difficulty is adjusted accordingly. English class has a lot more students from all the various majors and the expectations in that class definitely reflect that. 0.5 is a pretty big drop! I think I’ll shoot for 12 credits my first semester, and mix some easy classes in, just in case.</p>