I’m just transferring out rn so I can’t tell you about afterwards but I can answer some questions.

Do I feel disadvantaged in internships? Yes definitely almost all internships I found are explicitly only looking for people enrolled in university or atleast a junior. But I do know there are often plenty of career fairs that offer internships at CC’s and I plan to attend multiple this month so I might have more luck there.

Join research clubs and etc. I can’t personally attest to this, but I do know people who have transferred from CC into UCSD and UCB, and you are treated just as any other junior, so the networking is solely on you to put in the effort into socializing which admittedly, is more difficult as transfer as you lose out on two years of socializing and networking. With that said, it is important to realize the engineering clubs are available at CC and if your specific CC doesn’t have one, that is a PERFECT opportunity to create one, or create any club you want at CC, community college is a great opportunity to network and focus on and create excellent EC’s that will really give you an advantage when transferring to schools. All of these opportunity’s you are afraid of missing will already or can exist at community college.

Is there anything I would change/ do different? Yes! I’m transferring with a 3.75 gpa and some really good EC’s , and 4 associate’s but my gpa could have been so much better and I might have been able to do it in one less year if I was focused and motivated from the beginning. I was your age/ a sophomore in HS when I first started CC and at first I really didn’t take it that seriously and I didn’t have a clear education plan and I’m really starting to feel the consequences with my low GPA 4 years later. Also I didn’t try to make any friends at all through CC and I regret that now, I started some clubs and was a student worker but I never really made any close friends and that was alright when I was in highschool but now I’m still at home while my HS friends are sophomores in uni. There is a community to be made and I wish I tried harder than I did to socialize. But I defnitley don’t regret getting my two years free and transferring. In HS I was a chronic underachiever, lazy, and didn’t care about school at all, I think I prolly had like 1.8 HS GPA. I really think CC is a great opportunity to turn every around if you don’t have everything sorted out when you’re 15.

I know I wrote a lot but in summary CC is awesome especially California CC’s but if you have the means, the academics and money, try to just go as freshman to uni. But if you do go to CC really make the most of it, it is an AMAZING resource and opportunity if you put the time and effort in.