Transitioning between community college and a four-year university can be a complicated, intimidating change. Many students welcome the new arrangement with a focused attitude and great determination, confident that their former education equipped them with enough groundwork to excel in this new frontier.
Southwestern College offers many challenging and stimulating programs that instill the necessary skills needed for students to succeed in top universities. Other students are not so lucky, struggling and disenchanted by unfamiliar obligations of university life, wondering what went wrong in their lower-division coursework. College students must be adequately primed and ready to face the major leagues, not left behind and unprepared to fend for themselves.
Many students switching from SWC’s semester structure to the quarter system of most University of California schools struggle to keep up with the rapid pace. Instead of having a month to complete a five-page term paper, university students are responsible for understanding tons of material and thrown into midterms by week four. For many science majors at universities such as San Diego State, a four-year education plan would comprise of taking an average of 18 units per semester in addition to summer school. There is little time to squander at a university and succeed. Courses progress swiftly and financial expenses are considerably higher.
SWC, on the other hand, has become an island of lost souls, a place students attend classes for the sake of going to school, without any definite plan to transfer in an acceptable amount of time. An obvious lack of drive and purpose afflict jaded students, and instructors are partially to blame. Many teachers accept late work or make-ups on exams, a policy that is unacceptable in many upper-division classes. This strategy is far too lax and causes students to develop sloppy, apathetic work habits. Instructors are enabling their students by accepting mediocre, complacent behavior, essentially disabling them.
Expectations are higher at a four-year institution, and the quality of work produced should reflect that. A failing grade on a research paper started the night before is often the first rude awakening. A second is often the staggering realization that reading the course textbook is mandatory instead of skimming through it to cram hours before a test. Instead of coasting through college by attending class, paying attention periodically and completing a handful of homework problems, students are shocked at the amount of reading, studying and critical thinking that is required at a university to maintain a high GPA and graduate on time.
University courses often mean less personalized attention and more independent studying, a skill that SWC needs to foster in its students. Prolonged, exhausting hours reviewing material are a norm at universities. Libraries and 24-hour study rooms become second homes to many students, a notion that many community college students find daunting.
Greater emphasis is placed on midterms and finals, and homework is not always graded. Many students at SWC rely heavily on these exercises to boost their grades, but fall short in applying what is learned to their exams, ultimately hampering their final grade. University professors will not hound students for a missing assignment or a less than satisfactory grade on a midterm, they will simply fail them.
Community college students are often stunned to learn that lower-division classes are not taught in a tiny room with 30 students and ample amount of personalized time with the instructor, but in a massive auditorium with 400 pupils and 12 teacher’s assistants. Attendance is seldom taken, and professors simply do not have the time to sit down with every student to assess their personal learning requirements. Office hours may be the only face-to-face individual time between a professor and their students and are absolutely vital to a student’s success at a four-year institution, an arrangement that many students at SWC fail to take advantage of.
SWC students who have studied at different San Diego community colleges such as Grossmont, Mesa and City Colleges continuously express their frustration with the sluggish pace of lessons as well as a widespread lack of enthusiasm from their fellow SWC classmates. A considerable segment of the student population scores below average on Math and English placement exams, placing them in elementary-level classes and forcing them to stay longer in order to transfer. This is an unacceptable circumstance when free study guides and practice tests are available on the school website.
Open-note and open-book tests are common practice at SWC, a custom that gives a false impression that studying and comprehension are not obligatory in order to obtain a degree. Some instructors screen meaningless films, give students exam questions ahead of time and overload them with time-consuming inane assignments. Instead, they should offer a stimulating curriculum that nurtures a desire to learn and instills valuable skills such as good study habits, time management and a responsible attitude.
Students should be inspired and driven to reach their true potential and challenged by difficult answers to complex questions. Instead, many are dragged through weeks of material that they already know, forced to review old information instead of learning something new.
Community college students should develop an endless thirst for knowledge and a desire to achieve their occupational and professional dreams. Average is simply not good enough. SWC needs to create students who will not only survive the university life, but excel in it.