I need advice and different view points about Community College.

[EmmEeeGee]

Alright, I'm not a graduate student, but I am a potential graduate student. I am working for a Communication Studies degree and I was referred to this website in order to seek advice and to hear different view points from people who have 'already accomplished' what I am doing as of right now.

I attend a California Community College, where I will be returning as a College Sophomore this Fall. My first semester went great! I took 3 classes, which I all passed with an A. My second semester didn't go all too well. My professors were less than amazing and I had to drop my classes after missing 3 weeks after my father passed away.

I can't wait to get back into school and I already have my registration date and different classes picked out. Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. First, I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should take 3 or 4 classes. My first semester I had taken 3 classes and it worked out great! My second semester I had taken 4 classes, and due to life events, I fell behind and eventually withdrew. This is going to be my third semester and I'm ready to go to school again. I work part time, I have flexible hours that are always changing (One week I will work 22 hours, the next week I will have 11 hours). In high school I was a straight A student, I graduated high school a year early through an independent study program, while I worked a part time job, so I know I am more than capable of keeping up with the work. I need some advice on what I should do.

My next problem has to do with online classes versus campus classes. Reminiscing back to my first two semesters at the same college, I took all my classes on the campus and my first semester, being at school wasn't a burden. I loved going to class, I enjoyed my professors, etc etc. My second semester was a little more challenging. My professors were all confusing and I didn't feel as if my classes were worth my time. I left early and didn't show up a few times each class and once my dad passed away, I knew I was giving up on that semester with those professors.

Now, the new semester is coming up and I weeded through the class catalog, figured out which courses I need to transfer to a California State University, and started charting down every class I was interested in and needed. Once I had a list of over 20 classes, I looked up every professor on the internet and seen their 'teaching ratings' and weeded out the ones with bad reviews (I should have done this when I picked out my classes for second semester. After the semester had already started, I found the professor rating website and looked my professors up and to no surprise, they all had low rankings). Now, I have 12 different classes to choose from (some classes are duplicates but different professors or some are online classes). I have never had an online class before and now I am choosing whether or not I want to switch my entire school schedule to online or just try one or two online classes out at first.

My third question has to do with the courses that are mandatory that I take due to my major. I am majoring in Communications and there is a list of Communication courses I need in order to transfer with my A.A. in Communication Studies. I was wondering if I should evenly distribute my general education courses per semester with my mandatory Communication classes, or if I should finish all my General Education first or finish my Communication requirements first? I need some opinions on what I should do.

Last but not least, I was wondering if anyone knew how overlapping classes work. What I mean by overlapping classes is, for example, a class like Sociology 101. Sociology 101 is offered as a 'psychology' requirement for a CSU transfer and offered as a 'Lifelong Learning' requirement as well. Specifically, I was wondering if I took one semester of a class, I will use Sociology 101 for an example, will it count for both a 'psychology' requirement and a 'Lifelong Learning' requirement, or will I need to choose which requirement that class fulfills?

Hopefully I can get a lot of insight on my situation! I could need all the opinions and different view points that I can get!

[TakeruK]

Hi there! It's tough to get back into "school mode" after some time away so it's good to see you have a well thought out plan and you sound enthusiastic! My major was not in communications (or even the Arts) but my wife was doing something similar (getting an Associates and transferring to a University) to you (in Psychology) and I remember the pain of cross referencing all the transfer credit guides etc.! Not to mention the worry that the tables are outdated, or the rules would change, etc. and the courses won't transfer anymore! My wife and I went to school in Canada though, but I think what I'm going to say will still apply / be helpful!

1. Course load: This really depends on you. My wife took 5 courses (15-18 hours of lectures and labwork) and worked 2 part-time jobs (~16 hours per week) during her Associate's degree. She had to do it to pay for school, but it's something she would not want to do again since after ~40 hours/week of classes + work, it doesn't leave much time for homework. No free time either! This is the typical workload of a graduate student (but maybe fewer hours in class and more hours TAing or researching) though!

2. Online vs. on-campus. Again, this depends on how you study / learn. My wife found that taking 2/5 classes online helped her plan her work schedule better. In my undergrad, I took 1 or 2 online classes as well. Both of us found that online classes are really easy to brush off though, so on-campus classes helped us discipline ourselves in keeping up with our work. One advantage of on-campus classes though is the ability to meet with other students and work together on assignments. More importantly, to get into grad school you will need to get reference letters from professors, and you would need to actually meet people face-to-face to do this! However, you would want your letters to come from research supervisors if possible, and this might not be a possibility until you transfer. So, maybe taking an all-online courseload is not a good thing now, because you probably want to be able to spend a lot of time on-campus when you transfer. But taking a few online courses could help you schedule your life better!

