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I don't think there's a stigma around CC at all. CC serves a different, yet valuable purpose. I took accounting classes at a CC when deciding to start a business. They served me well. Later, I took an art class and it was fun.
There was a time when they were marketed as vocational schools. It would serve the community well if they did this again.
People good with finances will go to/send their kids to a CC due to costs. Besides you take the basics at CC. English 101 is the same at a CC or Harvard. The parts of speech don't change. Same with math.
.....
Except there is a difference between how those courses are taught. The parts of speech may not change, but the caliber of students does. English 101 isn't about parts of speech. That's for high school. Same with math. The higher caliber of students you are in class with completely changes the level of instruction and discussion. First semester math in college isn't about JimboBillyBob learning to solve for X, but about gaining the deeper understanding to prepare you for the next level of solving unknown problems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobspez
I read all the books, took the tests, participated, got the diploma. The "education" had nothing to do with life, work, or making my way in the world. Pretty much like high school but with less rules and more independence. The education was interesting, but no more so than the internet or PBS, both of which are available for the rest of your life at a very minimal cost. School was a challenge but it had nothing to do with real life once schooldays were over.
If that's all you got out of it, why did you go? I'm amazed by people who think college is just partying and getting a piece of paper. Then they show up down in the Work forum either complaining they can't get a job or complaining about their horrible job, horrible bosses, and horrible coworkers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldgorilla
Here lies the actual problem. People pay money to schools (generally low quality schools) to party, attend class, read books, and take tests.... just so they can earn that diploma you speak of.
When you attend Yale or Harvard (the two schools mentioned in this thread), you spend more time in a research lab learning from the best professors and phd students in their field than you do in a classroom or even doing readings and homework. Assisting the research and the actual experience you get in the development of unique work that is scrutinized by de-facto experts in the field over and over until your work meets a certain criteria and is published is where this "college education" you speak of comes into play. Your contribution is small in comparison to the professor and graduate students, but what you've learned in that process is so much more valuable. Four years of this builds a solid education.
You can go about it different ways, but simply passing classes to get the "piece of paper" is doing just that and nothing more. And if that is your goal without regard to an actual "college education", CC is one way do it....
Exactly. I'll add, it's not just Harvard or Yale vs CC. Any decent R1 and many R2's will provide the same lab and research opportunity. And you can see the difference in the work world between the ones who did the extra out of class work vs those who just got the piece of paper. The performance difference is enough that if the resume doesn't mention research, internships, or professional participation I don't even bother to interview them. They just get round filed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldgorilla
I don't think there's a stigma around CC at all. CC serves a different, yet valuable purpose. I took accounting classes at a CC when deciding to start a business. They served me well. Later, I took an art class and it was fun.
There was a time when they were marketed as vocational schools. It would serve the community well if they did this again.
That's what CC started out as. Now CC's are moving away from that purpose and marketing themselves as low cost college.
Except there is a difference between how those courses are taught. The parts of speech may not change, but the caliber of students does. English 101 isn't about parts of speech. That's for high school. Same with math. The higher caliber of students you are in class with completely changes the level of instruction and discussion. First semester math in college isn't about JimboBillyBob learning to solve for X, but about gaining the deeper understanding to prepare you for the next level of solving unknown problems.
Exactly. I'll add, it's not just Harvard or Yale vs CC. Any decent R1 and many R2's will provide the same lab and research opportunity. And you can see the difference in the work world between the ones who did the extra out of class work vs those who just got the piece of paper. The performance difference is enough that if the resume doesn't mention research, internships, or professional participation I don't even bother to interview them. They just get round filed.
That's what CC started out as. Now CC's are moving away from that purpose and marketing themselves as low cost college.
As an opening caveat I want to stipulate that academically speaking CC's range from really lame to a few that are quite strong in certain areas.
IMO the academic cadre quality issues you bring up are critical and under-appreciated by so many and why say Harvard's Economics 10a (it's micro and then macro over two consecutive semesters) is taught on a whole different wavelength than the "same" classes at Dallas County Community College/insert your local CC.
The student body average SAT score at Harvard is around 1460.......many CC's sport numbers so low they will not report. So let's say the delta is 400 pts. Someone with a ~500/550 SAT math simply lacks the math chops to grasp microeconomics beyond the high school level.
