Personal Story
When entering community college, students will likely make a student educational plan to plot out what classes you need to take in order to transfer.
Students will meet with a counselor in order to declare their major and set up a detailed guide of the classes you need to take in order to qualify for transfer or graduate with an Associate’s Degree.
Students who’ve spent their years at Citrus College have always trusted the community college’s counselors to give correct information on the classes needed in order to transfer to a four-year university.
Since the class’s setup in the student education plan for myself was not always available to enroll in, every completed semester I would return to my appointed counselors to update where I was at, and which classes I should take in the upcoming semester.
During Summer 2019 a counselor said I only needed three more classes and would be eligible for not only graduation but to transfer as well.
In October of 2019 I applied to quite a few schools to transfer to in the fall 2020. I was accepted to the University of La Verne, which required a follow-up counseling session.
I then found out not only did I not have enough credits to graduate from community college, but I was also missing a class recommended for transfer.
I decided to make a follow up counseling session at Citrus College and was paired up with counselor Alicia Longyear. It was during that session that I found out I was going to be seven units short for graduation.
To graduate in spring 2020 at Citrus College I took four extra classes during my last two semesters. One class being statistics, which wasn’t required but highly recommended.
ULV has always been my number one university to transfer to, so I always made sure that my student educational plan was tailored to their requirements, while also covering the general education requirements to graduate community college.
I do not feel as though community college counselors failed. But I learned an important lesson, always get a second opinion.
If anyone is early in their academic career and taking general education classes, anyone should be fine.
When getting further into the process of receiving a degree, visit the schools planned to transfer to meet the requirements on time.
Citrus college has wonderful counselors, but people make mistakes.
The last thing students want to do is find out their educational plans have to be put on hold.
When planning the end of the community college period, make sure to reach out to transfer counselors from the colleges of interest to be more reassured of your decision.