3. For class distribution, I would generally recommend taking the mandatory classes first when possible. So, if you need to repeat one of your 3rd semester classes, you might be able to do so in the 4th semester. But if you had left it until the 4th semester, then you will probably have to go back for an extra year, which might not be something you want! But maybe this isn't a big deal for you. Or even leaving too many mandatory courses until your last semester means you have very little choice in your schedule, which may affect other things such as work, family, personal time, etc. General education courses are more flexible since there are probably more offerings that will meet your requirements so it's more likely you can fit them around your own life better. Also, if transferring is a competitive process, you will probably have to apply for a transfer before your last semester is complete, and it might look better on you if you already have most of your requirements done.

4. In British Columbia, when you transfer a course, it will usually fulfill the same requirement as if you had taken the course at the school you're transferring to. That is, if a student at CSU can take Sociology 101 as both a psychology requirement AND a lifelong learning requirement, then your transfer course would probably fulfill the same thing. (In this case, it's not clear whether or not the course will "double count"). So, I would assume that the general principle is the same in California too. Note that sometimes a college will require you to take something like Sociology 201 at your CC in order to transfer to the college but then it will only accept the transfer credit as an "general education" credit and require you to take their version of Sociology 201. Basically, everyone I know who has done this transfer ended up having to retake at least one of their CC courses at their new college. Because of this, even though the standard AA is 2 years followed by 2 years to finish off the BA, students tend to end up needing 3 years at the college to actually finish up. This might not be a bad thing if you want to do graduate studies, since that is an extra year to get to know profs for letters, and most importantly, an extra year to get research experience and strengthen your application.

Good luck!!

[OregonGal]

Hey! I didn't go this route myself, but my mother is a community college instructor and some of my friends have done the CC transfer route so I'm at least a little familiar with the process.

I agree with TakeruK that a lot of your answers depends on your personal preference and outside workload; for example, taking 4 classes a term is standard for a full-time student planning to graduate in 4 years. If you work 20+ hours a week, you may want to take 3; however I always counseled my friends a year or two behind me to not believe that the financial aid definition of full time (12 credits/3 classes) is actually full-time (on track to graduate in 8 semesters/12 quarters).

I've also done the online classes a couple of times, and for me it was worthwhile (yay reading lecture notes at 10 pm instead of an 8am lecture) but also easy to procrastinate on. It's up to you based on how you (realistically) think you will approach the class and the workload. Also, do you learn well from basically reading through a book or a powerpoint slide? That's probably how the class will be approached.

If your required courses are pre-reqs for the major you want to enroll in at the 4-year college, I would get those out of the way. I also think you should also complete all of your gen ed requirements before you transfer because if they're not applicable to your degree or are pre-reqs, you're better off taking them at the discounted CC price. However, you mentioned getting an A.A. in Communication Studies? I would just double-check you're in the right program to go on to a 4-year college. At my mother's CC, you either get an A.A. or a University Transfer degree. You don't receive an A.A. when you're planning on transferring.

Your community college should have resources on transferrable credits available from the registrar's office. Especially if you're planning to transfer to a UC or CS school, they should know exactly what course you'll be credited with at the four-year college. Now, I don't know what a "lifelong learning" requirement is. If it's a general ed requirement, like how I was required to take a "cultural" course (regional or ethnic studies) then it will most likely double-count. However, if "lifelong learning" is a community/audit course, you should be careful because some of those courses are designed as survey courses for retirees, and don't transfer.

[Eigen]

I agree with the above in relation to course load.

12 hours is the financial aid definition of full time, but that's set on a course to graduate in 5 or 6 years, depending on circumstances.

The average degree is around 120-130 hours, which is 10-11 semesters at 12 hours per semester.

I think the lowest I took during undergrad was 14 hours, with most of my semesters around 18-20. This is a lot more typical of a courseload similar to graduate school, and I would think if you consistently took low hour semesters, it might make grad school admissions committees worry that you wouldn't be able to handle the incrased workload. I worked a variety of part time jobs during undergrad, from 10-30 hours per week, as did most of my friends, and we never really had problems making the hours fit, it just takes prioritizing it.

This obviously has to balance out with your work schedule, but I personally wouldn't recommend taking less than 4 classes in a given semester.

I also find that when you take more classes, the increased work load really makes you have to focus on and prioritize school, which can really help with your efficiency and time management.

