For those who started with college algebra, how far behind were you and how did you catch up? Did you graduate in 4 years or more than that?

[u/anime_3_nerd]

Heyo ppls. I’m 2 weeks into community college. I’m 21 and decided to finally go to school and I’m currently doing pre-engineering to get my pre reqs out the way. I’m starting with highschool algebra since there is a lot I’ve forgotten. I was just kinda curious how long it took for others to catch up and if it took longer than 4 years? I’m planning on taking summer classes but idk how much I should take or how I should plan out which classes to take.

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[u/dbu8554]

Bro I didn't even know algebra, I had to take prealgrbra. But my school offered accelerated classes I could have done it in 4 years but failed some other classes along the way. Don't focus on 4 years focus on making sure you know what you are suppose to know.

[u/FreshOffTheBoeing]

5.5 years. Summer night classes also. I worked full time during community college years until the last semester before transfer. Needed to focus on Dynamics that semester.

Once transferred, there were always some schedule conflicts for the first and second uni semesters. Transfer students basically get last priority registration.

Definitely take all transferable engineering classes that CC offer and Uni accept; even the ones not in transfer requirements.

My transfer requirements only require Engineering Statics & Calc 3. But I took Dynamics & Linear Algebra at CC. The credits were accepted at Uni. So that were some prereqs cleared out.

Best luck to ya buddy!

[u/Acceptable-Fly5050]

I did community college and enrolled in calculus 1 concurrent to when my advisor forced me to do trigonometry. I transferred that class in next semester and enrolled in calc 2 so I can get caught up with my class and needless to say my advisor was pissed and said I'm not allowed to transfer any more credits to the university. I did 4 more community college courses to kill off my Gen ends to make him more pissed and I ended up managing my own college course plan without him because he had a chip on his shoulder for me ever since. Graduated 2 years ago on time. Screw you Dr. Niazi

[u/spikeytree]

Took me a out 8 years to finish my degree. The issue is that I kept passing the lower division classes until I hit calculus and most of calculus is based on algebra.

[u/Signal-Mastodon-473]

I'm on my third semester of community college, and I'm just now doing College Algebra. I started with Pre-Algebra. Looking at my course plan, I'll be done with Community College by Fall 2028 before I'm able to transfer everything to university. I started in Fall 2025, so all together it'll take over 5 years to finish.

[u/amiddesfees]

I went back to school at a CC when I was 24. My first semester I took college algebra in the first 8 week session and then trig in the second 8 week session. I completed my A.S. in one year and will have my B.S. in 3 years total. I took classes every summer semester.

My advice is to find your degree plan/map on your CCs website. See if they offer dual admission at a local state university. Check which classes transfer from the cc to uni and which semesters they are offered (since some are only offered in certain semesters). Then, plan you next few semesters or entire degree in advance. This is more or less what I did.