How To Pick A Class At Community College

SUKHMAN BASSI
48 steps
5 minutes

Laccd

Assist

The most direct way to know what class you should take is to use the LACCD website first. So, navigate to <https://www.laccd.edu/>

Click "Open Menu". If you have a larger screen, you may see the class search option above Apply.

Click "Class Search". Again, this might be above Apply if you have a larger screen.

This tool is going to be your best friend in selecting a class. Right now, select the current or upcoming semester, depending on when you want to take a class!

We want to filter through all the classes in the entire LACCD District. Click the "select subject" button.

In the subjects area, you will have TONS of options to choose from. This is where the majority of time will be spent searching. For now, we are going to stick with the subjects that start with "A"

For this example, we are going to select "Art" as the subject we are looking at today. Choose whichever subject you like at this time.

The next way to filter classes is to select the way the class is taught. There are three options. The first is the "01 In Person" option. This means that the class will be held on the college campus at the same time every week.

The second is the "02 Online" option. This is where the class posts assignments on Monday and has them due at some point later in the week. This is also called asynchronous as there are no live meetings.

The third option the "03 Online Live" option. This is what many would call a "Zoom" class. Meetings with the professor are held live on Zoom at set times, but many of the assignments will be turned in digitally.

The most popular option for students during the school year and off is the "02 Online" option as it has the most flexibility for student schedules. You may have a different favorite, so choose what you would like!

With two filters selected, we are going to search! Sometimes, these two filters are not enough to bring down the size of the search. That's where a different method comes into play later.

This is the results page. It will show you all the classes that follow the filters you applied. There will be many aspects to this page to understand, but the first and most important is that a single class like Art 101, can be offered at many different colleges.

Some sections have further identifiers. This one right here says that any of the textbooks or materials of the class won't cost more than $50!

This section identifier says that there are NO COSTS for any of the textbooks or readings. This is by far the most preferable option if you are able to snag it.

When breaking down what each part of the results means, we will go from left to right. T he columns under Class and Section are identifiers, kind of like a student ID. Days and Times can mean different things for different class types. For a 02 Online class, the numbers of hours and minutes are an estimate of how much work the college expects the work to take weekly. For an 01 In Person or a 03 Online Live class, it will tell you when you have to be on campus or on the zoom and which days of the week!

The room also has different meanings. It will tell us for 02 Online and 03 Online-Live classes what college is offering that specific class! (This is important for later). The highlighted class shows that its offered at Pierce College online! For 01 In-Person classes, it will tell us where the class is going to be on campus.

Lastly, the instructor and meeting dates columns are what they say. Make sure to note when the course starts and ends, but also note who the instructor is. Many websites can tell you information about the instructors and the quality of their courses, so use them if you would like!

Now that you understand what this page means, lets click on this Art 101 course offered by LA Harbor College online

This screen will show us in greater detail all the information you would need to know. Take note of the number of units, the total available seats, and any other details that you may want to know. THE ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT SECTION is the area under "Enrollment Information". Not every class will give you the same benefit towards your particular future. One way the college tries to help is by listing in what ways a specific course is going to help your future.

In this area, you will find two things here First and easiest to remember - "Pre-requisites". Some higher level courses require that you take the earlier course. Just like how you might not be able to jump several math levels in High School, neither can you here. The second and very important is what requirement does this class fulfill. When looking at the public universities in California, there are two systems - CSU and UC. Just like in HS, to get your diploma from a school you have to meet certain requirements. This area will tell you if the class fulfills a CSU course requirement, a UC course requirement, or both (called the IGETC or CAL-GETC) and what area of requirement. Essentially, you don't want to keep taking the same requirement area over and over again as that won't help you with your college diploma as much.

Let's show you another example. Click view search results to go back a page.

Now click modify search to go back to the search engine.

Let's try picking a different subject.

Let's select Business for this next example.

Let's now see the results.

In this page, we can now see the variations come to life. Some classes might actually be a cross of the three types. The highlighted one is both Online-Live and Online. How does that work? Who knows!

Let's keep investigating. Let's click on the top class for Business 001

This is a great example of how courses can vary! This one here will meet the "CSU D8" requirement, but not IGETC or UC! And its a different CSU area than before!

Here's another example of a class, Business 005, where it doesn't meet any CSU or UC requirements at all! It may transfer as a course for credit, but not for requirement, but that is very rare! We will use another website to help us know more.

Navigate to [assist.org](https://www.assist.org/) This website is another resource for figuring out what class you might want to take!

Scroll down and get to the "Search below for transferable courses" box. Then click the "Community College" field.

In this box, you can type any of the 9 LACCD colleges. I usually like to start with LATTC, but if they don't have the course you want, then you should check out the other 8!

All you have to do is type in part of the college's name and it will pop up like how "West Los Angeles College" did!

Underneath, there are several filter options that you should know about. The first is CSU Transferable Courses - courses that will transfer as credit to any CSU and MAY apply as finishing a course for a major or minor program!

The "CSU GE-Breadth Certification Courses" is all the courses at that school that can apply to the CSU's General Education requirements. Remember, just because it is on this list doesn't guarantee it will also be for the UC's requirements too.

The "CSU US History, Constitution, and American Ideals Courses (CSU AI)" one you can mostly skip as it just tells you what classes meet one of the CSU's General Education requirements.

The most restrictive list, but most applicable one is the "IGETC for UC and CSU". These are classes that can be used to fulfill the General Education requirements for BOTH the CSU and UC. There are a few details about this, but for the most part, it's a great area to look into.

Like before, the "UC Transferable Courses" are courses that will transfer as credit to any UC and MAY apply as finishing a course for a major or minor program!

The "UC Transfer Admission Eligibility Courses" list is meant for students who are planning to transfer from a college like West LA to a University of California. This won't apply to the high school students as much, but if you're interested, talk to a counselor!

As it is the most applicable one, let's pick "IGETC for UC and CSU"

Then clikc "View Transferability Lists"

There are several ways to view the IGETC course list, but the most helpful for those looking to game-plan the general education requirements is to select IGETC Area.

The IGETC Area view will show you the breakdowns of all the IGETC requirements and allow you to search courses in that area. Remember how Art 101 was IGETC 3A? We can see that the information was accurate when we choose to look at classes that fulfill the IGETC 3A requirement.

And look at that, it's right there! Depending on how you want to search for classes, you may end up using both and start with either one!

Last few notes: as you search for classes, it's beneficial to write down the subject and number of classes that interest you (Art 101) and then you can use that information to find open classes that fit the class type you prefer (02 Online, Mission-Online). This is a process that we want you to get good at, so use this guide, ask your friends, and ultimately, ask your counselors if you get stuck.

There are some other considerations too. On your Schoology "Class of" page, you will have a document called "Community College Best Options"

Ultimately, if a course isn't offered on your High School campus, then it's fair game to take at the community college. We recommend you see about getting courses like "Intro to Psychology" or "Ceramics" or "French" as these courses aren't offered on Foshay's campus at the moment. But if the course you want to take isn't listed on here, but is a CSU or UC transferable course, then it falls under the transferable course category and will still be applied to your high school GPA as a boost, but just won't satisfy any requirements for graduation. Any courses that aren't transferable to the CSU or UC won't grant you any GPA boost or requirement for graduation, but just credit in general.

How To Pick A Class At Community College

SUKHMAN BASSI
48 steps
5 minutes