So my plan is to basically spend 4 semesters at my community college, and then try to transfer to a four year university (at the moment, I’m thinking of Boston University). However, I’m kind of confused on what classes to take at CC. Do I take the gen ed classes that students at BU are taking for the first two years? Or do I just take the general ed requirements that my CC has and call it a day? I’ve checked to see which courses should transfer over to BU, but I’m unsure whether or not to take all of those courses that are listed, or pick and choose? Thanks in advance for everyone’s help.
If a lot of students from your CC apply to BU, then the transfer advisor should have some good advice for you. But please do remember that BU is going to be just one of the places that you will apply to. Your course plan needs to function for the back-up institutions on your list.
I know, but I’m not sure how to exactly do that. Every college has slightly different requirements and I’m not sure how to get my schedule to incorporate all of those nuances. Also, thank you for replying, and I’ll try to get an appointment with the transfer advisor tomorrow!
bump
I have to wonder why you are mentioning BU.
Are you a Massachusetts resident? If so, then you can get an excellent education for a lot less money from U.Mass (whether Amherst or one of the other campuses) for lot less money unless you qualify for a LOT of need based financial aid at BU.
What classes you take will most likely depend on what major or majors you are likely to be considering in the future. For me, I always knew that I wanted to do something related to STEM. Thus courses such as calculus, physics, and computer science were pretty obvious requirements. However, for a student headed in a different direction different courses might make sense.
However, I think that your community college should be able to help you with this. They will have a large number of their best students going on to 4 year universities.
Are you currently at community college to save money, because you didn’t get into the universities that you wanted to attend, or for a different reason?
The short answer is you can’t.
Out here in CA they have gone to a lot of trouble to arrange for the state system (UC and CSU) to accept a common set of general ed classes from CCs called IGETC, and also to set up majors at the state-run community colleges that will be accepted as preparation for transfer (for example Associate in Science for Transfer). And even here with one entitity (the state of CA) in charge of all the players, it still isn’t a perfectly seamless system.
You are thinking about colleges run by independent organizations. Since, as you say, every college has different requirements you will invariably end up taking some classes you don’t need and likely be missing a few required GE and major classes at the specific school you end up at. I suggest you work with the xfer counselor at your CC who, given your major, can suggest a set of courses that should be broadly applicable when you transfer. This may differ from the GE set at your CC.
You seem to be stressing about how to satisfy every requirement but you usually don’t need to do so. This is the takeaway. You can be accepted without completely meeting the GE and major requirements. What will happen is if you are missing GE classes you’ll just have to take them once you start at the 4-year. And if you’ve done most of the major prep classes then you’ll finish up the ones you are missing; the only complication is that you won’t be able to take upper-division classes that specifically require your missing classes as prep until you’ve taken them. Fortunately this doesn’t happen too often outside of engineering and hard-science majors.
@DadTwoGirls 40% of my reason is to save money. Also, I only had a broad idea of what I wanted to do in college, but I’ve been able to narrow it down, and, I didn’t want to put myself in debt until I was certain that college was 100% for me.
Also, no I’m not in MA, I’m an NJ resident, and UMass Amherst does not have the major that I intend to pursue. BU is just one of the colleges that I’m looking into.
@mikemac Thank you, I was kind of confused by the whole process but thank you for clarifying.
I want to add a caveat. Hopefully your CC transfer counselor has seen students transfer to schools you are considering such as BU and can give appropriate guidance. But in the end you need to, as they say, “trust but verify”. Look things up on your own; you’re better off thinking of the counselor as a knowledgable guide but not the final authority.
BU has a website with info at http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/transfer/ and among the links is a page giving credit they have awarded in the past to transfer students based on what school they attended and what they took. It sounds like they evaluate the syllabi for each transfer student, so be sure to save those syllabi they give you at the start of every class! Other schools may evaluate credit based on the class description chool catalog (this is what the UC and CSU do in CA).
Well, another caveat. Don’t let the CC counselor tell you that you need an associates degree. I imagine there is some college out there that wants to see an AA degree so I can’t say its never true, but of all the colleges I’m aware of they just want to see how many units you accumulated in transferable classes, your GPA, and your major prep.
@mikemac Yeah, I looked up the credits for my school, and I understand more now. Thank you for your help.
since I’m on a roll 
one more bit of unsolicited advice. Be sure you do everything it takes to succeed at your CC. Most colleges will offer workshops in the adjustment to college, study habits, etc. It is worthwhile to go to these. A book you should read about studying effectively is https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013
Your profs will hold office hours where you can ask questions. They are a valuable resource that’s mostly unused. At most schools the only time anyone ever shows up is to argue about grading on tests. And it’s worth getting to know your profs so you can get personal recs for colleges that ask for them when you apply.