As some of you already know, Governor Gregoire and Regents from both UW and WSU agreed that community colleges in the state are not only “over-enrolled,” but the quality of education offered at these schools is “depreciating.” I personally believe, as many of you would also agree with me, that these statements were highly exaggerated.
There is a certain truth behind Gregoire’s words, community colleges are over-enrolled but the main reason is that with this economy, students are finding a harder time affording an education at an actual university. Tuition fees are rising like crazy, and students like me, would rather start their higher education at a community college and save themselves thousands of dollars a year.
Perhaps these statements were made because many still have a negative view on community colleges, people still see BC as the one school where all high school dropouts try to redeem themselves at. For many, BC still is the school that offers second chances to students who slacked off during high school and who did not receive high GPAs. And if this is the case, why would the state bother offering Running Start classes to high school students?
This is only my second quarter here at Bellevue College, and I can already say that I am thankful it had its doors “wide open” for me as Gregoire put it. Thanks to BC I have experienced many marvelous opportunities this past quarter that I never believed possible, and I cannot be happier with the decision of coming here.
Here at BC I actually get to talk to my peers face to face, and I actually have one-on-one conversations with my professors and I do not have a TA teaching me something a teacher with a Masters Degree or even a PhD can teach by his or herself. Due to my short time here, I have not had the chance to interact with many teachers, but the teachers I’ve had not only know their subject but actually make them interesting for their students.
I am sure that with my teacher’s dedication and commitment this past quarter (and the dedication of teachers, who are yet to come,) I will be more than ready to step up into a “big” university. Also, did I mention that Eastern Washington University offers credit classes here at BC? Who do you think is teaching those courses, high school dropouts who had no future plans? Yeah I think not. Our teachers deserve more respect, because our education is not “depreciating” at all, and they are doing all they can to offer us a better education.
The percentage of students who transfer onto four-year-universities (including UW and WSU) is of 46% upon the completion of an AA or AS. On another note, 86% of students who graduate with a professional/technical degree find a job within 9 months after their graduation. These percentages can be found on BC’s website (http://bellevuecollege.edu/40years/bcctoday/)
The school students go to does not matter, what matters is the dedication and sacrifices a student is willing to make in order to become successful. But if I was UW, I would not be talking bad about the students who enroll from community colleges into their campus; the percentage of community college transfer students range from 20-30% a year.
We are all students and not because we do not go to UW or WSU means that we do not deserve to have respect. There will be a time in which we will all be working in the real world, for big companies, for the government, or even running our own business, and it won’t matter then where we went to school but what we did in order to become successful.