[Two Espressos]

I agree with the above in relation to course load.

12 hours is the financial aid definition of full time, but that's set on a course to graduate in 5 or 6 years, depending on circumstances.

The average degree is around 120-130 hours, which is 10-11 semesters at 12 hours per semester.

I think the lowest I took during undergrad was 14 hours, with most of my semesters around 18-20. This is a lot more typical of a courseload similar to graduate school, and I would think if you consistently took low hour semesters, it might make grad school admissions committees worry that you wouldn't be able to handle the incrased workload. I worked a variety of part time jobs during undergrad, from 10-30 hours per week, as did most of my friends, and we never really had problems making the hours fit, it just takes prioritizing it.

This obviously has to balance out with your work schedule, but I personally wouldn't recommend taking less than 4 classes in a given semester.

I also find that when you take more classes, the increased work load really makes you have to focus on and prioritize school, which can really help with your efficiency and time management.

I cannot comment upon anything pertaining specifically to community college, but I want to echo some of what Eigen has said here. I'm a rising senior set to graduate next spring. I've taken 16 credits every semester excluding a semester where I took 15 credits. Taking too many classes may stress you out more, but it's definitely doable. A friend of mine has taken a few 18 credit semesters, for instance. Another friend studying nursing needs lots of time to study, so she never takes more than 12-15 credits a semester. I know another girl who's taking 24 credits next fall! That's just insane in my opinion, but I guess it just depends on how you personally learn.

I think 15-18 credits is a good amount, and that's my personal recommendation. Since I took 16 credits mostly every semester, I'm ahead of schedule as far as my credits go, so I am able to take an easy 13 credit semester this fall while I prepare my graduate school applications. The saved time (and money!) earned by taking a slightly higher than average course load is probably the best incentive for so doing. That's my two cents.

[Gneiss1]

Community college is a lovely little gem isn't it? I did the two year community college then transfer to a four year route. Walked out of undergrad debt free which was quite nice! I am not a comm's major but my boyfriend was (we graduated this year). So here is a mixture of advice from me and him since I don't know much about your particular dept.

Course load wise as others have said, I would do at least 4 classes. Seeing as most of your classes will be 3 credits, that puts you just at full-time. I realize you work as well, but I think 12 is certainly doable with a part-time and it will better prepare you for your future workload. It also will maximize your FAFSA money and loan options if you are full-time if that is applicable to you.

Everyone does different with online classes. I personally loved them, they only take a couple hours a week and are pretty much all the same format and structure. Probably the only classes I wouldnt recommend doing online would be any math or science classes that involve a lab, I tried that once and it was a pain. For your other general studies things though...english, psychology, philosophy, economics, whatever else you need to take to fulfill your general studies...these are all pretty easy classes anyways and online tend to be just reading and writing discussion boards. You do have to actually make yourself log on and do the work but it takes far less time than actually going to a classroom 2-3 times per week. My last year and a half of undergrad I took on 19-22 credits each semester (which cost more but I got done earlier) but since half of my credits were online it really only felt like the workload of maybe 16 credits.

In terms of what classes to take, if you have plans to go to graduate school then I would take as many of your major communications classes at the four-year university you graduate from and limit your community college classes to mostly gen. eds. Universities tend to be much more in detail with their classes and you are going to want to really know your material for grad school. Your gen eds on the other hand, well lets just say I dont think I will ever find a use for probably half of the things I learned in those classes unless I end up on jeopardy.

As for transferring in classes they will generally only apply it to one field, but you can have your choice. You will need at least 120 credits to graduate anyways so it all evens out in the end.

Finally, it may be worth it to just get a transfer in rather than an AA. Getting an AA won't really matter after you have a BS/BA and also while you want to take most of your classes for gen eds at community college, you probably don't want to take ALL of them there. It's good to save a few easy classes for when you are doing your major ones otherwise you can get overloaded with hard classes and no real break. Plus certain classes are only offer certain years/semesters so having some options once you get there can be helpful to alleviate your workload.

Best of luck! Looks like you are heading in the right direction:)

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I think you're overthinking community college. I went to one, too. Like at my university, I worked 40 hours a week and took 18 credits (6 classes). Many people I know did that, too. As far as the classes and stuff go, take whatever you want. It's an associate's degree. You don't have to get it in communications. Every university offers a BA in communications and the fields are usually 30-45 credits (like all fields). You can transfer to your university having never taken a class in communications and still get the required 30-45 credits with enough leftover to get a second degree or just take whatever interests you. Unless you're doing something real specific, like engineering or a math + physics double major, you really don't have to rush into anything.

