Friday, June 13, 2008

Community Colleges and You

As someone who went directly to a university, I was always intrigued by the idea of a community college. I remember thinking "wait, you don't have to take the SAT and you can transfer in as a junior?" - this was a foreign concept to me.

As I grew, I met many people who had attended community colleges and transferred over, and eventually I started teaching at PCCC. At least two of our full-time faculty members that I can think of off the top of my head (Professor Kim from math and Professor Dada from engineering) actually attended Passaic County Community College before going on for their B.S. and M.S. degrees. In addition, one of the school's Vice Presidents and some high ranking IT staff members came through our college. I also know many other faculty members who got degrees at other community colleges before moving on to other degrees.

My former student "Soprano Sue" sent me an article last week, and it got me thinking about this. Encarta has a partial list of famous people who started at community (or, as they are known in other parts of the country, "junior") colleges. Ross Perot...Tom Hanks...Morgan Freeman...Jackie Robinson...Hilary Swank...and many others.

Not everyone has the money or motivation to start at a fancy four-year college. That doesn't mean they can't achieve.

List on Encarta

2 comments:

Soprano Sue said...

Amazing I can get a teacher to think, isn't supposed to the the other way around....

- S Sue

Professor Cameron said...

Any teacher who doesn't learn from their students is an idiot.