Burlington County College

Date: Mar 05 2009
Major: Education (This Major's Salary over time)
This is my story at BCC. Every semester became a fight for survival to keep my scholarship. It was the difficulty of classes, or bad teachers, it was registering for classes. In fact, the only positive thing about BCC is the teachers. Sure, you get great and horrible teachers, but that's everywhere. The major problem with BCC is their administration. As mentioned before, something as simple as registering for the right classes becomes a nerve-racking battle. One particular situation which developed into a problem that is STILL not resolved (I graduated in December and it is now March) is when I had to take a science lecture and a lab for my major. I did the smart thing and split it up; I took the lecture in the Fall and planned to take the lab in the Spring. BCC decided to not offer that particular lab in the Spring, so I had to take a whole other science lecture and lab together, which in effect, wasted 6 credits that I could have used to take my requirements. Because I had to take the lecture-lab combo, it messed my whole plan up. For some strange reason, I was coaxed into taking a Spanish class that I didn't really need, but it would look good on my transcript. I ended up dropping said class because it was too far away, I was broke, and I wasn't really learning anything. My counselor, whom I've never talked to, seen, or even heard of in the 2 years I was at BCC, called me and said that dropping the class meant that I would lose my scholarship unless I took another class to stay full-time. The only lucky thing to ever happen to me at this school was that the replacement class was a requirement, it was offered at a closer campus, and at a convenient time! However, because I dropped the Spanish class and registered for the new History class, the credits that my scholarship covered were all used up, so I ended up having to pay about $150. My counselor then called me back not even 5 minutes later and said that Financial Aid would cover it anyway, and that I'd have no worries. I went through the entire year with this conception. It wasn't until I went to register for the Fall 2008 semester that I learned that my counselor had not done her job, and that I still owed the college money because she's not part of Financial Aid. I tried and tried to contact her but to no avail. Finally, I got that problem settled, and I got registered for the Fall semester, and told Financial Aid to pay for it with my scholarship money (that part is important). I finished my final semester at BCC and then found out afterwards that they're not going to let me graduate because I owe them for my final semester because I didn't pay for it because Financial Aid didn't pay for it because I lost my scholarship because I dropped my Spanish class. I've been in VERY loose contact with various Financial Aid officers and no solution has come up yet. In fact, I haven't spoken to them in about 3 weeks and nobody is heckling me for the $1500 that they think I owe them. Isn't BCC wonderful?