Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 13, 2014

She used to be such a sweet kid.

What happened to our little baby? .The years The years have gone by too quickly.

MayKitten: You Chris Christy? “I…I…I…I…”

Jeez, dad, you’re clueless.

No, that’s waaay over the top of cluelessness!

I was a fool too.

“But you’re just a baby, Baby. What’s this foolishness of my beloved growing up without my permission?”

“Do the math” is presumably an in-joke about the variable aging of Doonesbury characters. Sam (this is Sam, yes?) was born in 1992, so if you “do the math” she is getting to the end of college.

Too bad that, after all that education, you say something as incorrect as, “Most CC credits will not transfer to a legitimate four year program.” On the contrary, general education credits at every CC I’ve known transfer to four-year institutions. Claiming otherwise is more snobbish than it is accurate, as is your implicit and elitist claim that unless you attend only a select few schools, you might as well not bother going to college. And, by the way, there is no Lorraine Fuller listed on the faculty at SUNY, and there is no “SUNY NY” campus. Maybe they should have taught you to Google better at one of your fine schools.

@MayKittenAll 61 semester hours of courses I took at CC transferred to a major, well-known public U. Plus, I didn’t have to waste time and money taking entrance exams. The courses had schedules which allowed me to work and there were no TAs, Tuition rates were well below that of public Us. I call that a bargain. CC is a good way to go for many people.

It’s our children that make us old.

My son went to a community college, got his Assoc. All his credits transferred to Univ. of Kentucky. He paid for the first two years by himself. The US Army is paying for the rest.

I thought our children make us young? Not sure. Anyway, I have a 10th grade daughter. She is thinking about college and it is a little scary, I must admit.

Medford, Mass is a nice place but thanks God it is near Boston.

Do some math, Dad

He can do math. Of course he can. He can always correctly add 7 or 3 to any other reasonably small number. Plus, he can instantly compute what combinations of 7’s or 3’s will make one number larger than another. (When his kicker has an off day, he can do with 6’s.)

To “If, for instance, you want to study medieval history and intend to teach;” I would add, find out if there are institutions that will reward you financially to teach medieval history at least four years down the road, eight if you want a doctorate.

Community College credits MAY transfer to a four year program. My Son’s gf is getting ready to transfer after taking classes at the local CC. You do need to be careful, however, because the CC will often talk students into taking preliminary classes that don’t transfer and that you may not need to take. The CC I went to partnered with a university so that you could take the courses for a CS degree, the first two years at the CC, the last two at the university. I did have to take ‘remedial’ math classes; I’d never taken analytical-geometry, and nothing below calculus counted toward the CS degree.

Yeah, kids…go to one of May’s major universities at any cost, even if it means tying yourself down with debt for the rest of your life.

She’s lucky…..my Dad would ask me how I spelled my name, every now and then.

If you want to learn nothing more than a marketable skill, go to trade school. If you want to be exposed to unfamiliar ideas and a variety of perspectives, learn critical thinking skills, and develop cognitive flexibility to handle the unpredictable future, then go get a full college degree.

I don’t know when we decided those broader skills and experiences were “worthless” because they aren’t some specific concrete marketable action for which you can charge a specific hourly fee immediately upon graduation, but I think we are a poorer society for it.

College should be more than a simple vocational program.

Sam doesn’t strike me as the MIT type. More like a British women’s lit type, like someone I know who wound up a librarian.

B.D. — he’s got hair, but he’s still got no clue.

Did anybody else see “A Doonesbury Special” on youtube? It is a lot of fun and shows Doonesbury main characters in their earlier years.(1977) As has been mentioned in this thread, only Zonker seems to have aged well.

For those who can remember that far, Alex went through the same thing with Mike. “The EYES, Dad! Look at my EYES!” Sam no longer has the wide-eyed look of youth; she has the classic Trudeau cynical look now…

Expect some feedback on the use of “counsel” and “council.”

To be fair to BD,he kind of stands in for us readers on this one.

Time to put the ol’ brain box back on B.D.

The CCs are better funded than any of the state universities and, whoever said “no TA’s” was right. It’s the best place to go right out of HS if you don’t know exactly what you want to major in. Save your money, and spend your last 2 years getting good grades in a university that has a good program in your major. I know, I have taught at both.

I would argue that the responsibioity for choosing a post-hight school continuation of education needs to be a joint activity of parent and student.Find out what the policy is of the state university: is it one of accepting transfers from 2 year community colleges and coordinating courses? Then ask yourselves what the student needs: if he/she is self-motivtated and academically gifted, entering university as a freshman may be the best choice but if the student is on some level young for his/her age, enrollment in a linked community college for the first 2 years may give him’her more direct interatction with the instructors, who are more adapted to teaching than the Teaching Assistant at the university andd at attending to the individual student. If he/she is academically gifted and socially adept, he/she may gain more from the community ethic and academic demands of a university than from the less academic environment of a community college.There is no single good advice for the student on graduating from high school. For some, a year out of the higher-education track altogether may provide time for physical-intellectual maturation and be preferable to continuation into community college, trade school or university . Higher education in America is still more adaptable to the new graduate than in other parts of the world. The carpenter today may be the physicist of tomorrow and the Phi Beta Kappa, the farmer by personal choice. Enjoy the freedom. Know yourself or know your child and do your research. Call upon the high school teachers, who know your child, and university counselors, who know the demands of the college or university. One size doesn’t fit all. What’s the best for that young person?

What’s wrong with Walden?