POLL: Which school offers a "higher quality" education, a CC or a University

[americanpierg]

POLL: ON AVERAGE Which school offers a "higher quality" education, a CC or a University.

Take your votes just to see what the majority of the people out there really thinks. We're not gonna analyze every single minute detail of the educational structure of both, so use your best judgement.

DISCLAIMER: This poll is obviously NOT scientific so don't get all angry about how this poll is invalid and wasn't conducted under correct protocols. This is to just get a general consensus from the SDN public.

UPDATE: Poll seems to have closed.
At least we got a good chunk of votes in before it closed. 80% uni 20% cc

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[dentaldawg32]

POLL: ON AVERAGE Which school offers a "higher quality" education, a CC or a University.

Take your votes just to see what the majority of the people out there really thinks.

"Higher quality" is such an incredibly vague phrase. There are a myriad of measures of quality, please specify.

And there are so many universities out there that differ by so much. You cannot group all universities into one category. The same is true with community colleges.

 

[MrBeans]

This poll is ridiculous.

The answer to the poll relies on several factors: class, instructor experience, student learning preference, class size, learning aides, supplemental examples, etc.

Personal experience tells me that on average a "higher quality" education can be obtained at either institution.

 

[dentaldawg32]

This poll is ridiculous.

The answer to the poll relies on several factors: class, instructor experience, student learning preference, class size, learning aides, supplemental examples, etc.

Personal experience tells me that on average a "higher quality" education can be obtained at either institution.

Indeed, a worthless and poorly designed question.

 

[americanpierg]

"Higher quality" is such an incredibly vague phrase. There are a myriad of measures of quality, please specify.

And there are so many universities out there that differ by so much. You cannot group all universities into one category. The same is true with community colleges.

Impossible to specific without breaking down each individual aspect of the education.

Use your best judgement, in the same way that an education at MIT would be considered, or at least perceived to be of "higher quality" than an education at at your local technical institute that offers the same 4 year degree.

Just let the poll run and stop complaining. Just want to have a concrete anonymous poll with numbers.

 

[izzymask08]

it depends.....

i think four year college would be better because of the bigger class and the lack of personal attention from instructors. CC you get personal attention from instructors and that makes things easier.

if you're planning on going to dent, med or pharm school, then its a four year college because you have to learn to be independent. you dont get personal attention from prof at bigger dent or med schools.

Ive had friends that came from CC to 4 year college (bigger school), and they crashed out the first year. some the first semester, just because they couldn't adjust, not because they werent smart.

their science class at CC was like 40 students and now its 250 in class (not all classes though) . so they couldnt do what they used to do at CC, like asking meaningless questions in class instead of going back to your room and figuring things out.

you want to go to dent or med school? i say go to a four year college. you learn to be independent and take **** from professors.....

 

[dentaldawg32]

Impossible to specific without breaking down each individual aspect of the education.

Use your best judgement, in the same way that an education at MIT would be considered, or at least perceived to be of "higher quality" than an education at at your local technical institute that offers the same 4 year degree.

Just let the poll run and stop complaining. Just want to have a concrete anonymous poll with numbers to end this debate.

So, am I comparing MIT to my local CC? Or Cal State-fullerton to Santa Monica CC (one of the better CC's in the US)?

Do you realize now why this poll makes no sense?

 

[MrBeans]

I'll give an example of how this poll is flawed.

I attended a CC in my freshman year to take general chemistry. I received an excellent education by an instructor teaching the subject for 30 years. She was always available for office hours before and after class. The class size was about 35 students.

In comparison, I attended one of the top 10 universities in the US and took organic chemistry. I was provided with an "experienced lecturer" who was not interested in teaching, but rather his research. He could not teach well, and he made little accommodation for after class help sessions. We had no T.A. in our class of 400 students so help was very difficult to obtain. There were peer tutors, but they were very difficult to find and schedule with. In the end, I learned the material myself, which took much more time and effort.

