Last summer, Nanette Curtis, a fourth-year economics student, took an anatomy class at Santa Monica College. Her intent was not to transfer the credit to UCLA, but to satisfy a requirement for applying to graduate school.
Curtis took the class at Santa Monica College instead of UCLA because the course was cheaper there and did not apply to her major.
Some students will be taking summer school classes at a community college this summer in order to fulfill graduation requirements or pursue an alternative interest, without having to pay the cost of taking a class at UCLA.
Curtis said a positive aspect of taking a class at a community college is that it is more cost efficient.
“It is a lot cheaper. I enrolled in one this summer and it is $109 for a 4-unit class,” she said.
A 4-unit class during summer session at UCLA would cost approximately $700, according to the UCLA Summer Sessions and Special Programs Web site.
The summer after her freshman year, Curtis took art history and political science courses to fulfill general education requirements at UCLA.
“In my general education classes, over half of the class was from UCLA,” Curtis said.
Before signing up for the two general education classes at Santa Monica College, Curtis met with a College of Letters and Sciences counselor to find out which classes would transfer.
Rosa Pimentel, the undergraduate admissions assistant director, said every California community college has a list of transferable classes available at its campus or on the college’s Web site. Students can also check www.assist.org to verify if a class from a particular community college will transfer.
After checking for transferable classes, Pimentel said, students should go to their counseling unit to ensure that the course will transfer and to check how the course will be applied.
Pimentel said the major problem students encounter when taking a community college course is that they get incorrect information prior to registering for and taking classes, generally because they have not consulted a counselor beforehand.
Curtis said she was able to receive credit for her coursework by requesting her transcripts be sent to UCLA.
But because the Santa Monica College course was only 4.5 units and did not meet UCLA’s general education unit requirement, she needed to petition to get the missing half of a credit.
Though she advises students to take community college classes to transfer credit to UCLA, Curtis recommends doing research prior to doing so.
Stephanie Ngo, a fourth-year psychobiology student, took classes during her senior year of high school so that she would be eligible to play tennis at the local community college.
Though she did not initially have the intent of receiving credit at UCLA for any of the courses, one of the courses transferred after she turned in her transcripts from the community college.
Ngo also recommended taking classes at a community college because the classes are easier and cost less.
“Make sure it does transfer, if that is what you want to do, and make sure you do well, although it doesn’t really matter because the grades don’t transfer,” she said.
Pimentel said that when one takes a class at a community college, the units and credit transfer but the grade and GPA do not.
Pimentel said that a significant number of students take classes at community colleges over the summer because it is more convenient for them to take a class at their local community college if they are going home for the summer.
Community college courses are also more cost-effective, Pimentel said, and students may want to challenge themselves by taking a class that they would not ordinarily take, but not at the level of difficulty they would find at UCLA.
But she added that just as many students take classes at UCLA over the summer.
Amy Sin, a fourth-year biology student, has taken summer school classes at both UCLA and UC Irvine because it is easier to transfer credits within the University of California system.
But Sin said she plans on taking a summer school class at Santa Monica College over the summer because it is cheaper and because she will be graduating.