The CC where I taught was proud of the fact that most of the instructors were part-time and usually working in the field that they taught. So instead of having some PhD whose been in the academic glass tower for years, you had people who worked in the realities of day to day business.
Nor are you terribly likely to even be talking about the same person.
For people with Harvard level talent, there is usually money available to keep them from needing to go the “community college saves me money” route and there is usually enough drive to keep them from needing the “community college eases me into higher education” benefit.
For the Future Harvard MBA, Community College is likely to be a frustrating experience - a lot of less than serious students who need a lot of remedial help, courses taught at a superficial level (with the material covered, but lacking depth you might get when the students all were National Merit Scholars). However, for the kid who didn’t really grasp Algebra yet, and for whom 200 pages of reading a week is intimidating, who needs to keep the tuition low and the loan amount low, and who has no idea what “investment banker” means, community college might be the ideal place.
Fretful Porpentine writes:
> This is a common problem with smart students from poor backgrounds – they
> don’t REALIZE they’re competitive applicants for the honors program, or that
> the sticker price at our university is not going to be the actual price, so they
> and don’t even try.
I’ve often thought that if I had unlimited sums of money and the chance to start any charity I wanted to with it, I would create one which checked out every senior in every high school in the U.S. and found all those who are very smart and very well read but who went to lousy high schools and/or grew up in poor families. Now, some of those know that it’s a good idea for them to apply to the top colleges, since there’s a very good chance that they will get admitted and get plenty of financial aid. For the others, I would offer them a full ride to any college that admitted them. I (or, well, my employees in this charity) would tell them that they don’t have to settle for a community college, a so-so private college, or a mediocre state university. They can go to a top college.
I would be pretty cautious about believing anything that the BLS puts out. A few years ago, it’s stats and job projection had some very unrealistic numbers, so, if they say something about growth rates, I’d scale it down by 75%.
It seemed like everything that I checked on said ‘250,000 new jobs projected by 2013’ and other things that weren’t even close to reality. I think they get undergrad Liberal Arts student interns to compile the information and make the projections.
We have a local community college that has an Electronics Technology curriculum. I have worked with a number of these graduates. They are far superior to folks who went to DeVri (sp?) or some of the other commercial outfits. In fact I have never been able to figure out what it is that those for-profit schools actually teach as the graduates show no signs of knowing much of anything. You can’t read a resistor color code? Don’t know how to put an ampmeter in series?..really?
I went to a lesser institution for my first two years of college. I then transferred to a University with an engineering program. That worked out pretty well. A couple of my programming classes didn’t transfer, and I had to re-take classes, but they were then exceptionally easy, and I ended up with a really good understanding of the material. It did take me 5 years +1 summer to graduate (total both schools) but that was rather typical for engineering program…those that did it in four were rare and they sure weren’t working a job as well as school like I was.
Now the University and the Lesser school did share a campus, and many of the classes were combined, so this may be an unusual case. Metropolitan State College, and University of Colorado at Denver are the schools, which also share the Auraria campus with Community College of Denver, which I took a couple classes through as well.
I think community colleges offer a lot of bang for the buck, and are a great place to start. I do think that after working 10 years or so, though, you will start to be limited in advancement opportunities if you are at a big company. That is plenty enough time to complete a bachelors degree or even MBA part-time…but people tend to get busy with life and not do that.
Because you are considered a more reliable source of job statistics?
I think highly of the community college system. It allows students to get a year or two of college out of the way fairly cheaply - spend your freshman year and maybe part of the sophomore year doing the academics: English, History, etc. Then transfer to the four year college for the degree.
I used to teach computers at Houston Community College. One of my Taekwondo students has started taking classes at HCC. They have entered into a joint venture with UT Tyler and he will get an engineering degree through them, a LOT cheaper than what he was paying to go to Stephen F. Austin State University.
I’m going to bump this topic because this coming semester will likely be my final (if not penultimate) semester at the CC. Gotten straight A’s so far, and given the fact that I’ve also worked throughout the entirety of this process, I’ve managed to save quite a lot of $$$ before I head off to a four-year uni. Good times.
Congratulations and good luck, but one word of caution. Depending on where you go, the attitude of the faculty might be very different.
Community Colleges tend to be what I’d call more ‘customer service’ oriented. That’s my impression at least. If you’re going to a big uni, that’s probably not going to be true. It wasn’t at mine. If you’re going to a small state or private school, the atmosphere might be the same or better.
But at my college, which was part of a larger university, you could get help if you asked for it, but the professors didn’t get rewarded for teaching well. What mattered was if they published original research in their field - publish or perish as the saying went. As a result, some were simply abysmal and as I said in my previous post, many classes ended up being self-taught. If that wasn’t an option for you, you could try to go to office hours and hunt down TA’s, but with a full course load and all the other studying you’ll need to do, options are limited.
