Community College Grads?

[Ronstar]

I went to junior college for 2 years after high school, then finished my BA 18 years later. The junior college was convenient only 25 miles from home and got me started into engineering. Engineering head got me a job with a local firm.

 

[VanWinkle]

Associates at CC while in business for 18 years as owner of a small business. I took the classes I needed to help my business, and filled in the gaps later for the 2 year degree. With a wife and 4 kids, I took additional classes but never went after a 4 year degree. Never regretted the path or the results.

 

[Bamaman]

I was looking at my sister in law's community college handbook.

They often jam 4 years of technical courses into 2 years.

I wasn't about to go to that school as their technical courses were just too difficult.

The junior college was much more difficult than my big city 4 year university with 23,000 students.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

We talk about this in our family quite a lot. DW spent two years at her local Community College then transferred to state University for her BS, MS and PhD. She's now a (semi-retired) college professor. I went to a fancy Ivy League school for both undergrad and grad and it's not clear my results were any better than hers (though my alumni newsletter is nicer - so there's that).

Remarkably similar story!

DW started with 2 years at a NY CC, then went to SUNY for her BS, followed by a Ph.D. in Physics at Yale. I was fortunate to go to a fancy (non-Ivy) for undergrad, and an Ivy Ph.D. in Physics.

She is a semi-retired college prof (now CEO of a startup). I, on the other hand, am a FULLY RETIRED college prof, so I think I had the better outcome!


Edited to add: I really shouldn't have called her "semi-retired." She is no longer at the university, but she is working the start-up gig to the tune of 60+ hours per week. I just feed her!

 

[candrew]

DW & DS are CC grads and went on to University to finish BA & MSN degrees respectively.

Arizona community colleges are now offering 4 year degrees in certain fields, i.e. education & nursing. IIRC, tuition is less than half the cost of state universities.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I went to CC my first two years in California, the transferred to UC Berkeley. I applied and was accepted to UC Berkeley in high school, but after being accepted, my parents said they wanted sister and I to go to CC first. My dad went to Chico State and transferred to Berkeley after two years and my mom dropped out of Berkeley after one year, so that was probably the thinking behind holding us back in CC. Several of my college-bound high school friends went to the same CC, but a couple of others went to UC Berkeley. It was all affordable and we could commute by car or public transportation from our parents’ houses either way.

I was worried how it would look on my medical school applications to start at CC, but it worked out and I got into my first choice medical school.

Another thing that helped was that our CC had a program where we could take a class or two at UC Berkeley while at CC. I took organic chemistry at Berkeley which was a real blessing in that I had 3 visiting professors for that course, who were fantastic teachers. Berkeley took exactly one day to process my application when I reapplied after getting straight A+’s in Berkeley’s organic chemistry course. All the professors in my major were superb, and taught from the standard curriculum and the texts.

 

[Backpacker]

Another unmotivated HS student. I got my first banking job the summer before my senior year of HS. Took me 6 years to get my associates degree. I was working full-time, married, and toward the end had our first child. I liked that many of the instructors had real world experience. I transferred over to 4 year program at same university and got most of the way to a BS degree but working full-time ,now 2 kids, and a part-time job on weekends life got too hectic and I quit. Fast forward 10 years - I applied for a VP job that required a BS degree. The president re wrote the requirements to be 4 yr degree or commensurate experience so he could hire me. In the interview I mentioned I would like to go back and finish my BS degree. To which he replied "Why!?, you've already got 15 years banking experience, what else do you think you'd learn?"

Loved his response, and I never gave the 4yr degree another thought.

Retired with 38 years in banking just before my 55th birthday.

I'd say the associates degree served me well.

 

[Koolau]

CC can work well in states where the 4 year public schools are required to accept CC classes.

Yes, our youngest did first two years in CC and then went to State school. All credits applied but were WAY cheaper and housing was free (at home.) It's not where you went to school, it's where you graduated that goes on your diploma.