I guess I somehow missed that boat. I never did research or spent time in a lab. I attended UC Berkeley and graduated from UCLA and got a degree in liberal arts, Political Science with a minor in English Lit. Some of the classes were big lecture halls of 500 or more students. There were also smaller classes with professors. The object was to listen, take notes, and feed back the terms and theories you learned in class on exams and in papers. In four years I never saw any professor do anything but lecture and any grad student teaching assistant do anything but go over the textbook assignments and go over exam questions after we got our graded exams. Many of my high school teachers were much more communicative and open to discussion and answering questions.
And lets review what I did learn in college: Latin, we studied grammar, declensions and conjugations, and translated the orations of Cicero and the poems of Catullus, like we did in high school. I learned Chemistry and Physics and advanced Algebra in high school but none of these were required in college, instead I took psychology and biology (no lab, just memorizing terms, in high school biology we got to dissect frogs). World Literature and English Literature from Shakespeare to TS Elliot, plays, and poems. The novel. Literary Criticism, History and Historians, emphasis on the causes of the Civil War. Art history, focusing on paintings, sculpture and architecture. Political Science, including the US government, federal, state and local, and comparative governments of other countries. Gym, I got my life guard certificate. Gym, I learned to water ski. Those are the highlights. I can't recall anything else academically. Other: being an oarsman on the UC Berkeley and UCLA Crew teams taught me if I felt like I was going to die from exhaustion, I made the decision to go ahead and die rather than quit, and I didn't die. UCLA Fencing team. Fencing was like physical chess, fakes, feints, unexpected moves all in a split second. Air Force ROTC, flying a trainer jet was fun, but I opted not to fly one in a war. All good stuff and I'm as "educated" as anyone but none of it prepared me for anything other than sticking it out. When I graduated I availed myself of free career counseling testing provided by the alumni association. Results: I was best suited to be a landscaper or printer.
Graduate school for my MBA was a little better. I had a few useful subjects. Computers and programming in the Basic language, classes which didn't exist when I was an undergraduate. In my early 40's I switched careers and became a computer specialist which I loved and did until I retired. Statistics which I still use to this day to analyze various data. Calculus, which taught me if I looked at a problem for 6 hours, I'd be the only one in the class who actually solved it.
Everyone is different. That was my college education and pretty much the experience of everyone I knew in college or met afterwards. Maybe I expected too much. Fun, yes. Interesting, yes. Preparation for the next 20 years, not by a long shot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldgorilla
Here lies the actual problem. People pay money to schools (generally low quality schools) to party, attend class, read books, and take tests.... just so they can earn that diploma you speak of.
When you attend Yale or Harvard (the two schools mentioned in this thread), you spend more time in a research lab learning from the best professors and phd students in their field than you do in a classroom or even doing readings and homework. Assisting the research and the actual experience you get in the development of unique work that is scrutinized by de-facto experts in the field over and over until your work meets a certain criteria and is published is where this "college education" you speak of comes into play. Your contribution is small in comparison to the professor and graduate students, but what you've learned in that process is so much more valuable. Four years of this builds a solid education.
You can go about it different ways, but simply passing classes to get the "piece of paper" is doing just that and nothing more. And if that is your goal without regard to an actual "college education", CC is one way do it....
This depends on the particular college and area. Generally, I don't think it is a stigma, certainly not for CC students. I taught at a large respected CC for many years. I found that my students at a private university were no better than CC students with the same class and workload. I heard from other professors the same.
I don't know if standards are lower...very doubtful. CCs emphasize better more personal teaching...and they usually deliver. Universities and 4 year colleges may not emphasize this. Large research type universities that are expensive, professors are often more into their research, not teaching. They are hired to publish.
This depends on the particular college and area. Generally, I don't think it is a stigma, certainly not for CC students. I taught at a large respected CC for many years. I found that my students at a private university were no better than CC students with the same class and workload. I heard from other professors the same.
I don't know if standards are lower...very doubtful. CCs emphasize better more personal teaching...and they usually deliver. Universities and 4 year colleges may not emphasize this. Large research type universities that are expensive, professors are often more into their research, not teaching. They are hired to publish.
My experience is almost 100% out of phase with yours.
