Amanda Sifford enrolled at Texas Tech after her experience at a community college because she believed it would give her a chance to branch out.
She is one of a growing number of Tech students to fit in this category.
Sifford, a junior early childhood education major from Warner Robins, Ga., said she values her community college experience at Macon State College and felt more prepared coming into Tech because of it.
“There’s no way I would’ve considered coming to a school as big as Tech right out of high school,” she said.
Jamie Hansard, director of undergraduate admissions for Tech, said the university has partnerships with a number of community colleges in Texas, and transfer students come from a variety of schools in the state. The Fall 2009 Texas Tech enrollment fact sheet report transfer enrollment for this semester is 2,442 students, up 239 students from 2008.
“Each student’s success is different. If a student needs to go to community college, we encourage that,” she said. “Texas Tech cares about transfer students. We try to visit the community colleges on a regular basis.”
Hansard said Tech handles transfer recruitment differently than when recruiting prospective freshmen students, and recruiters must understand some students already have an associates degree.
“With transfer recruitment, they’ve already experienced registration and somewhat of a transition,” she said. “At the community colleges, we go and work with counseling and advisers. More transfers have to work while they’re in school and transfers have a limited amount of time. We try to go where the transfers are.”
Sifford said she felt more prepared for change after going to community college and enjoyed the gradual transition it allowed her.
“The average student (at Macon State College) is in their 40s or 50s, going back to school for a second degree,” she said.
Mandi Todd, a student at Western Texas College from Ira, said she plans to attend Tech in January 2010, when she will be a junior and pursue a bachelor’s in pediatric psychiatry.
She said after she graduated high school, she did not feel like she was ready for a large university.
“I was intimidated by a bigger school and all my friends went to WTC,” she said. “It was cheaper.”
Todd said she has reached the end of the road as far as the classes she can take at WTC, and she is ready to take classes that count toward her major and not just basics.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Texas Tech, ever since I was little,” she said.
But community college is important, Todd said, especially for students who may not be ready to make the steps to a large university.
“You get the college experience, but you don’t get freaked out by the big number of people,” she said. “WTC is just a gray between black and white.”
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