The Student News Site of Monta Vista High School

Community college

May 14, 2022

When senior Diya Sarin’s parents brought up the prospect of going to community college after high school her freshman year, she “didn’t take it too seriously” at first. It was a route most high schoolers from MVHS wouldn’t even consider, especially as early as freshman year, and jumping into something like that was a big decision. But a year later, she started considering what it could mean for her: Getting into the competitive psychology program at UCLA straight out of high school would be very difficult, and paying for four years of UCLA plus the schooling required to earn her masters or doctorate would prove to be expensive. Going to community college for two years and then transferring to UCLA would not only make the process easier, but would also save two years worth of UC tuition — over $37,000 a year. 

As time passed, Sarin grew increasingly confident in her decision as she considered the benefits of going to community college. 

“I feel like it’ll allow me to be more independent in the sense of, ‘I have people surrounding me, my family is going to be there,’” Sarin said. “But I will be doing things on my own. And if I need help, I have them, but it’s my own initiative that’s making me do things on my own. I’ll be motivating myself rather than being thrown into the situation and forcing myself to manage myself alone.” 

Although her parents initially brought up the idea, they still grew hesitant of this decision at times. According to Sarin, they wanted to make sure she was still pushing herself in high school even though she would be going to community college afterwards. But Sarin says her confidence in her decision eased her parent’s reluctant nature, as they eventually said, “If you think this is the best route for you, just go for it.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time — it’s been two years since I made the decision,” Sarin said. “It’s pretty uncommon for a lot of people to make a choice of what they want to pursue as well as how they want to go about it that early, because I did it in sophomore year. But I feel like because of how long I’ve made that decision for, I’m pretty confident in it now.”

Next year, Sarin will be attending Los Positas Community College, a school that is close to where her parents will be moving and also offers courses that feed into the TAP Program at UCLA — a program which offers California residents taking community college classes “priority consideration for admission to the college.” She claims that because she knows what she wants for her future, it doesn’t matter what path she takes to get there.

“It’s honestly to each their own,” Sarin said. “Some people feel like the only way to go about [schooling] is to do a four year college and figure it out as they go. It was different for me because I was so confident in what I wanted to do as a career from such an early age, so it doesn’t really matter how I get there in terms of schooling. I know what I want to do in life so the [beginning part] of the path is not that important to me.” 

 

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