I guess I somehow missed that boat. I never did research or spent time in a lab. I attended UC Berkeley and graduated from UCLA and got a degree in liberal arts, Political Science with a minor in English Lit. Some of the classes were big lecture halls of 500 or more students. There were also smaller classes with professors. The object was to listen, take notes, and feed back the terms and theories you learned in class on exams and in papers. In four years I never saw any professor do anything but lecture and any grad student teaching assistant do anything but go over the textbook assignments and go over exam questions after we got our graded exams. Many of my high school teachers were much more communicative and open to discussion and answering questions.
And lets review what I did learn in college: Latin, we studied grammar, declensions and conjugations, and translated the orations of Cicero and the poems of Catullus, like we did in high school. I learned Chemistry and Physics and advanced Algebra in high school but none of these were required in college, instead I took psychology and biology (no lab, just memorizing terms, in high school biology we got to dissect frogs). World Literature and English Literature from Shakespeare to TS Elliot, plays, and poems. The novel. Literary Criticism, History and Historians, emphasis on the causes of the Civil War. Art history, focusing on paintings, sculpture and architecture. Political Science, including the US government, federal, state and local, and comparative governments of other countries. Gym, I got my life guard certificate. Gym, I learned to water ski. Those are the highlights. I can't recall anything else academically. Other: being an oarsman on the UC Berkeley and UCLA Crew teams taught me if I felt like I was going to die from exhaustion, I made the decision to go ahead and die rather than quit, and I didn't die. UCLA Fencing team. Fencing was like physical chess, fakes, feints, unexpected moves all in a split second. Air Force ROTC, flying a trainer jet was fun, but I opted not to fly one in a war. All good stuff and I'm as "educated" as anyone but none of it prepared me for anything other than sticking it out. When I graduated I availed myself of free career counseling testing provided by the alumni association. Results: I was best suited to be a landscaper or printer.
Graduate school for my MBA was a little better. I had a few useful subjects. Computers and programming in the Basic language, classes which didn't exist when I was an undergraduate. In my early 40's I switched careers and became a computer specialist which I loved and did until I retired. Statistics which I still use to this day to analyze various data. Calculus, which taught me if I looked at a problem for 6 hours, I'd be the only one in the class who actually solved it.
Everyone is different. That was my college education and pretty much the experience of everyone I knew in college or met afterwards. Maybe I expected too much. Fun, yes. Interesting, yes. Preparation for the next 20 years, not by a long shot.
From an academic angle you self-selected into a less than great college experience. FE your no lab bio. class...... I assure you both Cal and UCLA offered world class biology classes with labs in your day, you chose or maybe the system chose that you take a survey style no lab class.
You are absolutely correct. But my whole undergraduate academic experience was like ordering from a Chinese food menu. One from Column A, one from Column B. I can asssure you the only thing UCLA was concerned with was getting tuition payments and flunking out those who didn't maintain a C average. As a student on a campus of close to 30,000 students (today it is 44,000 students at UCLA) there was no mentoring, no veering from the curriculum provided. Just 4 years of signing up for whatever classes were still available that applied to your credits needed for graduation, attending class, reading, writing, taking exams, repeat for 8 semesters, get your diploma and leave. On the crew team, I did get special privileges like free tutors, training table meals, that most students did not get. Today, Crew is just a club at UCLA, not a college sponsored intercollegiate sport. Some others here seem to have had a totally different college experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_
From an academic angle you self-selected into a less than great college experience. FE your no lab bio. class...... I assure you both Cal and UCLA offered world class biology classes with labs in your day, you chose or maybe the system chose that you take a survey style no lab class.
You are absolutely correct. But my whole undergraduate academic experience was like ordering from a Chinese food menu. One from Column A, one from Column B. I can asssure you the only thing UCLA was concerned with was getting tuition payments and flunking out those who didn't maintain a C average. As a student on a campus of close to 30,000 students (today it is 44,000 students at UCLA) there was no mentoring, no veering from the curriculum provided. Just 4 years of signing up for whatever classes were still available that applied to your credits needed for graduation, attending class, reading, writing, taking exams, repeat for 8 semesters, get your diploma and leave. On the crew team, I did get special privileges like free tutors, training table meals, that most students did not get. Today, Crew is just a club at UCLA, not a college sponsored intercollegiate sport. Some others here seem to have had a totally different college experience.
If you wanted some sort of educational nurturing bosom type experience you should have picked a good smaller school CA has always had a many.
You can thank serial abuse of Title - 9 for killing lots of college sports teams - especially but not exclusively on the men's side.
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