Community college, what degree, or none?

[spo0kman]

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The fire department I work for currently gets free credit hours at our local community college. This is due to us allowing a massive amount of paramedic students ride here for field training, as we're a busy station. That being said, I'm inclined to get an associates degree there to get my college ball rolling, then transfer to Ohio State to finish out my undergrad and go from there.

My question is this, I can get a degree in EMS/Fire Science, in doing so, I can utilize my paramedic certification, my firefighter certfication, arson, ems/fire instructor, rescue classes, etc, for a total of about 90 credit hours towards that degree, requiring me to take only a few general education courses, the science classes available for this degree are few and low level.

My other option is to get an associates of science at said community college, however, none of my previously mentioned credit hours will apply whatsoever to the science degree, however I should be able to get a better start for my premed undergrad this way.

Opinions?

 

[FrkyBgStok]

if the fire science degree is a four year degree i would go with that as it really doesn't matter what your major is. If it is not then you are going to have to start over like i did.

 

[spo0kman]

EMS/Fire is a 2 year degree, as is the associates of science.. If I go associates of science does that help shorten my bachelors pre med degree at all?

 

[relentless11]

EMS/Fire is a 2 year degree, as is the associates of science.. If I go associates of science does that help shorten my bachelors pre med degree at all?

Well for the most part, an AS degree is one of the most useless degrees to get. I didn't even bother applying for one since I knew I was going to transfer. For the most part, completing your AS degree MIGHT shorten your bachelors program by finishing off some GE requirements. However GE requirements are not the majority of any bachelor's degree. There may be some school specific GE's that are needed, and of course your core major requirements.

Usually at least half of your bachelor's program will be upper division coursework and aimed towards your core requirements. For the most part, plan on taking an additional 2 years to complete the major requirements. Some majors may have more requirements, and courses may only be offered at certain times, so could take you longer.

If transferring is your goal, you should focus more on what you are going to major in, rather than what your 2-year degree is about. Of course what matters for med school is having taken and done well in your pre-reqs. Everything else only reinforces your stats assuming you do well in those too. You should ask yourself, what you enjoy taking, and what can help you as an undergrad.

Anyway, I did 2 years of community college, and it took me 3 more years at a 4-year to finish my degree. Probably could've finished in a total of 4 years, but did the 5-year plan to take more classes.

 

[spo0kman]

Excellent advice/input, thank you very much.

 

[thirdunity]

Nontransferrable credits aren't all bad, in some instances, provided they don't waste too much of your time, and provided you get As.

They may be good for boosting a GPA, since 1) AMCAS considers ALL of your attempted units, transferrable or not, while 2) the universities will not count your nontransferrable units toward your transferrable unit limit. So in effect, you get to calculate your GPA based upon a higher number of attempted units than you would've, if you'd not taken the courses.

This is just my hypothesis - somebody please correct me if I am COMPLETELY FULL OF IT, OK?

 

[thirdunity]

Usually at least half of your bachelor's program will be upper division coursework and aimed towards your core requirements. For the most part, plan on taking an additional 2 years to complete the major requirements. Some majors may have more requirements, and courses may only be offered at certain times, so could take you longer.

Yep, I'm dealing with this - I completed the majority of the IGETC which is the core GE pattern for transferring to both UC and CSU from a California community college. However, it is only geared toward the BA, not the BS. And I was not a science major. Now I'm a bio major, and wanting to do the BS, not the BA. If I had another major, I would be transferring next year, whereas my major change is slowing me down because I have to complete the requirements to get into my major. I'm fine with this, because I don't want to study anything but biology.

Perhaps about the only way the units won't go to waste is if I get a second degree, which would in any case, give me extra upper division science coursework.