 

[wrigley]

I utilized what is called the 2+2 program at Penn State. You do the first two years at one of the twenty branch campuses scattered around Pennsylvania and the last two years at the main campus in University Park, PA.

My SIL is currently a doctor at Penn State medical center.

 

[wrigley]

Yes, our youngest did first two years in CC and then went to State school. All credits applied but were WAY cheaper and housing was free (at home.) It's not where you went to school, it's where you graduated that goes on your diploma.

My son started at the local CC and when his 2 years were ending the school became a 4 year school and happened to offer the degree he was interested in. Small school, a mile from the house, and much cheaper than where he was originally planning on going.

Mike.

 

[eytonxav]

I was a totally disinterested HS student, although I did like math. Went to CC out of HS and took accounting. Flunked out after first semester and went to work at the phone company. Then the draft came into play, so I enlisted in the USAF. After the service I went back with the phone company, but got fed up after a long strike and decided to go back to CC. I recall being unimpressed with many of the college grad managers at the phone company and that motivated me to feel I was every bit as smart as them. I brushed up on my math skills for a few months and then entered CC in Engineering Science. Graduated at top of my class AAS in Engineering Science and finished with a EE at RPI for my final two years. I will say the professors at CC were outstanding and gave me a sound footing to move on to the 4 year institution.

 

[lajolla]

Not all cc students are unmotivated. I was first generation to go to college in my family and was not comfortable going too far from home at 18. CC was great for me and I transferred to San Diego State University and got my degree in accounting and have lived in San Diego ever since.

We have very good cc's here in San Diego and some are beginning to offer 4 year degrees. With the price of college being so high in the future I think more people will opt to stay home and go to a cc before transferring and paying the big bucks to complete their degrees.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

From the other side

First, I want to thank all of you posting positive experiences with community colleges! A year after retiring from Mega-Corp, I got a part-time gig teaching computer science at a SUNY affiliated community college. In looking through these posts, one or two of you might even have gone here.

Fast forward, I went from part time to full time temp and then tenured. Overall, it's been great. One of things I can offer students is a bit of what it is like in the real world as a software developer, analyst, etc.

There are (sometimes) issues with articulation agreements and credit transfer, but for the most part these have improved over the years. SUNY now has cross registration (where a student in one school registers for a class in another) and I have been getting more and more students in my classes from other SUNY (and non-SUNY) schools. Sometimes, it is as simple as class availability, e.g. I have a couple students in a intermediate Java (online class) from another SUNY school. When I asked them why, it was because a class was full and they had heard about me from another student. With online class sections, this has become more frequent. I also get students from more expensive schools who are trying to satisfy a course requirement (a lot less $) in schools for which we have an articulation agreement. Many programs are now set up to be able to do the entire program in a distance learning format, so the numbers have risen.

In terms of students, it runs the spectrum. Some are there because they've been told they have to go to college. Some are there because they can get a LOT of their eventual credit load a LOT cheaper than a more expensive school. Some are there because they are in a job and want to change careers.

I have had students that I (back in Mega-Corp days) would hire...right then and right now...they are that good.

My teaching career is (somewhat soon) going to be winding down. If not, I will need to join the FIRL forum (Financially Independent, Retire Late). I know one thing - I will miss it a LOT more than when I left Mega-Corp.

 

[Walt34]

In terms of students, it runs the spectrum. Some are there because they've been told they have to go to college.

This reminded me of the first day at the CC, when you go to this "introductory" session where they have one of the counselors or maybe a V.P. of the school "Welcome to XYZ CC" and such speech.

In my post about the CC I mentioned that I started in the second semester, having spent the first one after H.S. unloading trucks.

It was one of the counselors, I found out later found out, who amid all the loud chatter of the students-to-be, walked to the podium and the entire room immediately fell silent. He remarked on that, saying that the difference between first semester and second semester students was dramatic. As you pointed out many of the first semester students were there because they were told to be there by parents or they had to be there.

