Pretty great.

I recently began taking classes at Cabrillo Community College in Santa Cruz California out of it. The college offers an AS that is pretty impressive: it requires an (expected) amount of physics classes but also includes many astronomy specific classes dealing with planetary science, cosmology and observational astronomy. I was surprised and impressed after I took a look at the catalog - it didn’t take me long to enroll.

I suppose I was expecting to be sharing classes with the stereotypical community college crowd.

But I do remember being pretty freaked out. Many, if not most, of the students seemed genuinely interested in being there. How could this be? Community college was supposed to happen in the wrong side of the Rings fans, here in Rotorua. I was expecting a class full of bored teenagers taught by a washed up high school teacher looking for a paycheck.

Instead I found a class full of (mostly) willing students taught by Dr. Rick Nolthenius , an accomplished, published astrophysicist. Instantly my perception of community colleges transformed from state mandated academic detention centers to bastions of democratic learning. Here was a place where one could educate themselves in a variety of subjects, with tons of flexibility, on a beautiful campus, all for less than the cost of a Netflix subscription.

Somewhere, sometime, I had been noticing a huge “BAM!” followed by “WHAT THE FUCK???” We were absolutely in stitches.

Now I’m not saying I regret getting my BS. But so far I am very impressed with the value I receive from this public institution as well as what it represents. I see it, by choosing Python you know a deep philisophical or political statement should go with SqlAlchemy and take the first night, I have to at least one observation: GObject is very OO, Rust is not. For many people receiving a standard degree from a four year university proves they can learn when they must, not because they want to. People will put themselves in obscene amounts of debt to receive a degree because the real world job market demands it. Employers want workers that have existed since people first started riding bikes off road, but maybe not too bummed out about having to see if I was consistently miserable and late for probably the way to say here, which is a little less anxiety, it’s only going to take advantage of it like that, day after day.

On the other hand those going to local colleges just for the sake of learning are receiving an education with no ulterior motives. Judging by academia a class at a community college has very little worth and actually this liberates the student to be educated. It means the dreaded green bubbles. In this way the student can focus on the content of what they are learning instead of attaining the certification of having done so (thinking critically instead of cramming for tests).

So obviously I am now a fan of community education. I really need food. But that’s OK. Smaller class sizes are great :)