Reasons to Choose Community College Over University • Hacker News Board

Re: Reasons to Choose Community College Over University

#21

Post by anuleczka » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 5:35 PM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #12

Not thoroughly addressed was connections. You could make arguments about the relatively equal quality of education (usually not the case), but the social capital and connections you get from attending elite universities has great value in our world. The morality of that can be debated, but it is true nonetheless.

I agree that the top universities are good places to find similarly motivated people who are likely to do great things in the future. But college is only four years of your life -- couldn't you build a valuable network by moving to a different location? The Bay Area, for example, attracts top talent in the tech industry, regardless of where they went to school.

Re: Reasons to Choose Community College Over University

#22

Post by yardie » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 5:38 PM UTC

anuleczka wrote: post #20

InclinedPlane wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Community colleges and Universities typically have opposite cost/benefit curves. At most Universities the first maybe 2 years or so are spent being taught by graduate teaching fellows in giant lecture halls, you're definitely not getting your money's worth at that point. In later years you'll probably end up in smaller classes being taught by competent professors at which point you're probably getting well more than…

Exactly! So if this is such an obvious path to take, why don't more students consider it? Why do community colleges have a bad reputation (or at the very least, considered much less prestigious)?

Their reputation stems from their purpose. Community college is there at the benefit of the community. They have extremely low or nonexistant entry requirements. This is the bad part. Since they aren't very selective about who can get in you could be the bright bulb in a room of dim ones.

Universities are highly selective. They are looking for highly motivated people. A C-student in a good school carries more weight than a C-student at a CC. A university is out to benefit itself first and foremost. If they can convince you to come and make some money in the process, it's a benefit for them. Whatever you get out of it is a benefit for you.

Re: Reasons to Choose Community College Over University

#23

Post by yardie » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 5:43 PM UTC

anuleczka wrote: post #19

eventhough wrote: post #18

#9 Employers don’t care what college you got your degree from, only that you have a degree. Why go into debt paying for university when it won’t help you in the long run? I could not disagree more.

How come? Maybe for entry level positions, a recent grad from MIT with no experience would get more offers than a similarly inexperienced grad from a second tier school or a community college. But what if the second grad worked co-ops or had more projects under his or her belt? Wouldn't that be more valuable to a company?

You are comparing colleges to experience. To an employer experience always win. When I was looking for work my college courses were listed right under my name. Now, it sits right above my hobbies. I'm sure in a few years it will be just a footnote. If you can get a coop, great. Nothing stopping someone in university from doing the same. But, as an employer looking for interns, where are you going to look first. You'll probably start at a selective university because they've already done most of the filtering for you.

Re: Reasons to Choose Community College Over University

#24

Post by anamax » Thu, Dec 10, 2009, 5:56 PM UTC

Many of the arguments seem to assume a large university. While there are large universities, there are also some fairly small ones. While Berkeley has 25k undergrads. Stanford has 6k, and there's always Reed and so on.

At the smaller universities, many of the early classes are quite small. And, yes it's possible for 1st years to get quality time with "name" professors.

Re: Reasons to Choose Community College Over University

#25

Post by kingkawn » Fri, Dec 11, 2009, 2:29 AM UTC

anuleczka wrote: post #21

kingkawn wrote: post #12

Not thoroughly addressed was connections. You could make arguments about the relatively equal quality of education (usually not the case), but the social capital and connections you get from attending elite universities has great value in our world. The morality of that can be debated, but it is true nonetheless.

I agree that the top universities are good places to find similarly motivated people who are likely to do great things in the future. But college is only four years of your life -- couldn't you build a valuable network by moving to a different location? The Bay Area, for example, attracts top talent in the tech industry, regardless of where they went to school.

I think thats true, but its true of any point in life, including before college. That said, many of the successful people I know still work with their college friends regularly, and still use those connections in a major way. I don't think this is just because they're good networkers, but rather because good colleges are conducive to networking.