But the second semester students were there because they WANTED to be there, and there was a world of difference in the way they approached school and behaved. They'd had time to think about what they wanted to do and how to achieve that, where many of the first semester students had not.

 

[Koolau]

This reminded me of the first day at the CC, when you go to this "introductory" session where they have one of the counselors or maybe a V.P. of the school "Welcome to XYZ CC" and such speech.

In my post about the CC I mentioned that I started in the second semester, having spent the first one after H.S. unloading trucks.

It was one of the counselors, I found out later found out, who amid all the loud chatter of the students-to-be, walked to the podium and the entire room immediately fell silent. He remarked on that, saying that the difference between first semester and second semester students was dramatic. As you pointed out many of the first semester students were there because they were told to be there by parents or they had to be there.

But the second semester students were there because they WANTED to be there, and there was a world of difference in the way they approached school and behaved. They'd had time to think about what they wanted to do and how to achieve that, where many of the first semester students had not.

Reminds me of my girlfriend during university days (now DW.) She spent two years commuting from home. Her parents were nice people but placed demands on her that she was no longer willing to accept.

3rd year, she moved to a dorm. So here she was, a Junior in the midst of a dorm full of Freshmen. She was the only person in the dorm (IIRC 40 students in one small building) who had a key to get in/out of the building at night (Crash bars would have brought out the dorm police.) So the girls running late would come tap on her outside window and beg to be let in before they got caught. Of course, most of them then ran to the bathroom to heave.

DW was serious about university but she got to see the full gamut of girls (partiers to studiers.) She was the de-facto mom, spiritual advisor, shoulder to cry on, etc. Basically, it was a real drag for her so she moved to an off-campus apartment the next year (and got her best grades ever.) It's mostly about "wanting it" when it comes to education. If you want it badly enough, you'll gut it out and make it happen. CC's are a real inexpensive way to find out if a college education is for you or not for you. YMMV

 

[GravitySucks]

Glad to see so many of us had positive experiences at CC. I still, unfortunately, hear the old stereotypes about it being 13th grade.

Sent from my LM-Q850 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Koolau]

Glad to see so many of us had positive experiences at CC. I still, unfortunately, hear the old stereotypes about it being 13th grade.

Sent from my LM-Q850 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

I suppose there are some schools that give CCs a bad name. But if the state accredits them (and makes their credits suitable for eventual degrees from state universities) most students should feel comfortable with the quality of CC educations. Definitely YMMV.

 

[Walt34]

Yes, the CC where I went and many (most?) of the CCs in Maryland have accreditations and agreements that all classes are transferable to Maryland U. and I think most other four-year schools in MD.

 

[meleana]

Anyone else get their college start at Community Colleges?

I was an unmotivated high school student and parents never offered any college help or advice.
After not finding any good employment here for a few years I escorted DGF to her registration day at the local CC. While there I filled the forms out and ended up going to college part time.
Probably the best teachers I ever had where teaching there. After getting an Associates degree I went on to get a Bacholers at SUNY and an MBA at a private college, all part time. Even the grad school professors were no where near as good at teaching as a few of those CC professors.

AAS degree in Journalism Technology from a SUNY state college (in NY). Then got married and moved immediately into a handyman special house at age 21 and off to work. But life took me to health care management and marketing for most of my life.

 

[money4wells]

I went to the local Community College, right when IT was starting. They were teaching me programming, which I knew I didn't want to do. Nagged the counselor for months(she would try to hide when she saw me coming) for an internship, so I could see other areas of Tech. Finally, two roles came in. Her daughter attended there also, and she got the day shift one. But I got the midnight to 8am one, which immediately showed me the other areas of Tech I knew I wanted to do. I ended up getting hired by the states largest IT employer that was doing the internship and worked there for the first 12 years of my career! Working midnight to 8am then going to classes was not fun, but it got me through!

Both my daughters have now gone similar routes for the first two years, and I mentor lots of people to do the same thing. Once you get any grants, CC is very affordable, and everything here in GA transfers with no issues. If you are going to get loans, or go to a prestigious school, do it in the last two years of Bachelors or for a Masters, NOT the first two years that are really the same whether Harvard of CC.

