Should I go with Plan A or Plan B in terms of choosing a college?
I’m having major financial problems finding money to pay for college. Right now, I’ve given my self two choices. What would you do in this situation?
Plan A: Go to the University of Iowa (I was accepted) and try to get loans for the part of tuition that financial aid doesn’t cover (which is a lot). I also can’t get any scholarships because I never graduated from high school…I got my GED instead and I never did any volunteer work. I’m from Alaska and the out-of-state tuition is pretty high, but the University of Iowa is apparently a highly respected school and it has the exact major I want to take. Problem is that Iowa isn’t THAT highly respected and what if the degree I earn won’t land me a job that will pay off my loans?
Plan B: Move in with my sister who lives in Texas and attend community college in Houston for the first two years, then transfer to the University of Texas, also declaring residency. Even if they don’t give me the resident tuition cost at University of Texas, at least my first two years of college would definitely cost less than half of Iowa’s out-of-state tuition. The problem with that is that there’s no guarantee that I will be able to transfer out after graduating from community college (though I’m pretty confident that I will) and still…I’d be going to community college for 2 years. Not so good for a resume, is it? There’s also a good chance that I’ll apply for a transfer to Iowa again after community college if I don’t get into University of Texas or some of the other schools that I plan on applying for.
More notes:
I did get into a couple of other schools, but they offered little to no financial aid and they were hardly worth spending all that money on: UMass Amherst, Arizona State University and a couple of 3rd tier universities.
Please give me your input. Any opinion would be really helpful!
I plan on majoring in International Studies or Comparative Literature and minoring in Communication/Broadcasting or Film Studies…whichever provides more production and hands-on media experience. I don’t know what job I want to go for after I graduate. I might try and spend some time in the field of entertainment or find a job overseas.
I do plan on teaching English in Taiwan for a few years after I graduate. I don’t know if I will go on to graduate school straight after that or find a job and earn my master’s part-time. I do know that I want to earn a master’s degree some time in my life.
What about as a translator? What path should I choose if I want to interpret and translate?
To tell the truth though, I’m looking for a degree that will allow me to get a decent job overseas, so that I can stay permanently. My goal is to find an maintain a steady job in Taiwan…doesn’t matter what or who I work for as long as I earn a decent income and be able to pay off my loans. I can even work for an American company but station in Taiwan. So I guess it’s not what I want to do, but rather where I want to be.
April 24th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
plan B becasue you save the money and most people from where i am from (NY) go to community school and then transfer.
April 24th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
What do you plan to graduate in and what kind of job are you hoping to get – these will have a big impact on what choice you make. Ill be back to answer then.
Right, if you are looking at media studies (this is considered a soft degree meaning that the skills are not technical, like a science or accounting degree, or analytical). This means that the creative aspect of the program is more important that where you go. If you are looking to move into a creative field, then your experience will count much more than the uni name. Make sure though, that wherever you go has a strong practical dimednsion and the chance for internships/ external projects. Networking is THE key in that industry. Start making contacts on your first day.
Don’t worry about doing community college – as you are not going into a ’snob field’ such as investment banking etc, the route you take to graduate is not a factor. You will need to make sure that your GPA is good though as a 3.3 from a really good school would be on par with a 3.9 from a less good school.
There is good money to be made teaching English, try get your english teaching cert tied into your student loan? If you use your time teaching to develop a foreign portfolio for film production etc, then when you return to the states you should have a nice chunk out of your loans and some real world experince too – that way you knock the socks off the fresh graduates you are competing with!
So, look at the option which works best for you now, gives you the most experience, take advantage of all the opportunities you can and develop networking and you will on a winner!
Good luck
April 24th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Bottom line: you should move to the state that has a school you would like to get into.
Getting into university from community college isn’t that hard, at least from what I’ve seen. Admit-tingly, I only know about California community colleges.
Over in San Diego, there’s community colleges that have guaranteed acceptances (provided you maintain a certain GPA) to several of the Universities of California-San Diego, Irvine, etc, all of which are top tier schools.
In the Los Angeles area, there’s Santa Monica college, where people go to when they want to transfer to UCLA, which of course is ranked in the top 25 or so universities in the nation.
There’s a similar college for UC Berkeley, which of course is in the top 20 in the nation.
So if you keep your grades up when you are in community college, you should be able to get into lots of state schools. It’s actually easier to get accepted as a community college student than as a high school student in California. I’m not sure about other states.
Also, people won’t see on your college degree that you attended a community college. You only go to community college for the general education requirements; the hard class you take at the university, so I don’t know if anyone would care. I’ve known a few doctors who attended community college before getting their BS just because they wanted to save money, not because they weren’t smart.
Hope this helps.
April 24th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
If you go with Plan B,
I’d say transfer to Texas State University.
We have the #1 ranked and largest Mass Communications school in the nation (yes, it’s true you can research if you’d like — it’s my major, broadcasting) and our International Studies program is very very highly ranked as well. (There aren’t too many actually in the US but of the ones available, it is a VERY good one because we are located in a history & geography rich area. Our school is ON a fault line. Pretty neat)..
So that is my suggestion.
Good luck deciding!