<p>I posted this originally in the transfers forum, but haven't gotten much, so I'm asking here.</p>
<p>I am currently a freshman at a university, but I am thinking of going to a community college for 2 semesters to get most of my Gen Ed. credits out of the way. I have a number of humanities credits and such which I just have to take, and don't care if I learn the material great or not, but things like Calc 3, Differential equations, Linear algebra, Physics 1 and 2, I need to learn well. Will I be able to learn those well at a community college? I've been told it comes down to the teacher, but what fits is what I'll get. I have the motivation to try and put a good effort in, but if I don't ever see a challenging problem, I won't know they're out there or how to solve them when I need to.</p>
<p>And, I am in engineering, and I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet, but I think it'll be more math than physics based.</p>
<p>Why exactly are you going to a CC when you are already at a university? If you are talking about taking CC classes to fulfill your university gen-ed requirements that’s one thing but leaving your university for a CC for a year is another.</p>
<p>Anyway, as others have said it depends on your professor and your own study habits BUT i feel that if you take the core classes at the same university where you get your engineering degree, you’ll learn it better.</p>
<p>Although many on here would scoff at the idea, a CC is a great opportunity to save some money and take all of the gen ed classes that do not have to do with your major. It is a very useful alternative, but many feel that they are below average if they go to a CC and this is just not true. I personally do not plan to go to a CC, but I know many people who are very smart who do to save money. A very good alternative, but if you are already enrolled in a university then I don’t see a reason to switch.</p>
<p>I am already enrolled at a university, but the switch wouldn’t be as big a change as you may think. I commute to the university from my home, and I’d do the same to the CC. And it wouldn’t really be for the year, it would be over the winter and summer. I would return to the university again in fall, and it’d save about 9K.</p>
<p>Oh, further. I went in with very few credits, and am just taking entry level classes, and will be for the next year as well wherever I take the classes.</p>
<p>I can weigh most of the pros and cons for myself, but I guess I’m hoping for anecdotal evidence one way or the other, or advice on how to make sure I learn what I need to. I could infact take the homework from people at the university and do it myself (or at least attempt to). I’m sure I could get professors/GSIs emails and such and email them (without them knowing I’m not in their class) for help if need be. Or I could ask my teacher at the CC for help (I guess it would depend on them).</p>
<p>Personally I found that I actually learned the material better at the CC I went to before transferring. I feel this way for a number of reasons, but it really boils down to the individual and what your goals are. </p>
<p>For myself, it is hard to retain information from semester to semester, so I think that learning the fundamentals very well is more important than the more challenging material. There is virtually no way I would be able to recall certain parts of my calculus sequence, yet understanding the basics of them is important. At CC the professors are not nearly as concerned with getting a bell curve distribution of grades, so they put more emphasis on the basics and not the challenging material which normally is what sets the curves in a university. I personally was able to retain a great deal more in such a setting. Also, there is not such an overload of work, which helps retention as well. </p>
<p>It’s funny to me because I often feel overwhelmed by all of the work at my university and never am able to get quite up to par with my level of understanding. I end up just becoming concerned with getting the GPA I want, so I strategize the best way to do that - and it doesn’t always involve understanding the material as well as I would like to. At CC, I could focus on understanding the material much more because of the lighter workloads and more basic concepts that were tested, and the grades were not really a concern.</p>
<p>Thanks PurdueFrank. Could I also ask a couple of more specific questions?</p>
<p>As someone who goes to a University, I do not feel overwhelmed by the material or difficulty, but feel it’s on par with what I can do reasonably. Challenging but not impossible. Would someone like me be someone who is completely bored, or would there still be substantial learning going on, just with slightly less depth?</p>
<p>Did you find that not being able to do or having seen the difficult problems problematic for future classes with the previous classes as prerequisites? </p>
<p>Did you retake any classes at the university after you took them at the CC? Do you think it was a good idea?</p>
<p>Most of the same topics will be covered to one extent or another different regulations that CCs follow require this. The main difference is that the material tested on normally doesnt come as such a shock, meaning that the CC professors generally teach very much in line with what will be tested, I personally have not found this to be true at my university. I would doubt that you will be bored. One thing that I really liked about CC is the size of the classes and the ease with which you can get your professor to help. In this way I really mastered a few subjects that I otherwise doubt I would have been able to. If you have the intellectual curiosity to engage your professor beyond what he/she is doing in class I would be willing to bet they will help you as far as you want to go with it. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. No. </p>
<p>For instance, I took one physics and one calculus class at CC and then went on to take the other two calculus classes and the other physics class at the university I have never got below a B at university. So, no I would have to say that it really wasnt a problem at all. More or less I just felt like I gained a better understanding of fundamental concepts because I had more time to explore them. Of course, I guess it depends where youre going to CC but at least at the one I went to I felt like it was a good education without such a worry about making the grades.</p>
<p>How about further classes? I know that Physics 1 and Physics 2 teach different things, but how about when you have to apply that Physics 1 stuff to an engineering class, how did it go?</p>
<p>The thing to take away here is that I haven’t found it to be a big deal. At a very fundamental level I would advise you to save the $9,000. It’s not going to hurt your prospects for a job, you’ll still learn, and you won’t have to try quite as hard… It’s a win, win situation all around.</p>
<p>I also completed all of my GE’s at a community college before transferring to a UC. I believe my university had a good approach to transfers; we could transfer all of our lower division classes except the actual engineering classes for my major. I think under these circumstances I’ll be just as prepared for my career as the next SE student at my school that’s been here all 4 years. </p>
<p>The resources an actual university can offer though are incomparable to those of a community college, and missing out on two years of building relationships with professors and networking for things like research or internships really sucks.</p>
<p>I personally am very skeptical of the quality of math education at community colleges. I took Linear Algebra at my local CC my senior year of high school and got an A. Two years later I was completely demolished in Linear Algebra at university, barely scraping by with a B- despite having already seen the material. </p>
<p>We basically covered the same material in both classes, but the problem sets and exams at my university were much more theoretical and involved. Of course, this is completely anecdotal. Still, I would say it takes a great deal of academic maturity to learn something really well at CC, whereas at a more rigorous university you might expect the added pressure and competition to motivate you more.</p>
<p>If I were to say I am definitely going to go to a community college, would you have any advice for me as to what I should do to make sure I learn the material? As well you are talking purely about an actual Linear algebra class. Had your first university experience been having to apply the stuff you learned in CC for Linear algebra, how well do you think you would have done. Theoretical doesn’t do you much good in an Engineering class does it?</p>
<p>Maybe try to over study a bit for your exams - work through the harder problems from your textbooks, and maybe try to get solutions to them from your instructors. If you have friends taking similar courses at other universities, try to get a copy of their problem sets. </p>
<p>I think I would’ve done a bit better had my class been less theory-based. The problems were not overly difficult, but noticeably more challenging. Introductory engineering math courses at my university tend to be moderately theory-based, though not full-fledged proof-based like real math courses. For a couple of my physics courses the professors were not satisfied with the book problems and wrote their own homeworks. They were general engineering physics courses, so we were asked a lot of theoretical questions. I think part of it is just to throw a few curve balls to challenge the students a bit. The theory probably didn’t directly do me much good, but I think it was good training for my mind.</p>