First off, I want to thank AB for providing me with the information I need. Really, he was great about this ♥. Second off, as always, this is only my opinions. Since I'm going to traverse the world of "what-if", a lot of this could (and probably deserves to) be refuted. However, I just thought I'd do this because it's something that I've touched upon quite often yet never really fully analyzed it. The subject is community college vs UC (note I'm not including other universities because I'm only using two sources, myself and AB, and these are the only two that I can really talk about here). I'll offer both perspectives as best as I could but... in the end my opinion will probably still remain split.

A little history before we actually start. First off, I went to a community college (from here on out I'll refer to it as cc) for two years (technically one and a half, I'll get into this soon). Why? I was a pretty bad student in high school. My GPA was pretty bad, and to top it off I got a D in my senior year so... I got the letter that essentially says "you qualified for our college, but you don't show effort, so goodbye". Just like that, UCSD was just a dream. So I spent a summer not knowing what to do, having my parents so far up my a** that I actually hated them. Pure hate. Well, the only choice left was a cc, so I went to Mt. Sac for one and a half years. I say that rather than two years because of the fact that for the first semester I took only one class. It was an eight week philosophy class that only met on Saturdays for 6-8 hours (I forgot the actual hours so it was in that range). As most of you probably know, after those two years I was fortunate enough (I really can't stress this point enough. My GPA sucked really badly) to transfer to UCLA, so I figure I'd go over the cc experience in more detail.

One important thing to consider when going to institutions for higher learning are tuition and living expenses. Perhaps one of the greatest things about cc is the fact that all of this is circumvented (at least in my case). I went to a cc that was incredibly close to my house, so my living expenses were still essentially what they were in high school. Tuition at cc's are unbelievably cheap when compared with other colleges. I don't remember the exact amount, but I can say with certainty that the amount I paid for books, tuition, and school fees was under 4K. That amount includes absolutely no financial assistance. Now let's say I went to a UC straight off the bat. Most likely I would have had to pay close to 40K for all of that. Despite all of that, I basically got credit for the same GE's that you get at a UC. Maybe the amount that I learned was less than if I went to a UC, but in the end the classes I got credited for were basically the same. If we take into account the commute, the two are probably about the same. That's because I go home quite often when I'm at LA so... each weekend trip is probably close to the same as the commute from my home to cc. And hey, dining hall is good, but I like my mom's home cooking better (BTW, I can do quite a bit of my mom's home cooking myself. Just a little heads up in case anyone wants to hit my apartment sometime to try my cooking. OK... shameless ego maniacal plug done).

Well, cc sounds like a dream come true from what I've heard. But there are other factors to consider. First off, I brushed on this, but I really think that the amount of education that I actually received at cc pales in comparison to what I would have learned. Most likely it has to do with competition. If you go to a school like a UC, you just have smarter people who are willing to fight for their grades. That creates an environment where you have to work harder in classes. But in cc, there wasn't that type of competitiveness. I could literally float through a class and end up with an A (OK... my grades did still suck in the end so I couldn't do that), but I know that if I float at UCLA, I would fail big time. And that creates some bad habits. I took that floating mentality from cc straight into UC, and now my grades are worse! YAY!....... Not only that, but the range of classes I was able to take were limited. For one thing, I had to decide what major to transfer into. I wasn't able to transfer in as an undecided major. Also, there was a transfer agreement between the UC's and Mt. Sac, known as IGETC, which basically listed out what classes you had to take for GE fulfillment. Along with that, there were classes that you had to take that corresponded with your major. Since you weren't allowed to transfer with an undecided major, you had to pick your major and take those classes. That limited what you were able to take for fun, which seems to be the case for UC's (again, I'm only using one source so his word is law right now. Refute me later if you want, but I stand by my source's opinion). Also, the professors at UC's may have had really great backgrounds, whether it be in research or textbook writing, while professors at cc are... well... they're great people but I don't know if they can compare academically. Just a short story. One of my English professors had the worst stutter ever. It actually made his lectures unbearable because of that stutter.

CC most likely had an effect on my social life (I say most likely because I'm really bad at judging myself so I can't really tell if I would have ended up the same way regardless. Again, this "what-if" type of situation can be analyzed forever). You know, I made a grand total of zero friends in my one and a half years at cc. Literally 0. The main thing is that people really come from everywhere, and once class is over people scatter in every direction. It makes it really hard to find a group of people to hang out with (especially when a guy like me attends a place like that with no other friends around). Not only that, but nearly everyone has different goals there. Some are working towards their associates, some don't give a shit either way, some are working for a transfer, some are just there between jobs, and some... I wasn't really sure of their intentions. Also, the time tables are jumbled. For example, in a non-cc system nearly all the freshmen come in at the exact same time. But in cc, you can literally start any time you please, and stop taking classes there anytime. This makes it so that it's quite rare that you have the same classes with anyone. For me, most of the time I saw one person in one class, and once that class was over I knew I would never see them again. Guess what? I wasn't wrong. I can only imagine (and AB backs me up with his side), that at a UC you're able to take the same classes with people and form groups to hang out with and what not. Not to mention you know that the people that are around will probably still be around in two years. But for me, there was always the chance that someone that you talked to and asked for help would just one day disappear. That really affects how much you want to associate with a person, when you just figure that you won't ever see them again anyway. Also, since I didn't really have any meaningful association with anyone in those two years, I feel like I became really socially awkward. Also, while people were spending time at UC's forming groups, I was just going through my studies (going through = floating in this case). Because of that, even now I feel like I don't really belong in any group of people. It's more like I'm just a wanderer passing through, imo.

So, I laid out a bit on the argument. Do I actually have a conclusion to my own argument? Not really. On the one side, I saved quite a bit of money over those two years to earn essentially the same credits as those that attended UC's. On the other hand, my social life took quite a hit (again, this is arguable because I'm not sure my social life was on an upward trend at the end of high school anyways...), and I didn't really have the freedom to explore and figure out what I liked. Maybe that's why I'm still a math major wallowing in my subject matter? I guess in the end, it comes down to one thing. Is an additional 30K+ worth whatever it is that one misses out when they go to cc? If it is, you lean to the cc side, and if not, you feel more for the other side. I don't know which I feel. That's because I prefer not to play the what-if game. If I did, I think I'd regret much more in my life than I did now (A LOT MORE.....). Well... I'm tired and my eyes are actually killing me so... there you go.