[jeffster]

I did a few years at community college too, and it's a great way to get pre-reqs out of the way easily and cheaply. Here's my pointers, some of which have been touched on already. This is all going on the assumption that your long-term goal is to get the associates done, transfer to a 4-year institution and finish the BA/BS, then go onto grad school:

Take as few of the classes in your major field at CC as possible. You need to develop relationships with professors in your field at your 4-year institution. It's literally crucial that you get to know 2-3 professors in your area or a related area, who will write letters of rec for you to grad school. This is most easily done if you take more than 1 class with that professor, though it's certainly possible after 1 class if you stand out.

Take at least 4 courses a semester, 5 if you can. CC classes tend to be easier, and you'll need to show any potential grad school that you can handle a heavy workload. If you part-time your way through undergrad, it wont reflect as well as if you loaded up on classes. Of course that comes with the caveat that you still have to actually do well in those classes, so make sure you're accurately assessing your own ability to get by with a heavy workload.

Take as few online courses as possible. Grad school isn't done online, and the point is to show the grad committee that you can handle it and they should invest time and money in you. Also, you really need to develop those relationships with professors, and you wont do that online. Definitely do not take anything in your major field online. Personally, I took just one course online, and it was a summer class taught by a grad student anyway.

Community college is a fantastic way to do your early university education for far less money. I also found at my community college that it was even better than the state university I went to for the more "practical" oriented courses. For example, I took a biology course on natural resources there (my major has nothing to do with biology), and the teacher instead of being a professor was a long-time inspector for the department of natural resources, who took us all over the city to actual relevant sites. And I had an international law course taught by someone who actually practices as an immigration lawyer, who brought in several immigrants she had helped to talk about things. These were far better experiences than I would have gotten at a university with an academic teaching them, I think. On the flip side, however, I found the theory-heavy courses (economics, sociology, poli sci, etc) tended to be much better at my state university.

Also, meet with a CC adviser early and plot out a course to your transfer - CC advisers should be well used to students whose goal is to get to a 4-year institution, and will have good advice for you. Take that list of courses you put together with professors you want to take to a meeting with them.

Good luck

[Eigen]

So one additional thing I wanted to note- and this may not be as much of an issue for communication- be careful of taking too many general ed classes and not enough major classes.

It can leave you in a really akward situation when you transfer, if your degree program has a lot of pre-requisites.

I had a couple of friends who did this (engineering and nursing), both of whom had a lot of trouble finding 12 hours to take a semester. The major classes were very rigorously tiered, with only one or two a semester for your first couple of years, with the expectation that you'd be taking general ed courses along with them. But if you'd already done the gen ed courses, your options were to either take upper level "electives"- which are harder than you need- or to try to find additional lower-level electives to fill the time. My friends ended up having to take things like Bowling and Golf, since it was either that or upper teir social science and english classes, all of which were not at all what they needed.

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

So one additional thing I wanted to note- and this may not be as much of an issue for communication- be careful of taking too many general ed classes and not enough major classes.

It can leave you in a really akward situation when you transfer, if your degree program has a lot of pre-requisites.

I had a couple of friends who did this (engineering and nursing), both of whom had a lot of trouble finding 12 hours to take a semester. The major classes were very rigorously tiered, with only one or two a semester for your first couple of years, with the expectation that you'd be taking general ed courses along with them. But if you'd already done the gen ed courses, your options were to either take upper level "electives"- which are harder than you need- or to try to find additional lower-level electives to fill the time. My friends ended up having to take things like Bowling and Golf, since it was either that or upper teir social science and english classes, all of which were not at all what they needed.

Well, a true community college doesn't offer anything at the upper division. Also, since the OP is doing communications, it isn't really necessary for him to take any communications classes at his community college (if the college even offers any). A communications degree is most likely 30-45 credits, which means, if the OP takes care of all his gen ed courses at his community college, he will have enough room after completing his communications degree requirements to purse a second major, one minor, two minors, or just random classes. Unless you're doing nursing, engineering, math or physics, there is really no need to rush. If you're doing something in humanities or social sciences, you most likely won't be required to really hustle until your junior/senior year.

Edited June 14, 2012 by JoeyBoy718

[Eigen]

My point wasn't about rushing, but at a lack of classes depending on how the program is structured at the 4 year once he transfers.

