(Continuation - SEE FILTER) IMO the honors program is really only useful if you want to go to UCLA, UCB, or Ivy League as a liberal arts major. Cabrillo has TAGs w/ other UCs. If this is not you, put your efforts elsewhere. CSUs not in your county require a high GPA now. Eg. SDSU ~ 3.5. For those who plan on only being at Cabrillo, I would only recommend the allied health programs, or culinary arts if that's your thing. There are bachelor's degree graduates for all of the other areas. If you want to start a business that requires education, for example a program, then the computer sciences courses at Cabrillo should be enough. You don't need a 4 year school. The allied health programs have pre-req courses you need to complete prior to even applying to one of the programs. The courses are difficult to get into because so many people are trying to get into those programs. The courses themselves are also tough like statistics and physiology, etc. What is even harder is getting on the waitlist which is probably more than 3 years right now. There are many people applying with good grades and volunteer or work experiance in the medical field. To be competitive you need to be the same. Don't be surprised if you need to again re-evaluate your life because you don't do well on a pre-req courses (tons of people do bad), or don't get on the list (even more people don't get on the list). Tip - you can apply to other community college programs, and sign up for courses at other community colleges while at Cabrillo (online ones too). I would say Cabrillo is a terrible choice for just getting an associates degree. Might as well not even go unless you are confident of getting on a waitlist. You pretty much need straight A's and tons of hours at a hospital to get on the nursing list, DO NOT count on it. Sad, but true. Tough world. 3.5/5...... If you are a transfer student Cabrillo will offer you what you need. YOU MUST PUT IN THE WORK YOURSELF, NO ONE WILL DO IT FOR YOU OR EVEN TELL YOU ABOUT IT. IF YOU ARE NOT A TRANSFER STUDENT CABRILLO = 1/5. There are several WAY better CCC's with 2 year programs out there that Cabrillo doesn't offer, and this is probably its WEAKEST point. It is the whole point of a community college. Terrible, horrid job. Fired, fired, fired. Life is like a movie at the theatre. There is a definite beginning and a definite end. You can't pause or fast forward, the movie will go on regardless of what you do. It is up to you to decide whether you want to be the bum in the movie who comes out for 10 seconds, or one of the main characters who triumphs. You decide here at Cabrillo. Don't mess up. If you slip, lower your expecations for life. Sad, but true. Tough world. About me: I graduated from high school during the recession. My parents weren't educated or wealthy. I was not a good student, I never really knew what to do. I started in remedial classes at Cabrillo, the low end ones like english 100, and was very challenged. School only got harder every semester, and those first classes that I thought I couldn't pass and were making me doubt continuing school seemed easy compared to the ones that followed. I was shy and I was unmotivated because I didn't think I'd ever make it in the tough economy. When I was at my peak of despair, set on giving up and joining the armed forces, I went to a large reputable businesses and asked how I could move my way up there, I was pitied. I couldn't. This person told me what everyone should hear as soon as they can hear it: what ANYONE has to do to make it. As a last chance approach, I began to try to accomplish those things. I gave up everything I used to do and remade myself into the ideal student. It was not easy or fast. I didn't know what to study for a good while (BAD). All I ever thought about was school. After I was able to do that, I looked for more responsibility. I was in the honors program for a while, had a job for a while, I was in some clubs for a while. I found out what types of activities were better than the ones I was doing when I wasn't selected for certain things. I evaluated myself more and became a better writer, not gramatically or in articulation, but in telling a story. I then recieved scholarships and I was accepted into high tier schools. As my time at Cabrillo is coming to an end, I am sad to go. I didn't realize how joyful the experiance was until the end. I would do it all over again if I could. A lot of people love it so much that they don't leave. They transfer when they are in their 30s. Employers want experianced/skilled employees, and at the same time they want them to be young so that they can grow with the company & be in a managing role in the future. I'll leave it at that. Good luck, you'll need it. Apply yourself. Life is short. YOLO. P. S. Please share this message with anyone you know at Cabrillo, especially faculty/ADMIN. People's lives are being RUINED by inadequate use of resources. GTFO! read more

