Community College to UCLA
The perspective of a Computer Science major
I started out at community college as soon as I graduated high school.
I saved a lot of money for my first two years of college, but there were some experiences I felt left out of. The first two years of college are exciting for most who leave home and move into a dorm in a brand new setting, but I decided to get my own apartment a 30 minute drive away from my family and start fresh as a college student. I had to learn how to live on my own, be entirely responsible for every aspect of my life, understand finances and cook for myself on a daily basis. I gained the independence I had always wanted and life experiences that I am very grateful for.
I went out of my way to get as involved as possible on my campus as soon as I arrived, by joining clubs and looking for leadership positions and jobs in the area, and starting to attend hackathons and meet new friends through the school’s Facebook group. In terms of extracurriculars, I had quite a lot on my plate and felt stressed and limited on time most days. I slowly grasped the duality of balance and stress and how both are beneficial to my personal work ethic, and am still learning how to optimize my schedule so I feel healthy and motivated at all times.
As a computer science major, I was getting away with some pretty easy A’s in most of my computer science courses, yet pushing a bit harder for good grades in math and science classes. I didn’t feel challenged in those classes and it seemed like every class was repetitive in the sense that I just had to learn syntax of new languages every class but the algorithmic problem solving portions were not advancing how I would have liked. I still have yet to master data structures and algorithms. I still have yet to completely understand computational complexity. Fortunately for the age of the internet we’re in, I can catch up on all of these harder concepts with some discipline and surfing the net. But one con of being a computer science major in community college, was that I focused on being the optimal candidate for admissions to my dream school, UCLA, rather than honing in on my technical skill set and working on side projects to solidify my fundamentals in coding.
On the flip side, community college was a smaller scale version of what I wanted to accomplish at a bigger school. I got to ultimately make connections with some amazing individuals who are also transferring to top schools in the U.S., and I get to learn about their new perspectives as we part ways and find our own paths at our new schools. I got to collaborate with an extremely diverse set of people in different classes, and learn how to appreciate the little things. The little things being the hustle to get into a school, and having a strong voice for some clubs on campus and making changes to help other students find their paths in this community college journey. These experiences collectively helped me want to help underrepresented communities of people in STEM using my own experiences and knowledge when doing so.
Today, I’m preparing to start my first semester at UCLA and I am confident that I will be thoroughly challenged and exposed to the abundance of resources for the things I’m passionate about. As a community college student, there were very limited options for interning and tech opportunities in general because of the specific language that commonly prohibits 2 year college students to apply for roles they are qualified for. I am excited to now prepare for interning in the Fall 2018 as well as Summer 2019 and get some industry experience in this fresh perspective as an “official” undergraduate student.
This is a reflection on the community college perspective, and a reminder to all those in community college now that you are worthy of every role at any size company regardless of the name of your school. If you need any tips on getting interviews as a community college student, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn!
Gefen Skolnick
Co-Director of Technology
TechTogether Boston