Especially since maintaining 12 credits is important, you can "run out" of courses outside your major to take. In (for instance) physics, you'll normally have one in major course per semester for your first 3-4 semesters. The rest of your courseload is supposed to be gen ed and other pre-requisites. If you've already taken those, you get stuck in a situation where you need to find 3-4 electives to take per semester along with your majors courses, which can be harder than it sounds. Same thing happens in Engineering and Nursing, where the curricla are quite rigid. Like I said, it may not be an issue in communcations so much as other fields, but it's something to consider.

It's worth looking at the normal course outline for your intended major at the university you want to transfer to, and to try to make your courses fit as well as possible.

I mean, personally I had somewhere around 200 credits by the time I graduated, since I had lots of other interests- but that's not true for everyone.

[Usmivka]

A related point:

Some 4-yr state universities (like the one I went to, and I'm nearly certain the UC and Cal State systems work the same way) will kick you out if you have too many credits with too little progress towards your degree. The students this policy usually effects most? Community college transfers.

Folks come in with a high credit count but too few major courses. By the time they've hit most of their major courses, they are sitting around 175-190 credits (at the UW), with the credits required for one degree ~180, and they get the boot at ~200 if they have more than a class or two left to do. If they fail a class when they are in this scenario, they don't get to retry, they are out. So if you fail or get too low a grade in a class with certain grade requirements for the major, or accidentally missed a distribution requirement or prereq, you can be up the creek without a paddle. I know several students who got kicked out of school this way, all CC transfers with lots of credits. The only way to up the credit count was to add a second degree, but the new threshold of 225 credits was often too little to cover both the new requirements and the existing deficiencies.

Long story short, have a plan. Don't wing it and take whatever you feel like. Someone who starts in a 4 year school has that luxury for a time, but you do not. CC is an awesome opportunity and makes financial sense, but it can come with baggage when you transfer. The course you've laid out requires a lot of careful planning if you plan to stay at a West Coast public university.

[ANDS!]

Good lord. If you're sitting at that many units you've done something horribly wrong - swapped majors, took every course under the sun, or just had really bad guidance. 120 units are required for a degree in the CSU system; I'm sure the count is commiserate at the UC's (with their quarter system).

If I have little rugrats, they are absolutely going to CC first; CC transfers within my major were some of the more grounded focused students.

[TakeruK]

Good lord. If you're sitting at that many units you've done something horribly wrong - swapped majors, took every course under the sun, or just had really bad guidance. 120 units are required for a degree in the CSU system; I'm sure the count is commiserate at the UC's (with their quarter system).

If I have little rugrats, they are absolutely going to CC first; CC transfers within my major were some of the more grounded focused students.

I think it's easy to get too many unneeded credits if you aren't sure about what you want to do at the start -- it's hard to decide when you're 17-18! My school also needed 120 credits for majors, 133 for honours, and I graduated with something like 140 because I did a little switching (from majors astronomy to honours physics+astro so not really a big change, but I needed to take a summer semester of courses to catch up to the honours stream). But even if such a small change required ~9 extra credits, I can imagine a bigger switch could "cost" a lot more credits easily. Also, some of my friends who wanted to minor in, say, English or Math along with their Physics degrees easily had over 150 credits. The limit at our school was something like 170?

However, I don't think anyone had issues because of transferring from CC -- if the credits from CC don't count towards the University degree, then they also weren't counted as credits against the student. So usually one does ~60 credits in 2 years at CC but most people end up only transferring something like ~50 credits especially since some CC courses in the major aren't transferable and they would have to repeat at University.

I think undergrads at a University whose education is paid for by the parents/someone else could be liable to be ungrounded/unfocused but it's not true to generalize that. I agree that everyone I knew in my major that transferred from a CC were definitely grounded / focused but so were people who worked and paid for their own education! I would probably want my children to earn their own tuition (either through scholarships or working part time) and let them choose between CC or University because it's going to be mostly their money (obviously we will help them out a bit where possible too).

[Eigen]

Good lord. If you're sitting at that many units you've done something horribly wrong - swapped majors, took every course under the sun, or just had really bad guidance. 120 units are required for a degree in the CSU system; I'm sure the count is commiserate at the UC's (with their quarter system).

If I have little rugrats, they are absolutely going to CC first; CC transfers within my major were some of the more grounded focused students.

I'm betting they're talking about a quarter system as opposed to a semester system.

[OregonGal]

Yeah I was about to say... I think the requirement was 160-180 in my school because it's a quarter system--full time would be 42 credits a years. And I graduated with well over that because due to AP courses, I came in with around 40 credits but still graduated in four years because I used the schedule space to dual-major.