SPSCC Review

This school is going through a Corporate type of re-structuring as of my enrollment 2016. The problem with corporatizing education is information is not distributed freely, but given on an as needed basis confuses faculty, students, advisors, financial aid and the administration. I did not like how we the students got so much conflicting information. The college hierarchy, which is the board and the VP s set this up. There are some really good, dedicated teachers and they will prepare you for the University environment as far as study, course assignments and homework in spite of what they think about their leaders. That s the only good thing I can say about the college. I had one BAD teacher but she's gone now, so stick up for yourself and say something if you get a bad one.

For older students contact instructors prior to taking classes since the best advise comes from them and please have some computer skills because, Canvas, the schools operating system for grading, communication with your teachers and keeping up with assignments has a lot of flaws. The schools failure to communicate within departments causes the confusion within financial aid, advising, faculty, students and the administration. I give the school a low rating because the school functions like a CORPORATION, instead of an institution of learning.

Education may give us the knowledge needed to get a corporate job. But if one gets the corporate politics before having a sound education this can be detrimental. We have enough emotional and mental health issues in the world already SPSCC.

I love this school it is the best school ever I studied there for three quarters

I give this place 2 stars because there are some actually good teachers here otherwise it would 1 star. There are some teachers here that ruin the experience due to their pettiness. You try to explain to them your situation and they ignore you and do nothing to help you. Then when you bring it up to the dean of their department, they also do nothing to help you.

Great school. I see a lot of complaints about financial aid, but financial aid is a pain to deal with anywhere, so ignore that. I loved jist about every professor i had. The majority of them had doctorates even though that isn't a requirement for a community college. The campus is beautiful. I learned a lot here. Most of the professors i had were extremely helpful and always willing to have a nice chat about their field. I miss this school.

Some great teachers- plenty of not so great teachers.
Impossible to contact people, and staff will just keep referring you to someone else who refer you to some else and so on.

Limited facilities, administration will run you in circles, there is not enough parking (sometimes I just have to skip class because there are no spaces on the entire campus), some instructors are incredibly lazy, much more of the 'teacher' than 'professor' vibe in general. I have yet to have a course that I felt was worth the money.

The tuition at this school is way too high for what you get. Don't go here.

Financial aid office is a joke, been going for 4 years and never received any aid from them. I am also told if more funds become available they will let me know (word to the wise funds will not become available). Fill out all the paperwork and enroll in worker retraining and yup nothing.
Parking lot is way to small for the amount of students enrolled in classes. The school just keeps accepting more and more students but doing nothing on the parking situation.
A lot of the faculty and school in general is very liberal. Being a stright, conservative, white, male I am looked at like I'm the devil. If you do not play the teachers game your grades will show it. Get marked down because of their beliefs. Do a report on guns and 2nd amendment and your teachers head will explode.
The DEC likes to say they are "a place for everyone" which it should be "a place for everyone unless you are a straight, conservative, white, male then GTFO".
The security think they are police officers. I can not speak for everyone but old guy with a white beard has a power trip mentality. The lines for the parking stalls are so raided and chipped that in the morning you can not see them at all and this guy is just waiting for you to walk away from your vehicle to write you a ticket. With the extreme lack of parking you get forced to look for parking in their "car pool only" area. This guy will pull up all high and mighty and yell at you for parking in the car pool area.
The staff up the hill in the welding and automotive department are great. The atmosphere is 100% different up their. The students legitimately hate to have to go down the hill into any part of the school.
The math and writing centers were very helpful I definitely was a big fan on the one on one assistance they offer.
All in all I'm glad I received my two 2 year degrees and now get to go out into the work force where I'm not asked my sexual orientation, my gender identity, or how I identify feminine or masculine on a job application. Every quarter you have to bow down to their demographics and answer all those questions like any of it matters when you are enrolling in a math class.

One star because the education is great but all adminstration interactions I have had have been absolutely terrible. Advisors are unreliable and unprofessional, the professors do their jobs significantly better. Financial aid has always been also unreliable and I have had to fix their problems every quarter I attended. I stopped by One Stop last quarter because of confusion and the guy that helped me was extremely condescending and rude. The professors are great, but almost not worth having to deal with the adminstration.

I have had to go through so much fuss to schedule classes. Almost to the point that it's not worth it. Over E-mail, they are not timely at all, and over phone it's even worse. Only way to get something done is to go in person.

