Why is it impossible to take all the classes I want?
Entering the campus center, my knees feel weak and my eyes glisten as I gaze upon a spread of freshly-printed class schedule booklets for the next semester. I pick one up and begin to thumb through the first few pages as I make my way over to the ASWVC office. Full of hope, I awe over all the classes I want to take in the Fall: Spanish, yoga, creative writing. Wait-- creative writing is at the same time as Spanish. And Spanish is at the same time as the honors business law class I need. It’s either that class or the honors literature class with the professor with a 3/5 Rate My Professor score. Hmm, it seems like I am out of luck. Just like I was last semester and the semester before that.
This isn’t the first instance a West Valley student had to compromise taking classes that feed their intellectual curiosity for classes that simply fulfill requirements. Whether it is due to time conflicts, the professor, or the learning modality offered, it can be difficult to find the right section of a class. This can become an issue for community colleges especially since most students spend less than six semesters before graduating or transferring. Community college students deserve the opportunity to take classes that interest them just as much as students at four-year universities.
Unlike four-year institutions, community colleges do face additional barriers when it comes to scheduling classes. Primarily, it can be difficult to staff instructors full-time who can also be paid competitive wages. According to the California Federation of Teachers, the mean salary of California community college professors with a Master’s Degree and 5 years of experience is $74,000. West Valley-Mission beats this slightly by averaging $84,000 in the same category. According to CSU data, the average salary for their lecturers to professors is $126,000. With the high level of education and experience needed to become a professor, it is unsurprising that educators would opt to teach at four-year institutions or move into the private sector. Although this barrier makes it more difficult to retain high-level instructors to teach a wide variety of courses in multiple sections, community college students still deserve to have those opportunities.
The example that comes to mind for my situation specifically is needing to take discrete math this fall. Although this class is needed for math, computer science, and engineering majors, there is only one section offered for fall, and it is in-person as well and same time as most other classes. Not only is this inaccessible for students unable to make it onto campus, but it can be difficult to schedule this for students with jobs or other obligations. Since community college students are at higher risk of dropping out or not completing their educational goals due to these external obligations, having fewer sections which are also not flexible only increases this barrier for students.
As a college, let’s focus on supporting our students in every way possible. This includes offering every major-required class in multiple learning modalities with multiple professors. Let’s have honors options for more classes like foreign languages and psychology. Let’s offer elective classes like creative writing and philosophy of death every semester, not just once every couple of years. Let’s make West Valley an institution that eliminates barriers instead of heightening them.