That actually sounds a lot like my experience at Stanford, which makes me think that what you’re describing is more of a “large university” problem than an “underfunded public university” problem.
Stanford has popular majors (like computer science) where even the upper-level courses have hundreds of students in them, with just one or two TAs holding office hours (which led to a lot of pushing and shoving in the hopes of getting to the front of the pile to get a single question answered, when you really wanted to ask two or three questions). A huge pet peeve of mine were computer-graded assignments (e.g. multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blanks web forms), cause even Stanford did not want to pay actual people to grade the same assignment 500 times.
And then there were other majors with fairly small enrollment (like theater), where classes rarely exceeded 20 students and it was super easy to get personal attention.
My experience at Stanford is a big reason why I am such a big fan of community colleges now. The quality of instruction I have seen at my local CC is hands down better than what I have seen at Stanford. Especially in the introductory classes taken by lots of students, which Stanford likes to have taught by new faculty and new graduate students with very limited teaching experience. (Turns out that senior faculty rarely volunteer to teach intro classes.)
I imagine that the situation is similar to Berkeley. No need to vilify the UCs. Rather, I’d caution the OP to investigate the situation of the specific programs he is interested in at any university he may consider.
On paper, Berkeley’s class sizes are not all that different from those of other large universities, public AND private. Taken from the 2015-2016 Common Data Sets, percentage of students in classes of a certain size, for Berkeley / Stanford / the University of Southern California (another large private university) / University of Florida (another large public university):
I wish you’d share some of them on the Parents Forum or College Search Forum… where Stanford is often portrayed as the holy grail of the American educational experience…
I agree large classes are found at large research universities whether public or private. I believehowever that there’s a difference between Stanford and UC’s, especially UCB and UCLA, when it comes to overcrowding. (It doesn’t make sense that a wealthy university would offer the same undergraduate experience as a public university that was underfunded for 6 years and then got further cuts.) In addition, if asked what experience is better for the undergraduate, BMC or Stanford, it seems you’d go with BMC - so, undergraduate-focused college > internationally-famous research U?
But it doesn’t matter here, it’s not a debate about UC’s as it’ll never end without helping OP - both our views are clear - I think they’re a bad value at OOS costs, and you think they’re a good one: we have to agree to disagree on this one.
Anyway my concern for OP is mostly the community college part, due to being 18 outside of a contained, residential system, and in a foreign country (the UC’s being very expensive is just on top of this). Also, I agree sharing your insights about Stanford on the Parents or College Search Forum would be useful.
I’m giving an update. Basically I feel I messed up my ACT, really doubt I did well and I’m not surprised because I wasn’t so prepared as my other exams. Anyways, I’m planning to take the California community college route or maybe Virginia.
I found out TAP can be a useful program to increase my chances to enter UCLA or UCB, so I thinking to apply to Pasadena Community College, and Santa Monica College, both have TAP with the Uni. The issue I’m having is that SMC have a high transfer rate to UCLA from what I read, but doesn’t offer architecture course. Also, I heard it’s really hard to find classes. I need some advice if I should consider SMC or not.
I’m not considering San Mateo College because really hard to find share room under $1000 as well as near the school and it’s far from the popular sites if I want to visit during free time.
Be careful about choosing a community college that offers the academic programs you need to prepare for your transfer. You may need to complete specific lower-level coursework to be eligible to transfer to a UC (or other 4-year university) in your intended major.
California is expensive in general, and even more expensive in “desirable” areas. If you want to attend a community college in California and not spend too much money on rent, you may want to avoid the San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan areas entirely. (The trade-off is that community colleges are largely funded by local property taxes, so CCs in areas with low housing prices tend to operate on a smaller budget as well.)
Why CA or VA? Both are expensive states. Did you pick those states because of LAX and IAD ?
Unless you have friends/relatives in those states and just want to be near them, a more practical driver of location should be logistics (major int’l airport with good flight options) and cost of living.
I’m planning to find share rooms for around 500 usd but no more than 1000. I will try to find houses that are near the school, so I won’t be wasting too much time on transportation.
Not really about the airports because most likely I will be staying there in summer to finish my course. I chose CA Because I have a large choice of uni to choose after I finish CC. As for VA, I got a friend living in there and got some options to choose after graduating CC.
Thanks to @MYOS1634 for mentioning Santa Fe College. SF was named the #1 college in the nation by the Aspen Institute in 2015, and a strong track record of preparing students to success at the University of Florida and other top research universities. Learn more about how we help students succeed at www.sfcollege.edu.
That sounds very interesting. I’m only familiar with the California CC to CSU/UC route, how does transferring from CC to UF work in Florida? I guess it’s kind of the same system where you take the pre reqs for your major and GE courses and then transfer after 2 years? Are there any impacted majors at UF for transfers?
@Henriksson
Florida’s system is very similar to California’s. The State of Florida maintains a strong articulation agreement between the 12 state public universities and the CC’s. About 1/3 of undergraduate students at UF are transfer students, which I think is typical for any of the public universities in Florida. Of those UF transfer students, about 1/3 comes from Santa Fe.
UF has some majors that are much more competitive than others. You can find transfer requirements at UF’s website.