community college or a four year university?
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i am a senior in high school and i would like to attend a community college first then transfer over to a four year university but i am wondering what are the pros and cons of doing that? i’ve heard A LOT of things but i don’t know fact from fiction. thanks (:
(i live in Southen Cali if that helps at all)
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Pros: Community college is usually a LOT cheaper than any other kind of college, including other state schools. If you haven’t decided what you want to do with yourself, starting in a community college might be a good option for you. You can start working on your general education credits, and you can try out a huge variety of classes in many disciplines to see what you like. You will also gain a college-level track record that might help your application, especially if your high school grades aren’t stellar (of course, if your grades are great, this probably isn’t going to be a big deal for you).
Cons: If experiencing dorm life is important to you, you might lose a year or two of the experience while in community college (unless your community college has dorms, of course). You will have to be careful to make sure most of all of your community college credits will transfer to your four-year university, so if you have your eye on any universities you might want to look at their requirements for transferring credits. Some universities also don’t offer the best financial aid packages to transfer students, so again, check on that at all of the universities you might be interested in. That said, many universities still give transfer students excellent aid packages so that might not be such a huge problem.
ETA: Make sure you have a plan in mind. Don’t just wander aimlessly through classes at community college. Keep in mine your goal of going to a four-year university, and make sure everything you do will benefit you (or at least no hurt you) in that quest. For example, get an idea of the basic general education requirements at the universities you’re interested in and try to take community college classes that are equivalent. Equivalency of courses is usually a requirement for transferring credits, so it’s worth the extra effort to figure out what is and isn’t equivalent. Some things are kind of obvious (e.g. English 101 is usually consistent from school to school) and for the things that aren’t you should be able to find someone at the school to help you out.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:53 amPersonally i would say go to a four year university. Community college you might find yourself their for longer than two years just trying to get the right units in order to transfer.
Pro: It’s A lot cheaper
December 16th, 2009 at 11:53 amI would recommend going to the community college first, unless you are independently wealthy.
Or, you can take a semester at a university in major specific classes, take a semester off and go to CC, then another semester at the university, then back to the CC until you get all of your GEs done. Then, just transfer in those units and you’ll be fine. Unless of course you want to mix and match, a university class with a CC class if the schools are near one another.
For example, El Camino College with CSUDH, LBCC with CSULB, College of the Canyons with CSUN or Santa Monica College or West LA with UCLA, USC, or CSULA would work well together.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:53 amIt’s a good idea because you can get some of the pre-reqs out of the way, which may end up being easier at a cc. If you go to a 4-year, you should definitely know what you want to do later. If you do the cc first, you might find out what you don’t like earlier and what you want to study in the future. I have a friend who knew that he wanted to teach history but still went to a cc first and is now in a university pursuing his Ph.D. in history. I would go to cc first.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:53 am