College vs. University

When you graduate high school you have your choice of what kind of an education you want to get. You have your choice of going to a 4-year university, or a 2-year college. In order to decide you will compare the two and use the comparisons to come up with your final decision. Questions to ask yourself would be, what are you looking for in college, how do you want to learn, and how much money do you have to work with.

Comparing University and Community college the first thing that comes to mind is the difference in price. Certain Universities are more expensive than others. The difference in price is because of the difference in price and size, also because of the difference in the educational program they have. The price for a University can also differ with whether or not you are going to live there. With a Community college the price will differ significantly. The difference in price strands for the difference in size, teaching and living. At a Community college you have a smaller campus, the curriculum is different and you do not have the option of living there.

When choosing you have to think of what you are looking for out of college. Some of you go to college go to play a sport for that college, in which case you would go to a University. At the time of graduation you are usually around 17 to 19, at this point in your life you have to think if you are ready to move out of your parents house and be on your own, and many do, again you would choose a University. There are some of you who want to stay under mom and dad’s roof and just want to go to college to see what it

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is like, to see if you will like it. In this case you would choose a Community college. For some this can be one of the harder decisions to make.

Another difference of a University and Community college is the size. Not just the size of the campus, but the size of the classes and workload that you will be facing. With a University you have a large campus with numerous class buildings and dorms. At a Community college you will usually have only one building and all that this building contains is classrooms for learning. Sizes of most University classes are over 30 of you to a class; sometimes that number can be as high as 100 students to a class. When you are a student at a Community college you are usually one out of twenty. The most you will probably find in a classroom of a Community college will be around thirty. Then there is always the size of the workload. When you go to a University you are usually expected to have to spend about 3 to 4 hours out of the classroom on your work, and that is for each class. That is why a large number of you that attend a University do not have jobs and if they do it is only part time. When attending a Community college you are expected to spend about 2 hours of time on work outside of the classroom, for each class. It may not seem as that much of a difference, but it is when a full course load at a University is 5 classes and a full class load at a Community school is 4 classes. Most of you who attend Community college have part or full time jobs.

As you can see there are many differences when comparing University to Community college. It all depends on what you want out of college and what you can afford. For most there is one difference that is more significant then the other, that difference is usually what makes or breaks your decision.

Bibliography

I am a college student with a full time job and my own place. I am studying to be a phisical therapist.

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