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my brother spent 2 years at the local community college. he said it was ridiculously easy and it was a joke. it was just an extension of high school for the losers who werent going anywhere. they have to make it easier because they are (for the most part) the lowest common denominator (well, i guess they are above the ones that stopped at high school, but not by much).
it worked out good for my brother though. he did well and transferred to a university he wouldnt have been accepted to out of high school. ended up with a regular degree like anyone else and saved my dad some money. so if its really a financial decision and is utilized to get into a good university, it can be used for good.
Community College is a great option for students like your brother. It gives them an opportunity to prove themselves to the universities that otherwise might pass them up.
I attended a small private university (on a full scholarship). Tuition, alone, was $12K/year back in the 1980's and you had TA's for the first two years. Same at the state schools, only the tuition was less. It's pretty standard, here, to have TA's for the first two years. You don't see full professors until you're in upper division classes.
CC's are a bargain. They do not use the first two years as weeding classes. They actually try to teach.
weeding? as in giving kids a chance to drop out before burdening real professors with them? i believe all my classes were taught by professors. its just that the first 2 years they were very big classes and TA's did the labs and those special once a week classes that are in addition to the regular class. i noticed that in different communities its more acceptable to drop out of college. it was never an option for me, but i remember some kids cried home to their mommies while in college.
weeding? as in giving kids a chance to drop out before burdening real professors with them? i believe all my classes were taught by professors. its just that the first 2 years they were very big classes and TA's did the labs and those special once a week classes that are in addition to the regular class. i noticed that in different communities its more acceptable to drop out of college. it was never an option for me, but i remember some kids cried home to their mommies while in college.
It looks like choice of college matters. It seems reasonable to want to go to college where the professors teach.
There are a lot of vocational programs that cannot be done at a 4-year school. It's either a for-profit school or a CC. Where I live, the community colleges are less than $2,000 a year, but our state university is over $8,000 a year. There are a lot of smart people who don't get full-ride scholarships and taking care of general education credits at a CC would save a lot of money.
There is a poor quality of students at CCs because they don't have entrance requirements. You'll see the same quality at universities with open enrollment. CCs will still require you to take entrance exams, but that is just to see if you need remedial courses. Many of the people at CCs will either never get through their remedial courses, drop out, or fail. Honestly, most of the students at CCs and open-enrollment, 4-year colleges shouldn't have even graduated from high school.
If you're ever on Twitter/YouTube/Facebook, just look at how the kids spell. Kids from all cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds these days can't even read and write at the high school level.
It looks like choice of college matters. It seems reasonable to want to go to college where the professors teach.
its nice to have that option, the school i went to wasnt cheap so it seems reasonable to have professors doing the teaching. but ultimately, the difference in success and failure is applying yourself. i didnt do very well the first 2 years and i did well the next 2 because i decided to actually apply myself. the difference between high school and college is that high school you have a mixture of morons, geniuses and the middle. in college, everyone is within range of your academic abilities. high school was so easy, i did all my home work and studying in about 30 minutes of home room time. i tried to get away with that in college the first 2 years and it wasnt pretty. grad school was actually a last minute decision and i went to a school academically beneath me, was very easy.
so maybe what im saying is that high schools would need to be more challenging to prepare students for a more challenging college. but ultimately, i dont know how you convince a kid to want to do better. i guess its a parenting thing.
I teach Management classes in the Business Program at a large Community College as an Adjunct Professor as a second job in the evening. I have also taught full time students in the day time too.
Sometimes when I can't sleep I get philosophical about the thousands of students who have come through my classes in the last 15 years. Many are nice enough and many put in some effort but in general America is in serious trouble if these people are going to someday work in responsible positions in corporate America.
What hits me is how many of the Community College students just don't care, are lazy and not so bright. Many even in their 20s and 30s are incredibly naive about academics, organization and education. They also seem incredibly naive about what awaits them in the real world if they graduate.
Most of the students who come through my Management 101 class will take a handful of classes at the Community College and then drop out and then go into a number of dead end jobs for the rest of their life.
My situation is not unique. My fellow Professors report the quality of students are at an all time low and each year the group gets worse and worse. All in an era when we are facing incredible competition from Asia.
Tell me the students are better in a four year college!
Yeah, it's always the other people their fault, huh? No offense, but maybe it is you. You should know how to teach effectively and motivate them..or not. When the prof fails, it's usually always the students, of course.
I agree with this to an extent. Some of the classes at a CC are ridiculously easy, while some are more difficult.
The physics II I took at a CC was much harder then it was at my top 10 engineering college.
In both situations, it really depends on the professor teaching the classes. Professors can make classes hard-- or easy-- it really has nothing to do with the college itself.
I can't speak for anything current since it's been awhile, but I took some summer night classes at a CC when I was an undergrad in a very similar situation (top 10 engineering, gen ed, prereqs, etc). A lot of other university students at home for the summer were in each class. Some were too easy based on the curve, others were harder since it wasn't easy to get into an office hour or discussion section with a TA and you had to sink or swim.
If you are a GenXer, as am I, we only have ourselves to blame. Millennials and their younger counterparts have been pampered to high heaven! This generation is the most coddled and hand-held of any before it. They are naive indeed, even the smart ones...technology, as great as it is, has handicapped their brains and given them a sense of "intelligence" that is very superficial. The easier it is to access knowlegde the less important it will become. Welcome to our "wiki-oogle-twit-face-web" new world.
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