Let me just say if you are a Californian, I highly recommend that you attend a junior college, no matter what your goals in higher education are. Transferring options are superb, and you definitely save a lot of money.Junior colleges generally speaking provide a very good undergraduate experience. The teachers here are generally superfriendly (with some exceptions - but hey, that's just how the world is), and almost all are willing to spend extra time with you if you approach them to help you with the course content. I have a teacher who actually bought lunch with me to just talk about whatever. It's these kinds of relationships that will really influence where you go down the road, in terms of career or just your way of thinking about the world.
Admittedly there's a bit of a lack of social interaction in junior colleges. Students tend to just come to class and then go home, and they usually keep to themselves. However, while I do see this sometimes in Miramar, the students as a whole are very friendly and warm - they just tend to stick to their friends from high school. If you just take the initiative though, you can make good friendships, albeit perhaps short-lived ones - they tend to last just for the duration of the semester.
Two other things I love about Miramar - first being the campus; it's true that it looks quite a bit like a high school, but it's very open and pretty. It may be boring but it's definitely quite pleasant. The other thing would be the office faculty - they are extremely friendly and helpful, and they will answer whatever questions you have. Perhaps this is because they are understanding of the large population of adult, working-parent type students here, and so they are extra patient with their questions - I'm just glad this patience extends to straight-out-of-highschool slackers. Also the counselors will make you feel good about your transferring options, and they really will work with you to help you succeed.
The student-body can probably be divided into a few distinct groups. One notable group would be the previously mentioned working-parent student who's come back to school to get a degree. I really appreciate being in the same class with them, because it allowed me to gain a real-world perspective on the working world and just interacting with adults. I feel like in a normal four-year university, one tends to be somewhat insulated from reality. Second would be the friendly but focused and internally driven freshmen straight out of highschool who's sure of where they want to transfer and set on getting there. They're pretty chill (actually, you know what, everyone's chill, it's San Diego!) and they focus on academics. Third would be the "not really sure what i'm doing here" freshmen from high school. Junior college can potentially be a great place to figure out where you want to go, but let me say if you just graduated high school and you don't really think you want to go to a university or you just feel like you don't quite have your head on straight yet - if you go here, have a set cut-off time and stick to it. There are too many students here for their fourth or fifth year, and they always say they're thinking of transferring "next semester most likely." The most lost students in this group drop classes left and right and get stoned/wasted all the time with their like-minded friends from high school. That's fine for a time, but what happens usually is that after several years they quit and go to a vocational school, sorry that they hadn't made the shift earlier, so this is just a headsup.
I would say the majority of the students fall between the second and third group - they have a fairly good idea of what they want out of a career, plan on transferring to a CSU (CSU San Marcos is probably one of the most common, next to SDSU and UCSD, followed by the rest of the CSUs and UCs. Privates are definitely possible, just not very common - but don't be intimidated by that! Contact the private institution you're interested personally if you're sure you want to go there), and they maintain a pretty good balance between academics, a social life, and just getting their head on straight. There's a wide range of majors offered, to be sure, but the most popular I've seen on campus so far have probably been nursing (particularly among the males, I can't really explain it) and psychology (which tends to be among the females.)
Oh. Also. THERE ARE SO MANY FILIPINOS HERE. They also tend to fall between the second and third group. But don't let this intimidate you - it's true that they tend to hang out in groups with other Filipinos, but this is just because they're the majority, not because they're clique-y. I'm not Filipino, but I can hang out with just about anyone (within a certain age range, granted) on campus.And on a closing note - many graduates, particularly CSU and UC graduates, wish they had considered going to a JC. I'm just finishing up my first year here, and I'm glad I did!
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