Disclaimer: This article is not meant to offend anybody at any school. As a student who has attended both community college and a four-year university, I am simply here to write about the two. As you can tell by the title, I believe that community college, or at least my community college, did a poor job preparing students for what’s next.
To begin, it is important to explain my journey through college and why I think the way I do. Coming out of high school, I started my college career at Illinois State University. It was a challenging year because I took some AP classes in high school and that didn’t prepare me for sophomore level classes during my freshman year at university. Besides that, I managed to get through the year with a 3.1 GPA. Not bad if you ask me, but it was a rough year that consisted of a lot of studying.
I got a really nice job in the summer, and it paid so much that I decided to go to community college for a year to save up money for my junior year of university. At the community college, I succeeded in ways I never have before. Out of the 12 classes, I took at the community college, I got nine A’s. The school basically made it acceptable to do less, and get better grades and that’s what happened to me. I didn’t have to try as hard as my previous year, and I got amazing grades.
After community college, I came back to Illinois State for my junior year as a Business Administration and Organizational Leadership Major(s). As things are shaping up, it looks like this semesters' GPA will be between a 3.1 and 3.3.
So, what does my journey tell you about community college and university? Basically, what I took from the community college is that professors are too willing to shove students through with an A just to move them along.
At my community college, almost all my classes were “curved” and had easy ways to get A’s. Either half of the tests were online, where you could look up answers, or they gave you cheat sheets to use on the in-class tests. While some classes have these ways of getting better grades at university, the professors allow it because they are truly difficult classes. At the community college, I would be given these crutches for general education classes. General education classes should be some of the easiest classes you’ll ever have to take, and giving students crutches like this doesn’t help them.
In my opinion, it makes more sense for a student to fail at the community college than at university because of the amount of money you must spend.
I know plenty of people at community college who would have received D’s in classes, but with curves, got B’s. I believe that if you allow this type of behavior to become consistent in a college that costs much less, you are setting them up to fail at university. I have taken maybe one class at university that curved tests and gave the class grades they didn’t deserve. The rest were normal level difficulty classes that didn’t give you a crutch.
This especially hurts transfer students who are accepted into their major program at university. You are given large lecture classes that are associated with your major, and there is no wiggle room for a crutch.
I was lucky enough to have experienced both types of schools, so I better understand the situation. But for the people who have no idea what I’m talking about, let this be a warning.
You can’t transfer the same habits you had at community college to university.
Things like not doing your homework, ditching classes, or even studying the night before a test will fail you at university. Don’t be afraid of a four-year university because of what I’m saying, it really isn’t that bad. But if you are the type to treat school as a second option, university will be hard for you. The way community colleges are set up, they allow you to study the night before and get good grades. This won’t happen at university, so build good traits early so that you can be ahead of the game. People who already do this will do just fine at university so keep doing it!
I believe that the school system is set up to hurt community college students and that really frustrates me.
Community colleges themselves have counselors that are there so you can succeed, but it means nothing if the classes are too easy. I loved my community college because they had a lot of programs to help you succeed, but did not appreciate how much easy they let their classes be.
Hopefully, somebody read this and can understand my point. This is not a battle about which school has smarter students, but a conversation about the education itself.
