By Larry Ma
Being a senior getting ready to go to college, I had to do a lot considering which college that I eventually have to commit to. I was accepted to SF, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Northridge State. Although I should be thrilled to get accepted into 5 colleges, I actually wasn’t excited about any of these schools since they weren’t the colleges that I hoped to be accepted to.I don’t feel that any of these colleges are right for me and instead I think going through the transfer route at CCSF will be a better option for me.
During the college application process, I applied to these colleges as a “safe school” in case I were to be rejected from the other schools I really wanted to attend. At the time, I wasn’t entirely familiar with the concept of community colleges and the transfer route, so I didn’t consider it at all.
As for the schools that I would’ve liked to attend that I also applied to, it would be between UC San Diego and Santa Barbra and a good runner-up would be UC Davis.
There are several factors into why I decided to take part in the community college transfer route instead of any of the 5 colleges.
To start off, all 5 colleges are CSU colleges. These colleges usually have high acceptance rates compared to UC. CSU also costs way less compared to UC but it would actually motivate me to study and work on my classes.
There are also reasons why I don’t want to commit to any of the 5 individual colleges.I have lived in San Francisco for most of my life and I want to move elsewhere which is why I don’t exactly want to attend SF state. San Francisco had rather gotten quite boring for me because I pretty much went everywhere in this city already. SF also has incredibly high rent for small apartments and most of them are average. There are also homeless and druggies roaming around the streets which is pretty uncomfortable.
Next is Fresno and Bakersfield State. These two colleges are located in the middle of nowhere. There are hardly any part time job opportunities since the cities are rather small. Both of the schools also have low graduation rates with Bakersfield being at 40% and Fresno being 56%, which is a little concerning.
Next is Sacramento State. Sac State is a pretty decent school except it seems like Sacramento is a very car-based city so I don’t exactly want my wallet to bleed with the high gas prices. Although some would tell me to just ride public transportation, it would be an inconvenience for me and anyone on the bus when I need to transport a large portion of stuff.
Lastly is Northridge State. This university is tucked in the outskirts of LA and while I would like to attend university in LA, the outskirts of any city isn’t exactly the most ideal place for me to live. I almost wanted to accept my intent to attend but backed out since Northridge isn’t really known for Engineering which is what I wanted to major in.
Overall, going to CCSF will give me a fresh start from the rapid decision making during high school and a little bit more time to really plan out a roadmap of my future. It also gives me a chance to graduate from hopefully a top 50 tier university without that much debt.
