Mt Hood Community College

Date: Feb 07 2009
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
The teachers here are amazing. Jon Spindor is the best math teacher I have ever met, Lee Mitchell makes Biology interesting, Prof. Lass is the one who you want to take your Writing 121&122 classes with, and Nancy Olson's classes are just amazing. I have not even mentioned Janet Cambell in Political Science or Lidia Yuknavitch in English! Both of them have a following of students. All these teachers and many more here are extraordinary and more than qualified to teach at one of the big universities. I have heard Lidia, who is one of the many teachers here with a PHD, say that the reason she decided to work at MHCC rather than a university is the environment. Rather than having the teachers competing against other teachers and the students competing against other students, it is a community, and you try to help each other.

We also have a lot of very innovative classes. Every year Lidia teaches a "Politics of Lit" class that explores alternative literature and has greatly expanded what I read. We have some learning community classes that are thrilling. I am currently taking one called "The Global Lens" which combines Political Science and Film Literature. Next term we have a class called "Into the Wild" that combines sociology and a wilderness survival class. One of the most exciting things about these classes is the dynamic between the teachers. It creates quite the learning environment. I have taken classes here that have changed me for good. There is another learning community that combines Woman's studies and Woman's health that has changed me irrevocably.

The school is made of cement and kind of a wind tunnel, but if you are fine with wind, you get used to the cement and the school is quite pretty (especially the art area, it is like a hobbit village).

Finding out what classes you need to take can be a tad difficult, but if you keep bugging people in registration they help you a lot.