Some departments at SPSCC are great, and some need improvement. Good location off the 101.

The library is an excellent place to find some quiet time to study.

Nice campus lots of nature spread out but not bad for a walk or jog location.

I'm in college algebra. It seems like none of the tutors know what they're doing, and the ones that do have favorite people that they like to tutor and will ignore me for over an hour at a time. When I finally do get help they never actually listen to my questions they see a problem and their ears turn off.

First course. Taking music THEORY and joined the chorus too! Wonderful fun.

Great school! They offer a vast array of courses in all fields of study. I found their foreign language courses in Japanese very helpful!

Terrible college. I went here in 2011 and I hated it. Teachers push, push, and push. They give you no time to study the material. When you work 40 hours a week and have 3 classes, they need to not overload you so much that you can't process what needs learned.

My wife began college here Fall 2015. We took out a student loan at the beginning of the quarter. We checked the portal every day for over a month. She went in to find out what was wrong, and no one could give her a straight answer. She called, she went in and after a dozen times she finally found out that the person in charge of loans had a family emergency and couldn't do her job. So then she was told they would be worked on and processed that week. Well, we had to wait over a month from that point to get our funds.

They didn't give us our full amount, so we took out another loan for Winter only. It was a smaller amount and we turned in the paperwork at the beginning of January 2016. We still have nothing and it's the end of February. You talk to 15 different staff members, you get 15 different answers. And the work study students are ignorant and don't know anything at all. They are of no help. You ask them something, even basic, and they tell you to check back tomorrow or something.

My wife had a course that one of her assignments had her meet the professor in person, and it was an online course! Hello, online means no face to face.

Did I mention they try to cram as much cirriculum as possible down your throat? Teachers need to realize students have other responsibilities. This is an issue that many people from this college have mentioned, so I'm not alone in this.

It's a shame this is the only junior college in town. I would avoid this place. Driving half an hour to TCC or Centralia College is a much better option.

I'm about to start my 3rd quarter, and so far it's been a great experience. Teachers are helpful, as well as all the help offered in the writing center and math lab. My advisor has been wonderful so far, helping me set up a academic plan to follow so I don't waste my time. My financial aid advisor is also pretty prompt, as long as you take into account that you're not the only student and that emails take time to address. Though everytime I've had an issue I've just scheduled a meeting with either advisor.(no wait time that way) The Olympia campus is beautiful, and they have a bunch of events to take part in. Overall I have had a great experience, I feel like you get out what you put in. :)

I loved it here. Great professors. Beautiful campus. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Financial aid office is unethical, manipulating, and not objective. I was a homeless college student my sophomore year here, and I went for them for help. They thought I was lying, misled me, and they were not responsive. Most people here are middle class and live with their parents, or running start. I was on my own and didn't know what I was doing. Through trail and error I finally got a handle of it but by then I was already transferring to an university and it was too late to get any grants or loans, which would of made my life a lot easier. I was still a kid then, and I believe colleges should do more to help people in situations like this. All young people have a lot of potential for learning and growth, but they lack wisdom. Help younger social economnomily disadvantage students find there way, they already have the deck significantly stacked against them.

I have not taken any classes yet however if the financial aid department is any indication of the way they conduct business or teach classes it will be a long two years. Best advice to give is not to listen to financial aid, gather every document you have and turn it in. Otherwise you will be jumping through hoops trying to get financial aid

Great school but advisors are not on top on replying or helping new students I m soon being a new student and my advisor never reply to me when I don t know the public college system and I m a private college student and giving a public college a try. That s so far my review and experience one stop is on point to help you with everything it makes your first impression why need an advisor if one stop respond quicker? During NSAR non of the advisors never helped me and had to figure it out on my own like why did I have to show up something that was useless information or understanding the system? I just mainly have an issue over the advisors. Mostly when you try to put a matter and they try to make you the victim about. Mostly financial aid, it s financial aid it s no brainer. If all documents not there just say not make a sob story about it and make me like I m the trouble. Really thinking to go back to private college cause they do treat you like that.

This place greatly prepared me for WSU. I did running start here and graduated in 2010. I couldn't agree more with another user's comment about the foreign language department. If you have the chance to take Japanese or ASL here, DO IT! The teachers are amazing. A lot of my friends complained about nightmare English teachers but Asman and Schneider were wonderful teachers with assignments that prepared me to be an English major at WSU. Honestly, they are part of the reason I decided to be an English Teacher when my Choir Teacher dream was falling apart.

