I went to a community college before going to UCB. I treasure my time at both, but for the first two years I am totally glad I was at a CC. There is no comparison to the attention you can get, if you want it, at a CC. I made more friends at CC, too. I found UCB a cold and competitive place compared to CC.
I agree. I went to a community college before transferring to the University of California, San Diego. I had an excellent experience at my CC; smaller class sizes, dedicated teachers,ect..I felt I got more value out of it than the big classes at UCSD. Where, like most big universities, the teachers there were there mostly for research. I did get a lot of shit for it though. A lot of condescending people who jump to the conclusion that I was unmotivated and stupid because I went to a CC.
I went to community college for two years. I'm at Stanford now, previously Berkeley. I don't feel like I missed out on much by going to a CC, except debt.
You can definitely have the college experience going to cc. unless we have different definitions of it. i had no shortage of parties, drugs, bars, awkward socialness, growing as a person and ability to try new things.
I've found that, for some classes, you may get a better experience at a community college than at a "real" university, just due to class size and personal attention from the instructors. CC's tend to have smaller classes, and teachers who aren't so swamped with students (and research) and can therefore spend more time helping the students.
This may not be universally true, but it's something I've observed.
I believe the California community college system is better than most states. Let me elaborate.
In the summer before my freshman year, I didn't really have much to do, and so I decided to take up a course. My options were to either take it at the UC where I'd attend, or to take an equivalent offering at a local CC. When I looked at the price, there was a 10-fold difference, $2000 against $200.
It was a no brainer to enroll at the CC: transferring credits was easy because the UC system and the CC system already have an agreement [1]. This is in addition to the transfer agreement between the two institutions, where CC students are guaranteed admission to some of the UCs if they fulfill the requirements [2].
Before the first day, I recall having low expectations; I had bought into the mindset that a smaller tuition meant a shabbier campus and a worse experience. I was dreadfully wrong: the place was modern, and my class size numbered around 15 people.
More over, its population was diverse. I didn't see only college students; there were middle schoolers, high schoolers, international students, and even parents dragging their children to camps. In general, the place had people serious enough about their education that they would spend a nice summer doing so.
Here, it seemed was a greater emphasis on the community side of college. I want to mention that this is in contrast to what I've previous seen. I came from a high school which didn't focus on getting people ahead, but on only keeping them from following behind; that was the primarily the idea of summer school. I've also heard of high school students paying for private SAT/ACT tutoring, and for online AP courses. In hindsight, CCCs act as equalizers in the field of education -- I would even say they are the modern day equivalent of churches in our state.
I went the community college route, from De Anza to a UC, and I don't think I would recommend it to most people.
First of all, community college is a depressing place to be. It's like a cross between high school, juvenile hall, and the DMV.
For example, a lot of the students at community colleges are stoners who are only there because their parents have conditioned their financial support on college attendance, and those are the people who you will have to compete with for enrollment in impacted classes, and who will drag down your grade on group projects. The labs, libraries, and other facilities are pretty much a joke compared to what you get to use at a good UC or CSU, or even a good public high school. You are unlikely to develop personal connections that will help you build your career.
On top of all of that, transferring is not as easy at it might seem. You have to watch the transfer office like a hawk to make sure they don't screw up your paperwork. I had a guaranteed admission agreement, and even so, I caught multiple mistakes and miscommunications between the community college and the UC which would have voided my agreement, or delayed my transfer for a year. De Anza has one of the highest transfer rates in the country, so I can only assume things are even worse at other schools.
While you are trying to push your way through two years (at least) in this depressing and dysfunctional environment, your friends at CSUs and UCs will be enjoying higher quality classmates, instructors, and facilities, living the real college life, getting cool internships and other career opportunities, and making personal connections with people who will be successful in their fields.
In the end, the amount of money I saved by going to community college and transferring to a UC, compared to going to a UC for four years, adds up to the cost of a new Toyota Camry. That's a trivial amount of money, now that I look back on it years later -- a couple hundred dollars a month in student loans over a standard repayment term. Even people who are repaying their student loans don't bat an eye at spending that kind of money on a car, but for some reason people are apprehensive about spending it on two years of quality education and life experiences.
This may seem excessively negative, but I think it is a necessary counterbalance to a lot of the advice I see when this kind of issue comes up.
On your first point I really don't think this is true in CA with community colleges providing a solid (relatively easy) path to the UCs. I was able to go from a local CC to a local UC and because of that I was able to finish with no debt. This lack of debt has afforded me a great deal of flexibility after college which has so far worked out well for me. Things would have been way different if I had a bunch of debt hanging over me.
Another positive about CCs is since they are so cheap you can actually take your time a find the right major for you. I tried a bunch of different stuff before something stuck and with the exception of opportunity costs that extra exploration cost me about $500. I consider that a pretty good deal.
Yeah, while I think community college is great, the one I attended (GCC, in AZ) basically felt like high school all over again. Horrible professors, worse students, boring (and ridiculously easy) material; I hated it so much that I ditched college for two years before deciding to go back to school at a university. As soon as I was taking university classes I started to wonder why I hadn't just started at a university to begin with. It's good to hear there's community colleges out there that emit the same level of passion in students/professors though.
Yes, I can see (now) a different interpretation of the parent post. I get your point.
It is too bad you didn't have a good experience with CC. My experience with community college was quite different and very rewarding. In fact, when I transferred to university I was farther along in computer science and math than my classmates. However, I did have one class, WordPress (in which I was told we would learn to build themes from scratch), that parallels your experience!