 

[Born2Fish]

CC then University for BSEE.

My CC had great instructors and I got lucky and was able to get scholarships to cover 100% of my books/tuition from second semester CC through completion of BSEE.

I also worked in the Learning Lab in CC, tutoring math/science, then worked as an assistant for 2 EE professors grading papers, developing lab experiments.

Community College was a great experience for me and provided a sound basis for the eng. curriculum the next 2 years.

 

[GoBears]

My dad was an administrator at a local community college so it was a given that I would attend there for the first two years of college. And since he was paying, I didn’t argue.

Class sizes at the community college were manageable and most of the instructors did a good job teaching and were quite approachable. Quite a difference between that experience and some of the very large classes I encountered after transferring to UC Berkeley (PoliSci) where interactions were with graduate student TAs and not the professors who lectured. I lived in a student co-op after transferring to Berkeley and I encountered a number of freshman and a few sophomores who simply became overwhelmed. I think the size of the university and anonymity that goes with it was a factor for some who struggled. Also, attending a community college didn’t hold me back from being accepted at UC Davis’ King Hall School of Law after graduating from Berkeley.

Our son also went to a community college for his first two years. He was not motivated in high school and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He was thinking of becoming a paramedic and took history classes because they were easy and he got A’s. During his last summer session at the community college, he took a computer science class that immediately clicked. He transferred to a state university as a CS major despite having only taken one class and graduated in 3 years rather than 2 years because he had to take all of the lower division prerequisites. He has been working successfully in the field for several years. I am certain he never would have stumbled into that CS class if he had started at a four year school - there is simply too much demand for those classes.

 

[Graybeard]

My story is similar to many here.

I too was an unmotivated high school kid class of 1968. My father's brother was big into buying the stock of different companies and he told my father that computers were the thing of the future. So my father decided I should go to the local CC 5 miles away and study programming.

I remember orientation, they said look left and look right, both of those people will not be graduating. There were 4 of these technical schools at the time in this state and they had the reputation for being good but hard and were highly regarded by employers in the state. I did not understand programming or accounting and like high school I just plowed through with little interest but I was that 1 in 3 that did graduate.

We had 2 DP classes about 30 per class and by year 2 it was down to 1 class and there were about 19 or 20 of us left. No girls were in any of the 10 or 12 technology courses, only DP had any and we had only 3 or 4. I received an AAS in Data Processing and didn't know my ass from my elbow but ironically I was one of the few in the DP course that was offered a job. I worked in IT and actually liked it after I was in it for a few years and started to develop good programming skills. I never pursued education beyond that.

Now get this, there were 3 semesters each year, 1st semester's tuition was $35, the 2nd was the same and the 3rd was $30! Books were much more costly but my 2 years cost a tiny fraction of what 2 years at a college would have cost.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

There were 4 of these technical schools at the time in this state and they had the reputation for being good but hard and were highly regarded by employers in the state. I did not understand programming or accounting and like high school I just plowed through with little interest but I was that 1 in 3 that did graduate.

I went to a 4 year university like that. It didn't have amazing national rankings, but it had a good IT program that was well regarded by employers in my state. The big tech firms of the day all recruited there, like IBM and AT&T.

When I got involved in recruiting and ranking developers at a Bay Area company, it was interesting how random college background was. Of the consistently top 3 ranked developers in our department, one had an unrelated, low demand B.S. degree and learned programming post college at a 2 year tech school later on to get marketable job skills, one didn't have a degree at all and one had an MBA from a top ranked school. Google research came up with some similar results, that college didn't seem to be indicative of on the job success, so they no longer even require college degrees. They are trying to disrupt the whole college degree process with their own technical certificate program - https://grow.google/certificates/

 

[Dawg52]

Yep....got a 2 year degree from the local CC. A good way to transition from high school to college. Saved a lot of money too. Finished up at a state university.