Palomar students often hear about how beneficial it is to attend community colleges because of the opportunities that it entails. One of those opportunities being that after you complete your desired general education courses at the community college, you are allowed to transfer to any college in the U.S, including California State colleges and universities. The problem with this occurs in whether or not it is actually laymen-friendly and if it is harder to do than most people understand.
Most people who attend Palomar College are looking for the chance to transfer after completing their general education, but certain colleges often have their own general education standards that you have to meet in order to successfully transfer there. To meet these standards, you will have to do some of your own digging and figure out which college you want to attend and what courses you need to take to meet not only Palomar’s standards, but your desired transfer college’s standards as well.
This process can take a good while since it is not the easiest thing to line up all of your required courses within the guidelines of two different colleges. It is always helpful to contact a counselor because they aid you with figuring out what else needs to be done to complete the transfer properly. You also have to look out for important dates and deadlines to submit your application. Many deadlines occur in November and December. You can always find this information on Palomar College’s Website.
When conversing via text with a local Palomar student looking to transfer this year, Manny Barrera, he was more concerned about not passing his classes and trying to meet the requirements for the specific universities.
Lots of stress occurs when students take classes just because not passing and having to retake courses kind of sucks. The transfer-out rate at Palomar, as of August 2021, is only 10%. Even more so, when you are applying to many different colleges to transfer and meet those standards and deadlines, it can add on even more stress.
The transferring process is definitely a selling point in Palomar’s spiel, but the stress that it puts on students is not spoken about a lot. Especially since now students have to take most of their classes online, which is typically a format that most are unfamiliar with.
This can cause so much stress and might even affect the students’ ability to focus on their classes and pass the required courses. This is not to say that being stressed is a major component to refrain from transferring, but students should be better prepared for the mental strain that transferring can have on them.
My recommendation, if you are looking to transfer, is to definitely meet with a counselor. The help that they give is insurmountable and they really take some of that stress onto themselves and off of you. The counselors can help you figure out which college best fits what you are wanting to study and how you can get there successfully.
If you would like to make an appointment with a counselor, click here.
