Transfer dilemma

In the fall semester of 2011 Contra Costa College eliminated its Transfer/Career Center due to budgetary issues.

In doing so the college discarded a vital resource that helps students transfer to four-year institutions.

The Transfer/Career Center existed to give students a chance to have their inquiries about transferring answered.

And when the time came, provide assistance with the process.

As of fall 2011 CCC is the only college in the district that does not have a Transfer/Career Center — and this fact is sad.

On the college website, www.contracosta.edu, a mission statement explaining the purpose of CCC can be found. It states the mission of Contra Costa College is to provide student services that ensure opportunities for effective student learning through completion of developmental, certificate, degree or transfer programs.

So, essentially students come to two-year institutions such as CCC to either receive the required amount of class credits to transfer or to graduate with an associate degree.

For those hoping to transfer from CCC — good luck. While it is still possible to move on, finding help is a lot harder than ever before.

With the absence of the Transfer/Career Center, the task of helping students transfer has been placed on counselors on top of their original duties.

The problem with this is simple — after scheduling an appointment with a counselor, it takes at least two weeks for the appointment to happen, due to the overwhelming student demand.

Hosting seminars and workshops, or handing out pamphlets designed to help students transfer, are decent ideas.

But those efforts pale in comparison to having hands-on help for specific transfer needs.

For example, on Feb. 6 the Associated Student Union held a Transfer/Career Center focus group.

This was a meeting for all students aimed at solving the Transfer/Career Center dilemma.

It is good to see our student government make a move toward filling the gap our administration created.

However, promotion of the meeting was poorly executed — as a total of three students attended the focus group.

The ASU attributed the low attendance to the weak promotion of the event. Whoops.

Promotion of the meeting should have been the ASU’s main objective when planning the session.

While budgetary problems are somewhat out of the college’s control, coming up with a solution to this problem is not — fix it already.