Having said this, I am not advocating CC over a University. I have had my share of less than perfect experiences at a CC, and fantastic educational instruction at the university. On average, educational experience is highly variable, thus I think the poll is nonsensical. You cannot even accurately formulate an answer based on "averages" to determine which institution is better.

Experiencing is much different than perceiving.

What was the general case for myself was, I noticed that taking lower level classes at a CC seemed to be more beneficial for my foundational learning of the material. Whereas upper level/graduate classes at the university seemed to be excellent in instilling a solid understanding of more complex concepts and material. At the graduate level, class sizes were smaller, you could ask questions easier, and help was more readily obtained.

I like to keep in mind that the generals that are taught at a CC and university are largely the same. For instance, general chemistry concepts and basic organic chemistry concepts have been largely the same for the past 50 years. What matters is how the material is delivered, and how much help is available to help grasp it.

 

[americanpierg]

So, am I comparing MIT to my local CC? Or Cal State-fullerton to Santa Monica CC (one of the better CC's in the US)?

Do you realize now why this poll makes no sense?

OMG what part of "on average" do you not understand?

If multiple publications can rank over 300 universities in the US and STILL end up universally placing Harvard in the top 5, SURELY its possible to take an "average' and you can surely use your best judgement in answering a simple poll as this.

 

[dentaldawg32]

OMG what part of "on average" do you not understand?

If multiple publications can rank over 300 universities in the US and STILL end up universally placing Harvard in the top 5, SURELY you use your best judgement in answering a simple poll as this.

Ok, thanks for emphasizing "on average." That really makes the question much less vague.

/sarcasm

Most rankings only rank 100 or so schools. I sure as hell wouldn't classify any of the top 100 as "average," considering there are 4000 universities. So, tell me, what is an AVERAGE university? Similarly, what is an AVERAGE community college?

 

[americanpierg]

Ok, thanks for emphasizing "on average." That really makes the question much less vague.

/sarcasm

This is what you sound like right now.

Its like someone asking you a simple question of overall, on average, what is a higher quality car, one made by ferrari or by kia.

and you start nitpicking about how its impossible to make the distinctions because there are so many different kias, and some kias have better milage and some have better tires and how you can get heated headrests on some that you cant get in a ferrari, and some ferraris are too small while some kias are very large and roomy.

but its really a simple queston to answer (like this one), on average, what is a higher quality car, one made by ferrari or one made by kia?????????

 

[476515678234896]

but....i voted for cc

 

[dentaldawg32]

This is what you sound like right now.

Its like someone asking you a simple question of overall, on average, what is a higher quality car, one made by ferrari or by kia.

and you start nitpicking about how its impossible to make the distinctions because there are so many different kias, and some kias have better milage and some have better tires and how you can get heated headrests on some that you cant get in a ferrari, and some ferraris are too small while some kias are very large and roomy.

but its really a simple queston to answer (like this one), on average, what is a higher quality car, one made by ferrari or one made by kia?????????

But all of the cars ferrari makes are considered to be top notch, while all of kia's cars are considered to be just average. On the other hand, there is such a large variety of colleges out there and its impossible to say "on average" when you have about 100 good universities and another 3900 mediocre or poor ones. An average university would not be some school like University of Maryland (ranked in the middle in USNEWS), but some college that is not ranked at all, and thus it is impossible to quantify. The VAST majority of colleges out there are pretty crappy.

 

[americanpierg]

But all of the cars ferrari makes are considered to be top notch, while all of kia's cars are considered to be just average.

You seemed pretty quick to answer that ferrari vs kia question, even with the bad "average" qualifier

I think there might be some kia owners out there that disagree with you. Maybe they find that the finances required to upkeep a kia vs a ferrari relative to the damages makes their kia higher quality. Maybe they had great experiences with kias that blew their mind away. maybe they found their kias ran more efficiently with less maintenance than a ferrari, but then again you were able to answer the "average" question pretty quickly and concretely disregarding the whole thing you preached about not disregarding isolated incidents.

 

[Blue Panther]

Who ever created this poll obviously received a higher quality education....

