The last post was about deciding whether community college or a university was best for you. This one is all about admission and enrollment, again it will be based upon my experiences. All schools are just a little bit different, but generally follow the same steps.
Before deciding on a which school you should go to, 9 out of 10 times you really should visit it before making the decision. I, was the 1 out of 10 that didn't.
Admission - I suppose really the only thing about admission is it's all online, even for little community colleges, so you don't have to go to the campus to apply. In fact they will either sit you at a computer or send you home. So after visiting the campus just to see if you like it, the admission application is all online, so you can easily do it at home!
Student Orientation - In a way it's helpful, but at the sometime it's not. At TCC, it ended up making me super confused as to the layout of the campus, with us running around in big groups. And for the most part the information was completely pointless, so just sit tight and get it over with, it won't kill you. I actually had two different orientations, one was about registration and then the second one was mainly about the campus and school.
Enrollment/ Registration - After you get accepted, you usually have to do a orientation or two (mentioned above) and then you can easily register online (basically everything is online now.) Obviously, there's a lot to consider as you are planning your schedule for the next semester. Are you going to be full time or part time, what class do you want or need, and well for me I had to do this while looking at five different campuses. Even now I'm having to match up schedules between two in entirely different colleges.
**** Huge before you enroll for any class!! Always, always, always look at www.ratemyprofessor.com to see previous students reviews about any professor at your college!! It does take a little longer to stop and look up each professor for every class and create your schedule, but trust me, it's worth it!!! AND NEVER EVER buy the book before the class, UNLESS you get an email or something from the teacher saying to do so!!!! I didn't do either of those my first semester and totally regretted it!!! (More on both professor ratings and buying/renting books in next post!).
If you know what you really want to major in then you can have your associate degree tailored to that; for me I had absolutely no idea what I really wanted to earn my bachelor degree in so I took classes I wanted to take, rather than some that could have worked for my general business degree. (i.e. ballet instead of accounting or textiles instead of macroeconomics.) However, college is for exploring and figuring out what you really love and want to do for the rest of your life; plus even if you take a class that you like, but not really something you'd want to work in, maybe you just found an awesome hobby!
To earn your associate degree is 60 hours and bachelor is 120. (Obviously those number might change depending on your exact degree program, but almost all fall in or right around those numbers.) Basically broken down that comes to 15 hours each semester, which is totally doable. And remember those numbers are if you don't do any summer or minimesters. 12 hours is considered full-time, anything less than that and you are a part-time student that semester. So if you really want to graduate in four years with a bachelor degree, basically plan on earning 30 credit hours a year.
Now when I went to one of my orientations about class registration, I was told to not expect to graduate with my associates degree in two years, rather to have a mindset of finishing around 3 years. Obviously I am competitive and super stubborn, I did not want to be at a community college for 3 years, I mean who does?! So I will say, I worked really hard to graduate and transfer when I did, which, hahahaha, was exactly two years from enrollment.
Here's my earned credit hours for the past two years, broken down in each semester:
- Spring 2014, 9 hours (part-time)
- Fall 2014, 16 hours (full-time)
- Wintermester 2014, 3 hours (extra)
- Spring 2015, 18 hours (full-time, Hawaii Trip, most colleges will not allow you to register for more than 18 hours a semester, unless you get approved to do so.)
- Maymester 2015, 3 hours (extra)
- Summer 2015, 4 hours (extra, Hawaii Trip, will explain in another post)
- Fall 2015, 7 hours (part-time)
Right now, I'm at TSU, earning my Bachelor degree and I'll make sure to do another college post when I've completely finished!
Now I've got one other college post, plus two are coming up soon and I'll trying to remember to add the link to this post!
Community College vs. University.
Coming Soon! Financial Aid & Random Stuff to Know About!
Coming Soon! Transferring to a University.
XOXO,
Suzanne Myers
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