Community Colleges Part 1 — Speech & Debate

As BetterGrads will continue to produce college admissions and acceptance-related posts for those anxiously awaiting bulky packages from first-choice four-year schools, we will not fail to serve those prospective college students looking to further their education at a community college. This will be a series of posts, and I encourage readers to submit their comments and feedback regarding two-year schools.

Let’s cut to the chase. Community college has a bad rap. While I could have a field day listing numerous stigmas and stereotypes about community colleges, I’d rather divulge the impressive accomplishments I’ve witnessed from my peers at two-year schools. While I bypassed community college (adding onto my ever-growing student loan…) I look back on the debt and general education classes and wonder if I wouldn’t have been the same-or better-getting those first two years out of the way at one of these underdog institutions. Perhaps next week’s post will detail some common myths about community college. For now, it’s story time.

One Example of How Community College Students Hold Their Own

As a budding member of my four-year university’s speech & debate team, I practiced my speeches and performances religiously leading up to my first tournament as a varsity competitor. Scanning the list of schools entered in the competition, I noticed several had the phrase “Community College” in their name. Community colleges compete against us? I snickered. I chortled. I fondled elitist notions of superiority, assuming the smaller, less-robust schools would bring weak competition against which I would prevail. Ha!

And it’s exactly that kind of elitist thinking that handed me a big, honking piece of humble pie.

Expecting to have the upper hand as a “real” college student, I was surprised to encounter stiff competition at my first tournament. The community college speakers were eloquent, prepared, well-dressed, and many of them had been competing far longer than me! A few community college competitors boasted that they had traveled to Argentina the year before to compete in an international speech competition. I had only been to a nearby town to compete. I was befuddled, instantly embarrassed by my judgmental attitude. In fact, nearly every tournament for the rest of the year was overwhelmingly dominated by community college attendance, and I found myself fighting to be recognized and awarded as a member of a four-year university.

With only two years to cultivate their students, many institutions like Glendale Community College, Los Angeles Valley College, Mt. San Antonio College and Las Positas Community College (to name very, very few) are churning out some of the most professional, polished and persuasive college-aged public speakers in the country. (That ‘P’ alliteration would sound way cool if it were spoken… by a community college speech competitor.) Instead of wasting away two so-called embarrassing years at a community college, these students take advantage of resources available to them on their campuses. Considered a “senior” by their second year, these students gain the advantage of owning a larger stake in their campus, rather than getting lost in the muddled numbers of freshmen that can reach up to the tens-of-thousands at some four-year schools.

I had some exhilarating wins as a speech & debate competitor at my university, but my successes sometimes went largely unnoticed by the tons and tons of other activities my campus offered to the 30,000+ students. My community college cohorts, however, had opportunities to connect with a larger percentage of their student body, recruiting fresh, unsuspecting new students onto the team, who otherwise may never have encountered speech & debate. For example, Glendale Community College began their student-run speech & debate team in 2004 with only three students. At the start of the 2010 season this semester, the team reached an all-time high of 50 speech & debate team signups, after much-deserved on-campus press coverage for their impressive wins at the annual national tournament for four-year schools. I was so impressed by my former competition that I wrote up this press release touting their successes.

Speech & debate is one of this country’s oldest and most respected academic activities, and it is alive and well among community colleges in California.

While this example is highly personal and specific to my college experience, it opened my eyes to the abilities of community college and the types of students it can produce. The many community college students I knew back then are either now thriving at four-year universities or just graduated, most of them with only two to three years of student loans to repay.

I don’t regret my decision to attend a four-year university for all four years. I do, however, regret writing off community colleges as unimportant, as many of these institutions offer opportunities to excel, thrive, and accomplish great things.

More on community colleges next week.

Have an idea for an angle on community college? Leave a comment.