SPSCC is a great campus, but the parking is awful and asking questions to One Stop is a hit or miss. The professors make up for it though, they are good and care deeply about educating and helping their students. I find myself often going to my professors for help and advice more than anyone else. 4 out of 5.

Its terrible. Staff and students are all super liberally minded. They're are a few wonderful staff and the campus is beautiful and well maintained but overall It makes sense why they have one of the highest drop out rates in the state. It's so hard to get help on anything. They make every step of the process so difficult from enrollment, to paying, to getting books, to being inside the classroom, every single aspect presents a new challenge with no direction or support from staff. As a student you're set up to fail.

I'm 44 and have made the decision to get my HS diploma and at least my AA in business . From the second the answers the telephone they have made me feel very comfortable. The Organization was great they give so many options for students of all ages to finish their education . They have 3 different camps locations in Thurston County alone . Westside Olympia Lacey & Yelm

I graduated from here in 2008 and loved it. No you're not going to like every teacher you meet - that's just the way it goes. However every teacher I had seemed to care about the subject they were teaching and making a difference in our academic lives. The staff here are super helpful as well if you have any questions. I like many struggled with math and was able to get help at the math center every time I needed it. This is a really good community college and I would recommend it a 100%.

I had high hopes for the concept of running start because the faculty deceived me into thinking that it was an upgrade from high school, when in reality it regressed my education by about five years. The only way to survive any of the humanities or english courses is to nod your head politely in response to whatever wholly partisan political dogmas that the professor decides to shoehorn into class for the day. If you grew up believing that honesty and hard work lead to success then I am sorry for you because this school seems to treat the concept of sincerity like they treat white people: something to loathe and spit at on campus grounds.
By merely showing up to class I was above what had been expected of me and my peers. Rather than teach relevant information to the course, my professors would plug the non-peer reviewed writings of their friends and colleagues rather than anything with a motecome of reliability. The fact that anyone gave this institution a positive rating means that they've either never been there or have successfully entered into something that for all intents and purposes resembles a cult, and a shallow, lazy cult at that.

My classes are very enjoyable and structured, my professors are caring and will adapt to your situation. The administration is horrific the One Stop Help is worse than Comcast and Microsoft customer service combined. They keep giving me the run around and keep redirecting me instead of actually helping me. They kept asking for paperwork I had already submitted, they were agressively denying that I did so. I asked them to check my file, they found it all. That was 3 weeks of waiting well spent. In week 7 of the quarter and I still have none of the financial aid I was depending on.

Financial aid office and advisors are not helpful and will pocket your money. I've emailed and called many times to get an indirect answer. They tell me to pay a fee and if I ask for what they explain how to pay it. They always say I can go to the one stop shop for questions but I have a full time job, sorry I can't.
This school will not go out of their way to help anyone.

You better know your way around the paperwork otherwise you'll be paying them their bonuses

Very disorganised, and not good customer service at all !

I went and voted for the first time in my life at the drive-up voting ballot they have set up super easy there wasn't anyone in line so I recommend going there and doing that

Their advising department leaves MUCH to be desired. They really need to take a look at other colleges' models on providing what is a pretty crucial service for students in navigating the whole college experience.

I'm starting my second year of college here. Financial aid is a joke but the staff is really helpful. I loved all my professors so far and although they do give out a lot of work, the assignments tend to be easy. For example, I had an 20 page paper to write, my professor gave us two weeks to do it. I had trouble and she helped me work out blocks of time so I could write my paper. The student body itself is open and welcoming. There are plenty of activities to do and great people to meet.

Parking is not so good but i guess thats everywhere. Beautiful new science building. However I do not feel that the staff that works there in the offices don t really cares much about their students success. I had a question about my transcripts and the lady that was supposed to help didn t even let me explain my situation. She just didn t let me talk!

Awful school, terrible professors, went there for 5 semesters, glad I left. I'm going to a real college. Don't go to this school for the entire two years, maybe go there to start one semester if you'd like to get a feel of college but don't expect much of an education, just credits. Be careful of someone name McCatty. She's a psychology major. She's not too bright, still teaches old things that aren't relevant anymore or are completely not true.