San Jacinto College South

Date: Jan 29 2012
Major: Math (This Major's Salary over time)
I attended SJC-South for two years, straight out of high school. The math department was exceptionally friendly and helpful, and my instructors were great! They were always available and glad to provide assistance before/after class, during office hours, or via email when necessary. They were very encouraging, particularly when I wasn't at my best, and even had a positive attitude towards teaching lower-level math classes for non-majors (i.e. College Algebra, etc.), which math instructors tend not to enjoy teaching (from what I've seen elsewhere). To be honest, now that I've transferred, I kind-of miss having such great teachers and small classes! It was never even slightly difficult to get assistance.

There's a Math Lab, staffed with student tutors, who I found generally helpful up to Calculus I. The Math Lab was also a great place to just sit and do homework. Oftentimes, I'd go to the Math Lab in my spare time and happen to stumble upon a group of students working on the same problem sets—and then, we'd start helping each other, although we'd never formally set a time to meet up. Those informal study sessions were really helpful during Trig and Precalc, and they're probably helpful for lower-level classes, too!

There's also a Student Success Center that provides more individualized tutoring for specific classes across the curriculum, and a Writing Center for writing-related help. Many of the traditionally difficult courses at San Jac have Supplemental Instruction (SI) leaders, as well, who are successful past students hired to organize attendance-optional study groups, twice a week, for specific classes. I found my Calculus I SI leader extremely helpful!

While I can't speak about the math classes at other campuses, I did take chemistry, physics, and computer science courses at both South and Central. My SJC-Central courses were generally less rigorous, and the labs there were less well-equipped; their STEM facilities were relatively old and out-of-date. So, if you're a STEM major who intends to transfer to a four-year school, I would stick to taking your STEM classes at South. However, if you're, say, a humanities or cosmetology major—anything that really doesn't require extensive STEM knowledge—with a full-time job and two kids who wants a relatively easy science credit, taking your STEM classes at Central might be worth the drive.

South (Central, too) is quite close to NASA's Johnson Space Center, so if you're a STEM major, looking into NASA's student internships and education programs would be a great idea! They have some terrific programs for community college students that I *really, really* wish I had known about when I was at South. Things like that look great on applications to four-year schools!

Nevertheless, thanks to South, I was able to work at least part-time with relatively little difficulty throughout my first two years of college. And, when I graduated, I was accepted to all of the schools I applied for: UT (Honors!), A&M, UH, Baylor, and a fairly well-known, private, liberal arts college on the East coast, as well!

In short, I'm very thankful to the staff and faculty at South. I definitely couldn't have afforded four years at UT, A&M, or UH straight out of high school (think of the debt!), and I don't think I would have even been accepted to UT, much less the honors program, then (I was a good, but not stellar, student with low B grades in math). But, after two years saving up money and and studying hard at South, getting accepted and admitted to UT wasn't a problem, at all! If I could go back and do things differently, I don't think I would!