College Knowledge for the Community College Student

Introduction

1 Introduction This book is for you, the community college student. We want you to succeed in order for you to realize your life’s hopes and dreams. We need you to succeed in order for our country to realize our collective hopes and dreams in our common and interconnected future. The community college holds the great educational promise for each individual and for our entire nation. Most students, like you, arrive at college not fully aware of just how different the college experience is. In some ways, it is like entering a foreign country with customs and rules that are not always obvious or written out. The intellectual and social expectations, as well as the rules and regulations, are different, and not just different from high school. Even students who have owned their own businesses, retired from military careers, recently immigrated to the United States, or enrolled in school for the first time later in life are often surprised that an important part of the challenge of college is just figuring out how to be successful in college. While all college students must learn to negotiate the transition to college, there are unique challenges for those who enroll College Knowledge/Community College Student 2 in community colleges. Many community college students work, and many work full-time. Many also have family responsibilities— children, partners, and aging parents. A majority of community college students are the first in their family to enroll in college. For many students from abroad and from the United States, English is not their first language or the language they use at home, and many students at community colleges come to study from countries outside the United States. For all these individuals, there may not be any easy road map or “tour guide” in their own family to help figure out how it all works. We hope, therefore, that this book will serve as your personal road map and guide for a successful community college experience and education. The suggestions we offer are directed specifically to the kinds of situations that are particular to you, the community college student, even as we recognize that you are all very different and have different goals and lifestyles. While we encourage you to read the book from beginning to end, our experience has been that the most useful guidebook is one that you can return to again and again, at the beginning, middle, or end, whenever you face new or unexpected challenges and opportunities. As you read this book and the various tips in search of guidance , you will quickly learn that there is great diversity among the students who attend community colleges and also many differences that exist between one college and the next. Even if you are aware of this diversity, you may be surprised by just how diverse the stu- Introduction 3 dents in your classes are. This rich diversity in terms of age, social and educational background, national origin, first language, and life experience is one of the joys of the community college classroom, and you should take full advantage of it. In any term, you are likely to find students who are still enrolled in high school, students who have graduated high school in the past year, and students who have been out of high school a decade or more. Some students are tentative about being in community college and are just testing the waters, while others have clearly defined and ambitious goals. Some are returning to college after being away from it for a few years, while some are trying community college after a few terms at a university. Others are choosing to go to a community college for two years to get the basic courses done before transferring to a university as a junior. Some community college students never received a high school degree, while others already have college degrees but need refresher classes before pursuing an advanced degree. Still others have recently immigrated to the United States and, as a result, need to establish credentials or develop skills for a career. Some attend because they have lost jobs and are re-tooling or are changing employment because of an injury, a shift in the economy, or a change in their personal lives. We have attempted to address all of our tips and suggestions in this book to fit as many students attending community colleges as possible, but on occasion...