<p>Hello there! I am an international student and im going to usa for college, I got accepted into san francisco state university, and West virginia university and santa barbara city college.I am majoring in Geology, what do you advice me to do go to a community college which is santa barbara city college and then transfer to a 4 year university and therefor ill be saving money, or go immediately to a university? and if the answer is university where its better regarding education and student life and campus life, san francisco state or west virginia university?
thanks a lot and i hope ill get an answer as soon as possible since i barely have time to choose!</p>
<p>To evaluate the costs, run the numbers here: <a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid; Don’t forget to include good estimates for transportation between the place where you live and where you would be studying.</p>
<p>What do you want to do when you finish college? It is OK to ask the geology department where their graduates end up.</p>
<p>Do you have placement information yet for any ESL classes that you might have to take? That might add on to the time you have to be in college.</p>
<p>Does SBCC have any transfer agreements (also called articulation agreements) with any 4-year colleges or universities for your major? It is OK to ask how hard it will be for you to transfer after you finish your studies there.</p>
<p>WVU’s geology program is one of the school’s strongest programs. It really is leaps and bounds better than the one at SFSU. West Virginia University will also give you a much more traditional American college experience than San Francisco State which is a heavily commuter school. </p>
<p>Happymom, the problem with asking for results from the geology department is that the departments are connected to different industries. At WVU a much higher percentage of geoscience students are looking to go into resource extraction than at San Francisco State. Additionally, an international with just a bachelors in geology likely won’t be sponsored unless he or she minors in a high demand field such as geophysics. </p>
<p>thanks a lot for your response i really appreciate it! Okay so you do recommend wvu much more! and i wont stop at the bachelors degree i want to pursue masters in petroleum geology! I know that WVU is in the top 20 universities for geology! But is morgantown a nice place to stay in? like to be honest, i applied to sfsu because its in san francisco not mainly because of the college.so i will most probably cross sfsu since its not that strong in the geology program, but santa barbara city college is number 1 comm college in usa, so my mom asked me just to apply for it in case i want to save money. So know between santa barbara city college and WVU what do u recommend for me? thanks a lot i really appreciate your response</p>
<p>@whenhen </p>
<p>@happymomof1 no i dont have to take any esl courses i have a 90 on my toefl IBT , but i am considering santa barbara city college mainly because of 2 reasons : save money, and its number 1 comm college so transferring I GUESS it would be easier!</p>
<p>Santa Barbara City College has a good geology department and does have a transfer agreement with University of California Santa Barbara which has a highly ranked geology department. I believe the cost for Internationals is around $25,000 per year (includes housing, expenses) so that is something you definitely need in order to compare to WVU. SBCC is more of a commuter school, but does have campus housing and is in the heart of Santa Barbara sitting directly looking out over the ocean. It is an absolutely beautiful campus and is highly regarded. They work closely with UCSB to which you would be able to transfer after 2 years. The OOS cost for UCSB is around $53,000 (includes housing/expenses) so is definitely something to consider in your overall cost analysis.</p>
<p>@takeitallin okay thats something great that they have a good geology department! and if after 2 years i dont want to stay in california, is it hard to go to a university outside california from a california community college?</p>
<p>I believe most of the classes would transfer to OOS schools without a problem. I know my D transferred from a Calif. CC to a non-California public university, and her credits all trasferred. It may depend on the school. </p>
<p>oh okay…! Do you know anything about san francisco state? @takeitallin </p>
<p>It is definitely more of a commuter campus. It has a lot of concrete- it is right in San Francisco and kind of just blends into the city. Housing and parking is very expensive and it is in a very crowded area. </p>
<p>whenhen - That was kind of my idea. Different undergrad programs feed into different grad programs and industries. It’s always a good idea to ask about where the graduates (especially in the case of international students) end up.</p>
<p>husseinhaj1 -</p>
<p>Since you are interested in petroleum, ask the department at SBCC where their graduates have transferred to. I’ve driven through the area where Morgantown is a number of times, but I’ve never been downtown. West Virginia has a reputation for being an affordable state to live in. I know that you could have a great US college experience at WVU. It is located in the mountains, so if you like hiking and winter sports like skiing, you would find lots to do.</p>
