I have always been told that getting my degree is not a race, and that I should not rush my education, yet as I very well know, despite what my parents and peers think, it sure does feel like a race.
Stay or go, big school or community college, these are all questions that students have when leaving high school, questions even I asked myself before leaving for college in 2007.
I was offered admission to various universities, but my decision came down to the University of San Francisco, University of Arizona, and the University of Colorado.
Ultimately I decided upon attending school in Colorado, despite the questions from my parents of whether or not I was ready to attend a large school (Colorado had close to 30,000 students) and if I would be more comfortable going to a community college for a year and then transferring.
While the experience was great in Boulder, I was also not prepared at all to live on my own, create my own study habits, and stick to a schedule.
In the end, time management and my poor decision making in regards to study and relaxation led to me to leave Colorado, return to California and take classes at EC.
I feel like many students, aside from myself, feel pressured out of high school to attend big name colleges, or else they will seem like failures.
While this is obviously not the case, something needs to be done to let students know that community college can offer just as good of an education as a large university, while saving students money.
My experience at EC has been excellent.
Aside from losing out on the social life that I had in Boulder, the learning experience has been much more intimate and my professors have actually gotten to know me by name.
While a few of my professors at Colorado did know who I was, I still felt like a number in the crowd compared to being at EC.
I feel that if more high school students knew this, that their educational careers would not be as jeopardized as if they went straight from high school.
The standard to complete your college experience in four years to me seems a little outdated and puts unnecessary pressure on the new young college students.
If the stigma around college was changed to let students know that there is no rush to get out, that their education should take as long as they need it to take, I feel that the overall success rate of college students and overall retention rate would increase.
Students need to know that community college is not a sign of failure in high school, or not being successful in your college applications.
While I do not regret coming home from Colorado, I have a feeling that if I had taken my parents advice and gone to community college straight out of high school, my educational path would be vastly different than it is today.
Perhaps I would be taking creative writing classes at a big university, or maybe I would be studying abroad in Europe.
What if’s aside, my decision to attend the University of Colorado fresh out of high school seriously altered my educational plan.
Going to community college is a sign of a wise student, someone who knows that the educational experience will be just as good if not better, and that they will be more prepared when they transfer than those freshly entering big universities.