Are people really proud that they or their child went to xxx community college?

[Hector13]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
Now, I know that UC's are not exactly Ivy League, but I would say there is still a difference between the education your get at a UC and at community colleges. I know, I've been to both (UC Irvine and two community colleges).

But here's the catch: the community colleges are better. Way better. Smaller classes, professors are more accessible and usually just as qualified, etc, etc. You get instructors who have (gasp!) actually worked in the field they are teaching instead of the usual "research-class university" professors who have inflated egos and no useful experience. And that's assuming you're lucky enough to even get a professor at the UC. Lots of classes are taught by grad students, who are just as likely to suck because they don't want to be there and they think everyone in the class is a moron. My particular community college transfers a lot of students to UC Berkeley, and from what I hear, a while back, Berkeley actually had to ask the college to tone down the difficulty of their coursework because it was too hard, so there's definitely not any problem with wimpy classes.

I don't know if it is UC Irvine in particular or if it has to do with what major/school you are in, but I went to school at berkeley for engineering and I can tell you that nothing is further from the truth. Yes, a but-load of people came from CCs to Cal, but that was always considered the "back-door" method of getting in. It actually pissed a lot of people off because the first 2 years of undergrad engineering (or most majors, probably) are the hardest. This is when you take all those "weed-people-out" classes where people can actually get a "C" or "D" (which is unheard of in upper division classes). So we would have these people who went to rinky-dink state college (which might be a good school and all) transfer in as juniors with a 3.99999 GPA while others had to struggle through 2 years of crap to get a 3.0 or some such.

Also, the easiest way to get a good undergrad GPA was to take tough classes at community colleges over the summer. I can't tell you how many people I know who took E45 (material science) at danville community college because they knew it was an easy A and they didn't want to have to struggle at Cal and end up with a B-.

To reiterate, I don't think there is anything wrong with community colleges, I just take offense to someone comparing an engineering* degree at a top school vs. one at a CC.

*Note that I am only referring to engineering (or similar "science" type majors like math, physics, MCB, etc), and NOT BS majors like sociology and business administration which I don't respect at Cal, Harvard, or any CC