<p>In my case, I'm at my local state school, which is Miami Dade College. I didn't apply myself in high school, therefore, Miami Dade was my only option. My school is actually not a community college anymore since it offers bachelors now, but lets just say it is in terms of difficulty, since it only recently became a standard college. Classes are pretty easy for me, only real challenge is scheduling time. I currently have a 4.0 GPA, and plan on transferring to either FIU or UM if I can get a scholarship for it. Do people generally find university more difficult than CC after having transferred?</p>
<p>Yes, in general they are. But life is always with challenges, if you cannot face with challenge, you will not be successful.</p>
<p>It depends on the classes you take. For example, if your intro to chemistry for majors is designed to transfer to a university, there’s a good chance it is as rigorous as the course taught at the university. Courses designed as general education credit only may be less rigorous.</p>
<p>People often think that CC courses are less rigorous, but I’ve never seen that to be the case. I’m currently in a CC majoring in physics. I have some friends in universities that message my for help with their calculus and physics. There’s a ton of stuff that we’ve covered in my classes that they haven’t even seen in their supposedly equivalent classes. </p>
<p>It may be the case that some Gen Ed type courses are less rigorous, but calculus is calculus. A student at a CC is learning the exact same material, from an instructor that is just as qualified, and often out of the very same books. Similarly, physics is physics. Chemistry is chemistry. </p>
<p>I went on a campus visit to the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign over the summer, and the representative in the physics department that was touring us around the labs and lecture halls in the physics building told us that they love community college transfer students because their experience has shown them that they’re often more dedicated, and more prepared to go into higher level classes. And this is one of the highest ranked physics departments in the country. </p>
<p>I feel like it really depends on the school, but that actually makes sense. I’m a physics major also, so hopefully I have a similar experience.</p>
<p>Some people seem to have the impression that community college professors are “the rejects” from the “real schools” or something like that. The physics professor at my CC is brilliant. He got his bachelors from Northwestern, and his Masters and PhD from the University of Chicago. He’s done research at several big name research facilities in the US, taught at several different universities, and has numerous published papers on black holes and quantum cosmology. He came to this community college to teach because he’s originally from this area, and he missed the smaller town environment. </p>
<p>My calculus professor has a PhD in Mathematics from Berkeley, and he’s been teaching math for 20 years. Rigor is his middle name. Same story. He’s done a ton of research in theoretical mathematics, worked at several universities, but he’s from the area. He grew up on a farm near here, and he missed the small town life. So here he is.</p>
<p>Obviously community college professors aren’t going to typically be on par with the professors at MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or Berkeley…but the same could be said of professors at 90% of the universities in the country. Personally, I don’t feel that my education in my math, physics, or chemistry courses has lacked at all as a result of being in a community college. </p>
<p>We have had students transfer from CC into our physics program at Illinois Tech and their results are highly variable. I don’t think is is so much about the “quality” of the CC or the instructors but the individual students ans how well they have mastered the course materials. I agree that there are some excellent professors at CCs. Many of them have no desire to be in the funding “rat race” and prefer to put more effort into their teaching. If they have a Ph.D. there is no question they know their stuff.</p>
<p>bumppp</p>