By Diego Olivares
Students graduating from East Los Angeles College will face strong challenges in the future.
Students attending community college, look forward to completing school and moving on and ELAC has allowed students many chances at improving their education.
This ranges from getting an AA or AS degree or to transfer to a four-year university. The graduation ceremony students attend is a connection between community college and their future goals.
Students come to ELAC to attend at least two years of schooling. Sometimes they may stay longer.
The amount of time spent depends on the student. What their future goals will be also depends on them.
Once they get everything they need completed, they can apply for graduation. This can be very important to a student taking school seriously.
A student who comes to school on their first day usually thinks about all the hard work ahead of them.
By the time they’re on stage, being handed their degree and surrounded by hundreds, they realize all the hard work has paid off.
This is the moment many students dream. Family and friends in attendance feel a sense of joy and accomplishment for those moving on to better things.
Though what really happens to them post-graduation? Do they keep their education goals? Perhaps they move towards a new and different future direction.
There’s a good chance that students graduating from community college never attend another school again. ELAC can be the final stop in a students education career.
For those students, they graduate with an AA or AS degree, only if they’ve complete their general courses. For those who never finished their general courses, they graduate with a certificate in their chosen major.
The reasons they never take full advantage in what they worked for depends on the student. Reasoning varies from personal crisis or losing interest in schooling.
On the other side of the coin, other students who graduate from ELAC take advantage of the situation. They advance themselves from community college students to university students.
Transferring to schools like USC, UCLA or a Cal State is a huge deal for them. Other times, students transfer to an out-of-state university.
These students clearly have their goals set and work to obtain them. Graduation bridges them from ELAC to their dream university, and possibly a better future. Again, that all depends on the student.
There’s a number of students who don’t make graduation at all. For many of these students, they begin school like everyone else with a clear plan in mind.
In the end, they never complete their plan. This usually results in them dropping out of school.
Other times, they’re kicked out of school for reasons like low-grades. These students never get the chance to graduate.
Few students are given the chance to graduate, but refuse to attend a graduation ceremony. For them, they’re just happy to have completed community college.