Moraine Valley Community College

Date: Sep 18 2009
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I transferred out of MVCC a few years ago, and graduated from a four-year university not too long ago. So I'm writing this review "in retrospect."

The Campus: It's not laid out very well. Parking surrounds all the buildings in a rough circle, so if you have a class in more than one building during the day, you're going to either have to walk a far distance to it or try and park near that building. Parking is extremely bad here in that there are plenty of spots but very few of them are actually "good" spots. Comparable to finding a spot in a mall lot the week before Christmas. Aside from this, the campus generally is clean and well-maintained.

Faculty/Staff: Most full-time instructors are great, with a few exceptions. Adjunct instructors can be split up into two sections - those who are great at teaching what they do as a full time job (usually in vocational classes), and those who are terrible at teaching and can't get on full-time because they're just not that good. The latter is very common during the summer semester, when full-timers often take time off and there are temporary vacancies. The support staff here is more or less easy to get along with, although at times those in the registration and finance offices had a little more attitude than was necessary. The campus police have a bad rap but if you get to know them, they're pretty cool.

Academics: Oh Jesus. You want a summary of Moraine's academics? Take any other "premier" community college and subtract five years. It's a great place to take low-level general education prerequisite requirements in anticipation for a transfer (history, english, statistics) but they are not up to date on what specific career sectors are looking for in prospective employees. Even transfer requirements for some public universities list classes which Moraine has no equivalent of. Technology classes seem to be okay - if you plan on pursuing a degree in something directly technology related. If you need to take tech class for a career which isn't in computers, Moraine probably can't help you unless it's an MS Office class.

Advising: Academic advising is something they put somewhat of an effort into, but it's not very effective. Basically all of the advisors are instructors who do that in their off hours, and thus can give you great advice on graduating from Moraine with an associates' degree or a certificate. If you want info on transferring out, however, you're on your own. The advisors only know Moraine's offerings and what they know about your potential university program is just what they look up on the university's website when you walk in.

Tutoring: Again, an effort is made here but it's not all that effective. There is a (small) academic skills center but its availability to you is based on your class schedule and the schedule of those providing the tutoring - most of which are either instructors doing it between classes or other students who are proficient with the material. If your availability matches up - great! You can benefit from this resource. However, if it doesn't then you're on your own.

Student body: Most students here are coming straight out of local high schools, so the policy is BYOF - bring your own friends. Finding an organization to join is also not that easy if you're looking for something other than an ethnic heritage group, and public hang-out spaces are often frequented by "long-haul" students who've made hanging out more important than academics and are consequently there for waaay beyond two years. It can be observed that the majority of students at Moraine are hardworking, graduate on time, and do well in their classes, but you never see them outside of class because they go home as soon as it's done.

Conclusion: Moraine has a lot of flaws, but you can tolerate them if you plan your itinerary there wisely. Generally I have nothing but good things to say about those instructors and support staff you interact with every day, but the administration is a completely different matter. It appears their goal is to transform MVCC into a "come in and stay for a while" four-year university environment, when their goal SHOULD be to get students in, give them a great education, and have them graduate within two years.