Congratulations!! Well done!
I am currently going to a community college for an associates degree in accounting. It is certainly not easy if you want to learn. The number of credits per term to complete the degree in 2 years is the same as a 4 year university, around 18, and we use a lot of the same text books.
There are a lot of goof-off students and students who are undecided about their future plans. There are also a lot of non-traditional students.
I also have an accounting job and we are learning exactly what we need to in order to be successful in the world. There are a lot of employers looking for people with two year degrees in many areas and I agree with an earlier poster that there are more openings for two year degrees than four year in a lot of areas. My supervisor actually said that now that she’s working there wasn’t any real value to her four year degree over a two year degree (She doesn’t have a desire to be a CPA). This may not be true in all areas of the country but I’ve heard the same sentiment from a lot of people in this area.
I have a classmate who also has an accounting job. They just hired an accountant who recently graduated from a local four year college. We have more useful knowledge than him.
But . . . for people who don’t do the work to get their best possible grade, I do think the grading is easy and a lot of the tests are easy. I have been out of school for 25 years so it could be that a four year college would seem easier to me. If I do the work and study as if the tests are going to cover all the material I am getting a great education.
My accounting classes are usually less than 15 students and my online non-accounting classes are usually under 25 students.
Kind of unfortunate news to report, depending on how you look at it.
The school that I’d hoped to attend was too impacted to accept any transfers for classes in spring of '14. I was hedging a lot of my plans on heading off to the four-year school in April, but now the earliest that that’ll happen is probably next fall.
The biggest downside to this (IMO) is that it means I’ll be 23 years old by the time I finally enroll in the four-year school, and that I’ll probably be at least 25 before I graduate with my final degree.
It also means I have some decisions to make in the meantime. Regardless of how anything else pans out, I’m going to have my AA by the end of this semester, which means I’m gonna have to decide whether I want to spend an additional semester at the CC trying to either (a) take a class or two that might assist my major at the four-year school, or (b) take enough classes and maybe secure another associate’s degree. Nevertheless, I can’t really make either decision until I know what next semester’s course catalog is going to look like, so until then I’ll just have to stew on everything.
There is a silver lining to this, though. I have no intention to stop working while I’m at CC, so by the time I enroll at the four-year institution I’ll have quite a bit more $$$ saved up. It’s becoming increasingly likely that I’ll be able to graduate with a four-year degree without having to take out any loans, which, given the costs of today’s colleges, would be quite a feat in itself.
I realize that some of this post might have come off as a rant or journal entry or something, but I do come to these boards seeking advice. With all that said, what does the Dope have to say?
My advice is not to worry about being 25 when you graduate with the bachelor’s degree. That’s not too late. It’s never too late.
I’d suggest the (a) option, taking classes that might transfer towards the BA, not sweating getting another AA. As one poster noted upstream, once you get the BA, no one cares about the community college stuff. I did CC for 2 yrs, transferred, got the BA and later the MA. Some of my best teachers were in the CC. Of course, dinosaurs roamed the campus when I went to school. Good luck. Despite the temporary setbacks, you’ve got the right attitude.
I spent several years as an adjunct instructor (they called me professor but I never believed it) at a CC. Trust me, seeing those kids work was rewarding as hell. The focused ones were more focused than I ever was as an undergrad.
And no one will care that you got your degree at 25. No one at all. Don’t think it’ll impact you in any way. Take the opportunity to take some classes (that you KNOW will transfer) and polish up that ol’ transcript. If you can add another useful AA, that would be great. It won’t HURT to have on your resume
BS - State University
AA - CC
AA - CC
Might even make you stand out. AND it can give you a story to sell in interviews about how committed you were to getting the extra degree to help you in your career.
Depending on how old you look, adding a few years can be advantageous. I actually had a professor in college tell me that since I looked like I should still be in middle school I suppose. 
I did my first 2 years at a community college, and I feel I got as good an education there as I would have at any other university, and had the benefit of small classes and available teachers.
I think it depends a bit on what you want to do after your BA/BS. Have your career plans solidified at all?
Unrelated to the current discussion, but I’m throwing in some anecdotes more in line with the earlier discussion that may be relevant for future interested parties
I know one woman with a PhD in chemistry who spent two of her undergrad years at a CC.
A guy who was teaching English classes in El Paso at both UTEP and EPCC said his EPCC students were higher quality. Both sets were moronic, primarily having come up through the local public schools, but definitely a better set (and smaller classes) at EPCC.
I’m transferring from my CC for fall semester this year. I’ll be 42. I’ll have my BA when I’m 45. Don’t let it get you down.
You could also use the time to take classes that you’d enjoy that aren’t toward your major, but are for your own personal reward.