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If I may gripe again about the local community college...


G5052
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I taught there as an adjunct for over ten years, so I know more about them than most parents. There some dedicated, wonderful professors there.

 

However, Student Success was mess when I was there as a professor. I dreaded having to deal with them over students in my classes.  Then I had fits with them on dual enrollment, and ever since. After the first mandatory meeting with an advisor, I told DS that we would pick his classes together. He hasn't seen an advisor since, and thankfully it's not required. We had to fight them multiple times over advanced standing and transferring in classes from a neighboring school, and every time has been a major headache. It seems like everyone that works there only stays a few years and then goes elsewhere. They are clueless on guaranteed admission to 4-year schools and a variety of other important topics.

 

Today DS and I were going to the gym together, and I suddenly had a horrible thought. We hadn't registered him for graduation in May! I currently teach at a much larger community college in the same state system, and I remembered deleting an email that asked professors to remind their students there that the deadline was March 15. When we got there, DS checked his college email, and there was nothing. Then I called them on the way back because he was driving, and no one in the office knew what the deadline was. I talked to three different people! The last one told me to tell him to log into the student management system, and if the link to apply for graduation was gone, the deadline had passed. REALLY!

 

Thankfully when we got home, he logged in and the link was there. He kidded that if it hadn't been there, he would just have to take a year off because his program at the 4-year (already applied to BTW) only admits in the fall.

 

Horrors!

 

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Ohmygoodnezzzz... that would make me insane.

 

I left that school over a year ago because the dean over me was a total mess. It had gotten to the point that I was making decisions that could get me fired because they were best for my students, and I didn't care anymore. Quite a few of my adjunct professor friends left as well. After I left, she was actually given an ultimatum to retire or be fired. She retired. I've heard that her replacement is much better, and some of the adjuncts I knew have returned.

 

The school I work for now has an odd system where they qualify you for hiring and then you go on a waiting list until they have courses for you. I waited for over two years on that list, and then finally got hired. I currently teach 3-4 classes online per semester online for them. They're huge (50,000+ students), but are far more organized, believe it or not. My teens don't go there because it's much more of a commute, and from all I've seen, the environment and classes are better at the local CC. My son has loved all but two of his classes there and has worked very hard in the honors program.

 

But I'm going to have to continue to be very involved with my daughter.

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Glad you figured it out in time!  We learned the hard way a couple years ago that it's sometimes very helpful to be part part of this process with our kids.  I've been really surprised at things the advisors aren't calling to the attention of students.  Most recently, my dd was planning out her last year and a half of college, not realizing that the last two classes she would need for her two degrees are both only offered second semester next year at exactly the same time slot.  (I was the one who discovered it.)  She was able to quickly change her schedule around and take one of those this semester instead.  

 

Should she have figured this out herself?  Sure, ideally!  But she had just met with her advisor, he looked over her last year and a half schedule, and approved it all.  It seems like it's something he would have double-checked or encouraged her to check.

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