 

[Near]

"Higher quality" is such an incredibly vague phrase. There are a myriad of measures of quality, please specify.

And there are so many universities out there that differ by so much. You cannot group all universities into one category. The same is true with community colleges.

 

[dentalWorks]

I took majority of my post-bacc sciences at Michigan State University (MSU). But because of fulltime working, I wasn't able to take the 100-level biologies at MSU. It was just those 2 classes, I figured what the heck, I'll just take them at Lansing Community College, it was like 15 minutes away from MSU.

I can tell you right now, from my personal experiences, the CC was much easier. It was INCREDIBLY easy to land a 4.0. It was so easy that all I needed was like a 60-ish% score on the final to get a 4.0 in the class. Alot of extra credit was given and I did all of it. You don't see that kind of treatment in a 4-year university, or at least not in my experience.

MSU was a very serious school, almost straight scale, NEVER curving even if 80% of the class was getting 2.0's. And I am strictly referring to the same biology courses cause my friends took em at MSU. When we compared exam papers, they were laughing at how easy my exams where compared to thier's lol.

I am not saying every CC vs 4-year university is like this, but that was just my experience. Or perhaps MSU is just a hard science-based school, I dunno

 

[Ambient]

I took majority of my post-bacc sciences at Michigan State University (MSU). But because of fulltime working, I wasn't able to take the 100-level biologies at MSU. It was just those 2 classes, I figured what the heck, I'll just take them at Lansing Community College, it was like 15 minutes away from MSU.

I can tell you right now, from my personal experiences, the CC was much easier. It was INCREDIBLY easy to land a 4.0. It was so easy that all I needed was like a 60-ish% score on the final to get a 4.0 in the class. Alot of extra credit was given and I did all of it. You don't see that kind of treatment in a 4-year university, or at least not in my experience.

MSU was a very serious school, almost straight scale, NEVER curving even if 80% of the class was getting 2.0's. And I am strictly referring to the same biology courses cause my friends took em at MSU. When we compared exam papers, they were laughing at how easy my exams where compared to thier's lol.

I am not saying every CC vs 4-year university is like this, but that was just my experience. Or perhaps MSU is just a hard science-based school, I dunno

haha I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to MSU as a serious school. It's a pretty big party school with pretty lenient admissions standard and doesn't have a very academic or intellectual feel at all.

 

[biorenaissance]

.

 

[dentalWorks]

haha I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to MSU as a serious school. It's a pretty big party school with pretty lenient admissions standard and doesn't have a very academic or intellectual feel at all.

well, MSU has about 45,000 student body. Most of those kids are the "partying now lets not worry about our future".... but the few students who decide to go into MSU's 2 medical schools (MD and DO) have a very tough assignment ahead of them as their biological sciences (in undergrad) are heavily overseen by the medical schools. Even some of the faculty who teach the undergrad classes come from their med schools (some not all)

Trust me, I've been to 3 different universities, and MSU has by far, the HARDEST biological science department. My friend who took genetics with Bertrand (those of you know know him know what I am talking about), 350+ students, exam averages in the 50s and NO CURVING!!!! You want a 4.0? you better get 88% or higher in class FLAT (no curving).

 

[Ambient]

well, MSU has about 45,000 student body. Most of those kids are the "partying now lets not worry about our future".... but the few students who decide to go into MSU's 2 medical schools (MD and DO) have a very tough assignment ahead of them as their biological sciences (in undergrad) are heavily overseen by the medical schools. Even some of the faculty who teach the undergrad classes come from their med schools (some not all)

Trust me, I've been to 3 different universities, and MSU has by far, the HARDEST biological science department. My friend who took genetics with Bertrand (those of you know know him know what I am talking about), 350+ students, exam averages in the 50s and NO CURVING!!!! You want a 4.0? you better get 88% or higher in class FLAT (no curving).

Well, what were the two other universities you've attended?

 

[dentalWorks]

Well, what were the two other universities you've attended?

detroit mercy and oakland univ

 

[Ambient]

detroit mercy and oakland univ

haha ok gotcha

 

[americanpierg]

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