The State University of New York Westchester Community College

WCC was never my first choice, but it just got worse as time went on.
As much as the campus is beautiful, the quality of education is not quite tip-top, to say the very least. To begin with, I take a class in which all the teacher does is play movies and show power-points and I have to sit there and think, "How did I end up here after graduating High School in only 3 years?" and my second thought of "Why am I paying for this?" I take another class in which I am nearly laughing because the material is so remedial if I didn't laugh, it would insult my intelligence to be sitting there. I am not trying to sound arrogant, but it's just the cold hard truth. I get nothing out of most of my classes. Yes, the teachers I have seem to be very amicable and helpful, but the classes they teach do nothing for me.

I have been at the college almost three full months and have met approximately 1 person who is not a druggie and a drunk and my only friend happens to be both. I have severely lowered my standards of proper companionship in order to make friends here. Essentially, every time I step foot on campus, I become depressed and shut down. As an empath, I know that I am not the only person who feels this way. A lot of kids walk around as I do- alone and distraught with no intention to open up. And it isn't only because they're drunks and druggies looking for their next fix, it's because they don't want to be there and are only there due to financial reasons. I have only been here about 3 months and I am already looking to transfer out....and looking desperately. The only reason I am here is because I graduated early and my parents don't want me to go away. This is a plea; if you are looking to enter this college, DON'T. If you are in this college, GET OUT ASAP.

1st Year Female -- Class 2015

Campus Aesthetics: A+, Collaboration/Competitive: F

WCC is such an overrated school. Before I started there everybody told me how great of an experience I would have and that the professors are phenomenal and what not. Truth is the college just a dump. There is really nothing that great about it whatsoever. There is no pride and everyone just goes to get their classes out of the way and leave. It is pretty obvious who actually cares about doing well in school and who doesn't.

The professors are terrible, some were actually pretty good but for the most part I had probably the worst teachers I've ever had in my life. They don't really teach you anything instead they just try to get you to pass and that's it you get nothing out of it after the semester ends. Every time I thought I would actually learn something, I learned absolutely nothing no matter how hard I worked or studied. I always felt like I was getting a slap in the face for doing everything I was supposed to be doing when it came to assignments, tests or whatever it was. There were to many lectures and barely learning any material or concepts. A lot of teachers didn't have a handle on their own subject either. I kept being told I was gonna get the best education from WCC, in two years I learned nothing from the college and got help from tutors, friends and had to learn so much on my own.

Not to mention the parking, it is so inconvenient its not even funny. Its almost always full especially when the semester starts, if your late for class because of parking and/or traffic being so bad and its not your fault, the teacher doesn't care one bit. The first thing you'll see if you google Westchester Community College is "Did you know that WCC has 25 acres of parking?" Gee I wonder how thats working out.

Its barely even modernized, the whole campus looks exactly the way a campus would probably look like in the 60s or 70s with the exception of the Gateway building that opened a couple of years ago. If anybody wants to workout in the weight room I warn you don't even bother the weights and machines are as old as our grandparents and the room is disgusting, they don't clean out the garbage in there enough and theres so much dust and mold. If you wanna play pick up basketball in the gym thats not gonna happen, the security guards will give you a hard time no matter what.If anyone is considering a community college go to Dutchess, Rockland or Orange or anywhere else. Dutchess has dorms and Rockland and Orange are really good schools as well plus they're much cheaper than WCC. Here's something probably everyone is too ashamed to admit, WCC has a 10% graduate rate and less than 20% transfer from WCC. So much for being one of the top colleges in the country. The only reason people end up going back is maybe because of financial reasons not that anybody really wants to go back.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

My main issue with WCC is the registration process. They repeatedly screwed up anything to do with me registering for classes. Even after I completed my first semester I had to make multiple trips to the Admissions office to get registered for the next semester. They messed up transferring my credits from a previous college. As of today they still have not corrected the problem. Every time I talk to someone I get a different answer to the same question. The list goes on and on. I have wasted so much time during the registration process that I would never recommend this school to anyone that prefers to stay sane.

The second issue I have an issue with is the quality of students that attend WCC. I guess one could argue that this is a community college so my expectations should be low. But I didn't realize how low they would have to be. I personally witnessed students playing on Facebook or browsing the internet during class. And those are the ones that even bothered to show up. We started out with 30 people in class. By the third week in we were down to half that. Near the end of the class only 10 people or less were showing up for class. And some of them would repeatedly ask me what they had to do. I was amazed at the lack of motivation or interest from most of the students. There were maybe 4 or 5 students that even had a chance of passing let alone getting a good grade.I decided to attend WCC due to financial reasons. I pay cash for all my classes at the start of each semester. I figured I could save a lot of money by getting my 2 year degree first then transferring to a good 4 year college. What I found is that you get what you pay for. I have a 4.0 GPA and have been asked to join the honors program. This doesn't really mean much when I barely apply myself and I'm getting all A's. The bottom line is that so far WCC is not a place where I feel I've been challenged.

1st Year Male -- Class 2014

Useful Schoolwork: A, Collaboration/Competitive: F