<p>By next spring I will have earned the credits to receive an A.S. of Mathematics from the Community College I have been attending. Is it even worth the hassle of applying for the diploma, since I am going straight into a Mech Eng program at a University? </p>
<p>I guess it would be kinda cool, just because.</p>
<p>FWIW I already have an associates in "General Education"</p>
<p>Sure, why not? How much effort is involved in applying to graduate? At my CC I just had to put my name, address, and student ID on a piece of paper and sign it. If you are planning on finding a part-time job (or even full-time) while finishing your MechE degree it would probably help, and certainly wouldn’t hurt, to have an AS in Mathematics.</p>
<p>My CE-major nephew took Ecology last summer to obtain his AS so that more of his credits would transfer. It was definitely worth it for him.</p>
<p>It’s a good idea to go ahead and get the degree. An associate’s degree in general is easier to transfer should you happen to change your mind before you earn your bachelor’s degree. And who knows, some day you might want a job where they want you to have community college experience and the degree shows that you took full advantage of the community college offerings.</p>
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<p>The AA will have no value when you have your ME degree - don’t even bother putting it on your resume. It won’t hurt and it won’t help, so the answer of what you should do depends on how you ask the question: Do you have a reason to get it? No. Do you have a reason to not get it? No.</p>
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<p>What college transfers entire degrees? In my experience, transfer credit is awarded on a class-by-class analysis. If a school doesn’t accept Calc I from his community college, they won’t change their assessment because of the AA. </p>
<p>Also, what career requires you to show “community college experience”? The only thing I can think of is community college lecturer - and that doesn’t require any sort of experience. If you have a working knowledge of the subject, a master’s degree, and are available, you’ve got a job.</p>
<p>Some universities have matriculation agreements that will transfer a student in as a junior rather than picking through the transcript as you describe. It can make a difference; it is not universal. Here in Maryland there are very few matriculation agreements. however, New York state community colleges and ag and techs have had these types of agreements for decades. I don’t know where the original poster is from.</p>
<p>For someone who is going into engineering, the chances of community college experience being useful is probably slim, but you really don’t know where life will lead you. You might be surprised how community college search committees like to see that cc experience when they are hiring vice presidents and deans. I was just throwing that out there because the OP asked why it might be useful and people who start with a community college education can often see the value a bit better than the rest of us and might want to go back and work.</p>
<p>But those matriculation agreements generally require pre-approval and planning, no? A student attends the community college with an agreement that if he/she maintains a minimum GPA, the university will automatically accept the student with credit. But if the student did not pre-arrange that transfer, and further attended another college in between, that is not applicable.</p>
<p>As for the experience being useful, you’re describing an exceptionally small - to the point of being trivial - number of positions as high level administrators in community colleges. Besides this being a trivial number of positions, from what I’ve seen, the community colleges will promote existing community college instructors or will poach from the local university without regard for “community college experience” with the exception being if the experience came from their college. Of course, since we’re using trivial circumstances, the argument could be made that the AA could hurt if it came from a rival school.</p>