By Dorany Pineda
The South Gate Educational Center is, for many students, their main campus.
As a much smaller academic establishment relative to the expanding East Los Angeles College campus, its class offerings are limited by its size.
So in the course of students’ progress toward the completion of their major or degree, many will be forced to take classes that they need at the ELAC main campus.
According to ELAC’s website, the South Gate Educational Center was built to “better serve a growing student population that lives in the southern part of the college’s service district.”
For many students, the South Gate class offerings do not suffice, and traveling to the main campus is obligatory.
The free shuttle bus that transports students and staff from the South Gate campus to and from the East Los Angeles campus is a great service for those who have to make the commute.
The drawback,however, is that there is only one bus that makes the back-and-forth excursion.
The first shuttle bus departs from the South Gate campus at 6:30 a.m.
It arrives at ELAC at approximately 7:05 a.m., then leaves the campus at 7:15 a.m. and arrives again in South Gate at around 8 a.m.
The shuttle departs again at 8:10 a.m. That means those who rely on this service have to wait nearly two hours between shuttle buses.
Those who have classes on Fridays and Saturdays have to find alternate ways to travel from campus to campus since shuttle buses only run Monday through Thursday.
Other Southern California community colleges have more shuttle buses with more frequency.
Pasadena Community College, for instance, has three shuttle buses that depart every 15-30 minutes.
The bus serves students and staff who need to travel between the Goldline Metro station, the Community Education Center and the PCC main campus.
Because of limited classes offered at South Gate Educational Center, many students have to travel to the main campus to take the necessary courses for their majors.
The demands of a student’s life are plenty as it is, and the added weight of figuring out how to get to school is needless stress.
The least ELAC could do is offer more shuttle buses that run with more frequency to better serve the community of students that use it.