<p>Since I’m on my phone I can’t check but what sort of geology courses does SBCC offer? If it doesn’t offer a mineral science class, petrology, structural geology, or other classes beyond just intro geology, historical geology, oceanography, and California geology you should go to West Virginia University. </p>
<p>First, WVU is not a top 20 program although it is good for geology. Don’t really know where you got that ranking, but I’ve never seen anything which places West Virginia University in the top 20.</p>
<p>Ok, just checked SBCC’s geology offerings. While they offer a fairly wide variety of field courses and ocean science (impressive for a CC), they combine their mineralogy and petrology courses into just one which is troubling and not the standard practice at any of the better geology schools. Additionally, SBCC lacks courses like geochemistry, structural geology, and rock properties which are often taken by sophomores in the major.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that in the US students are required to complete a certain number of general education courses which do not relate to the major. Geology programs also require a year of college level chemistry, math up to multi-variable calculus and differential equations, and a year of college physics. Thus it may make sense to spend a year at a community college while knocking out the gen eds before transferring to a school with an established geology program and strong ties to the resource extraction industry. However, you may not be able to get all of your classes at SBCC (many of the California community colleges have serious over-enrollment issues) which could end up costing you more money than you save. </p>
<p><a href=“http://geology-schools.com/”>http://geology-schools.com/</a> @whenhen check this link, its the geology website and it ranked WVU as number 22 in the nation for geology, so yes I didnt make up that ranking!</p>
<p>Really, you shouldn’t follow any random website ‘rankings’. There is no indication at all of who runs this site or what the criteria for these ‘rankings’ are. I looked at a few colleges and there is some misinformation on that site, like they don’t know what they are talking about and are just copying some information from other sites. It is certainly not run by anyone that knows what they are doing. You can’t trust anything you read on that site.</p>
<p>I would cross SFSU off. SF is a fun and exciting, but very expensive city to live in. The college is on the edge of the city in a very boring area, however. Most students live off campus in and you can get there by light rail from anywhere in the city–it stops right outside the college. However, the idea of coming from another country to study geology there doesn’t make any sense. SBCC would be good with a transfer plan, especially for UC system colleges but that will be expensive if you go to UC as OOS. But if you can’t get into classes that you need, a very real possibility, you will be at SBCC for more than two years. And whenhen has pointed out some curriculum issues. Go to WVU, whenhen made the points why. If I recall whenhen is a geo or related major.</p>
<p>@brownparent Okay! i crossed sfsu out! Lets forget the ranking, I hear from a lot of people about WVU geology program, and dont forget WVU is from the best programs for petroleum engineerins so thats kinda related! So now i end up with 2 choices, its either WVU or SBCC, the reason why i am taking SBCC into consieration because of its excellent transfer plans, and the city itself and ofcourse the low tuition! and for the classes i asked SBCC the geology program is not impacted and i can find the classes i want without any concern!But i really like both WVU and SBCC and i must choose between them, I really appreciate it that you guys are helping me a lot and it really helped!!</p>
<p>and to add if i go to sbcc my transfer plans would me either to a cal poly or a uc! </p>
<p>Agree with BrownParent, that the ranking system is nonsense.</p>
<p>Fortunately for you, outside of Texas A&M, UT Austin, Penn State, and Colorado School of Mines, it’s very easy to transfer into schools with strong petroleum geology programs, so I wouldn’t be too worried about SBCC’s transfer articulation agreements. Remember, the UCs are extremely expensive for internationals. Any cost savings you get by going to Santa Barbara City College will be wiped out as soon as you matriculate to a UC. Additionally, I’m not really sure why you’d want to go to Cal Poly for geology. While it’s a good school in a geologically interesting location, there’s nothing about its program that is particularly spectacular. </p>
<p>If you want a lower cost four year option which is still accepting applications, you may want to consider the University of Wyoming which costs around $27,000 a year for first year out of state students and less if you choose to live off campus after your freshman year. </p>
<p>its okay I will stick to one of my 2 option either sbcc or wvu! And maybe wvu after i finish my 2 years in SBCC! @WHENHEN And btw are you a geology major?</p>