Moving from CSU to CC

qwe2qwe
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:07:28 +0000

Hi, i’m in an awkward position and i’m trying to restructure everything in my academic career to meet my current goals. Due to my poor performance in high school I was only accepted to a local CSU and not knowing what I wanted to do in life, I started attending there as undeclared. I now want to get into an engineering program at a UC (note: my CSU does NOT offer any engineering degree, I feel that this is an important point, but I am unsure if the college acceptance people will feel the same), and I am completely determined to do so.

So, I’m debating going to a CCC in my area, but the problems are this: the CCC system is in disarray due to budget cuts and I will be sacrificing my level of education in key points in my education. This includes math, calculus based physics, etc. To add on to this, from my understanding it is very difficult to obtain classes and such due to overcrowding, whereas at the CSU it is a breeze. Also, the CC that I will be attending does not have any requirements for the major I am interested in, as the department has been cut due to budget, so I will only be attending for solely Gen. Ed and not getting a leg up by knocking out these needed classes (sometimes which increase your chances of being accepted). But, the trade off is that I will more than likely get priority into the UCs. My GPA is not an issue, but my questions are this:

1) If I were be at the CSU as a ‘part time student’ (i.e. taking 1 or 2 classes a semester in key subjects [calc2, difeq]) and be a full time student at a CC, will I be considered a CC student and possibly eligible for TAG? (As of now, I have 9 credits from a 4 yr institution and 13 credits from CSU, a possible 9 more if I don’t go to a CC in Fall 2011)
2) Should I just stick it out and stay the next 2 years at a CSU and risk transferring to a UC? In my opinion, the quality of education is much higher and the professors are wonderful here, I am certainly learning a lot.
3) Does it matter to college acceptance people if the current school I am at does not offer the major I am interested in?
4) Or should I just drop everything I am doing and attempt to get into a CCC ASAP?

Thank you so much for reading this and any help would be greatly appreciated! Sorry it is sorry long winded, but it is extremely frustrating to me that even when I am doing everything right in life (going to school, getting decent grades), things are still difficult!