Central Piedmont Community College

Date: Aug 06 2008
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
Overall, this is a good school. For evening classes, distance learning, and continuing education, this is by far the best school in our area. Day classes, however, may consist of moms, discharged military veterans, or that punk kid who couldn't get into a real college.

Most of the professors are very interested in your success and will go out of their way to make sure you're doing well. Each campus has a free tutoring center, and career counselors. The transer academic/advisors have been known to give really bad advice that has cost some of my classmates a semester or two because they were told to take the wrong classes for their degree/transfer college.

There are several campuses around the area, encompassing downtown Charlotte and many of the outlying suburbs. Wherever you live, there is most likely a school near you. Most of the student life happens on the central campus, though.

Most of the teachers are excellent, and several are part-timers from the more expensive schools in town, so you get the private college education for the community college price tag. A handful of teachers are abysmal, but the school keeps rehiring them. You just have to ask around to find out who to avoid.

I ranked the classes as not that challenging because I fall into the 'quite bright' category and most academics are very easy for me, so don't hold that against the school.

Many buildings on the downtown campus are in horrible shape, including some of the newer. This is unacceptable and seems to be unimportant to the administrators who sit in their converted law office building. The newer campuses are in pretty good shape.