I did 2 years at CC before going to a UC too. I don't think people are forgetting about it. There are many reasons people choose larger loans instead of transferring, most of which are unreasonable in hindsight once they enter the workforce.
Their reputation stems from their purpose. Community college is there at the benefit of the community. They have extremely low or nonexistant entry requirements. This is the bad part. Since they aren't very selective about who can get in you could be the bright bulb in a room of dim ones.
Universities are highly selective. They are looking for highly motivated people. A C-student in a good school carries more weight than a C-student at a CC. A university is out to benefit itself first and foremost. If they can convince you to come and make some money in the process, it's a benefit for them. Whatever you get out of it is a benefit for you.
I like CCs but there are definitely some downsides to consider as well: (speaking from california perspective)
- Our cc’s are all impacted and getting the classes you need is nearly impossible. Many people end up taking 3 years to graduate.
- When you do transfer to a bachelors program, you’ll find that your cc was missing a lot of the pre reqs you need for your major (depending on your major). I’ve seen a lot of cc students at UC schools have to go back and take freshman and sophmore level classes. (total could end up taking 6 years overall)
- All the other students when you transfer are already friends and have relationships with the professors and local businesses. Whose going to get the prestigious research position, the new guy or the one whose been bonding and proving themselves to the professor for 2 years? Same goes for internships.
- Who you spend time with shapes who you are. If you are a bright individual, it can be frustrating or depressing being around some of your peers in CC. My girlfriend took an online cc class where they had to submit a paragraph to their class forum. Two students literally copy and pasted her response word for word.
You are absolutely right about the relative value of community college, but you pointed out the major problem: community colleges are not thought of highly at all, even though 2 years of CC credited to a bachelor's degree at a more prestigious university counts just the same.
I'm not sure how CC's get over the stigma attached to them, but it really needs to happen. They are good value.
Strongly agree. Community college enabled me to knock out almost 2 years of school in 1 year by taking classes during the regular semester, weekend classes, online classes, and summer classes. I also saved tens of thousands of dollars, and had much smaller class sizes than at the university. My professors were only focused on educating, not research, not arguing over grant money, and not flying around to conferences. I found my community college classmates more mature. Many students in the university seemed to be there because their parents wanted them to be there.
Another anecdote on the power of community college:
Back in 2009 I enrolled at Community College of San Francisco. I was 19 and had no idea what I wanted to do career wise, so I took broad and rigorous curriculum focused on transferring to UC-Berkeley.
The 2 years I spent there were some of the best of my life. I was frequently pushed and challenged by excellent professors who had true passion for their subjects (a few even had Ph.D.s). I grew a passion for learning Spanish (a subject that I had found painful in high school) among many others and got involved with several extracurricular groups. By my second year I was an elected student government senator and president of the business club. I was amazed by all the school had to offer hungry students and I took advantage of every opportunity. Not to mention I met some of my closet friends in life geeking out in study groups.
When it came time to apply to 4 year universities (fall and spring of my second and final year) I decided to apply to Stanford in addition to my originally intended UC-Berkeley. Just a few months later I was shocked to accept Stanford’s offer of transfer admission to complete my undergraduate degree. Going to a place like Stanford would have been unthinkable for me just a few years earlier in high school, back then I had pretty average grades (around a 3.4) and mediocre test scores. Community college let me re-invent myself as a student and start with a completely fresh slate.
When I got into Stanford I eventually started to focus in on a major and skill-set, taking a ton of CS classes in the process. While I hadn’t studied CS in community college (although I think they do offer it), I strongly feel the high level of general curriculum I took prepared me to major in nearly anything I would have liked at Stanford. I now work as a full-time software engineer, something I had no knowledge of whatsoever when I first started community college.
No doubt my admission to Stanford is an outlier for community college students (only a tiny percentage are admitted), however a ton of very intelligent and eager students transfer to 4 year universities every year, including several of my close friends. They have now entered the workforce and are highly contributing members to society and the tax-base.
I could go on forever about the benefits of community college (and in some ways how certain things were better than at a place like Stanford), however the short of it is that indeed, I also owe it all to community college, too.
I am forever thankful for California community colleges. I did not the best high school slacked off mostly c's doing the bare minimum. Went to local community college loved it took so many amazing classes with great teacher. I transferred to uc Davis with admissions under contract if hekd certain gpa. Cost me about 4k for two year in fees and books. At uc Davis for 2 years 30k. I learned more at my community college than a pretty decent public research college. Still uc Davis was worth it worked as student employee doing computer support. Turned that into full time job at the college as computer programmer and then gotA
e jobs making way more doing the same thing. Never got CS degree just got chance to some cool things I had no business doing. All thanks to community college
Community college gave me transfer agreement to UC Davis. I went to UCLA instead, though I think I would have happier at Davis.
Anyway, at UCLA, all the most motivated students went to community college first (the ones in the department undergrad club, the one in honors research programs, the ones who eventually got phds)
Despite the fact that the concept of them is to be local to each community, with CCs, as with four year schools, you have to research the specific school and your intended course of study to determine the value. They are different, and the experience can be very different from school to school in the same course of study, or from course of study to course of study in the same school.
CCs tend to have much better faculty:student ratios and a much stronger teaching focus than many four year schools (including UCs) will, especially for lower-division courses. As a result, you can, with the right program, get a better lower-division education at a CC, than at a UC, even one that is strong in your course of study.
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