(Continuation) This brings me to my next point, Cabrillo has cut a lot of classes and there are tons of students trying to add even when the waitlist is full. In the past students have claimed that they would register some time after their getting their assigned registration time, but now you need to have everything ready to clik enter right at the moment your assigned time is. You will see mismanagement of funds and thus is why administration needs to be replaced as well. Firstly, 9/10 students don't even know the name of the president of the college, let alone anyone else in management. So, there are tons of students trying to get into classes so they could at least apply for one of the allied health majors, which are pretty much the only employable majors at Cabrillo, yet they built several buildings for music and art, and a green technology center in Watsonville. On this matter, the majority of students in the art classes are going to end up asking for people to buy their paintings in downtown SC and are there just to say they went to college or they want to express themselves or whatever. The green technology center also makes no sense. It's supposed to be for construction and energy management, but a construction and energy management program already existed at Cabrillo prior to its development. Someday construction will bounce back in SCC? There are 15,000+ students registered in the system. It is pretty lively during peak hours, 11-2, and pretty dead outside of those hours. The computers in the library are always being used, so you have to walk across campus to the computer lab in the arts area to use a computer. Hmm.... There are only a number of clubs on campus and they aren't very good. The people in student senate don't do any change they claim to, I don't even know if they really can. Kind of like real politics. AGS doesn't do anything special either, you can attend beach cleanups and donate cookies and say you are a AGS member or whatever. The honors society thing is also terrible, pretty much a resume filler if you need it. MESA is the only real club that deserves credit. It is also largely on the part of the students to create clubs and make things happen, that being said, that is the type of students at Cabrillo. This matters because employers want to see your "leadership experiance," aka you are treasurer or something. Because there are only a number of clubs, you would expect some sort of competition, but you will find positions just created to let people into "leadership" roles. Doing these activities will get you into a good school if you pair it with a high GPA. It won't really help you for a internship or a professional job, however. If you really want something notable on a resume, volunteer at a real nonprofit and do entreprenuerial activities such as securing new suppliers for a food bank or marketing a low income program. These activities take real and unique initiative and have quantifiable results. For students who need to work instead of volunteering (by the way, you pretty nuch need to be doing one or the other unless you are an engineering or science student, if you don't employers and tier schools will see you as uncompetitive) Cabrillo has NO JOB FAIR. It used to have one, and apparently there aren't enough funds for this important event. There is a job listing exclusive to Cabrillo students that almost no one knows about. Nice publicity. It's mostly for minimum wage part time work near the College. You will find some full time, degree required postings occasionally. If you are a student with a high GPA and have done distinguishing volunteer or extracurricular work, you probably could make more money applying to scholarships than working and being a full time student. Also, distinguishing volunteer work is more impressive to an employer than the usual "provided excellent customer service" jobs that 90% of students have. While being a full time student and being a part time employee is impressive, it is not uncommon. Thus, if you don't need to work, I recommend impressive volunteer/extracurricular activity instead. If the job is related to your intended career, then working is better. Working full time and being a full time student is regarded as very impressive. If you have a good GPA I don't hear of these people not getting interviews. So sounds like a lot of bad. But still a 3.5-4/5. Cabrillo will provide you with everything you need to transfer to a tier school and land an internship followed by a job offer before graduation. It will also allow you to have a low to medium to high salary if you can get into one of the allied health programs, and depending on which you get into. The other majors, including the ever popular firefighting tech., are also pretty much unhelpful. MPC is better for this and they can't get jobs as firefighters either. Pray you can get a EMT job and one day be a paramedic. read more

It would have greatly helped me if someone told me these things when I was entering Cabrillo: Like many things in life, Cabrillo is what you make of it. You will find people coming here and spending a couple of years getting a useless associates degree that makes them just about as employable as when they came in, and you will find honors students tranfering to top tier schools. You will see people having a mid life crisis hence they are back in school to learn a skill fast to feed their family. You will find people taking entrepreneurship classes because they are going to start a business. Where you end up is all going to depend on how well you prepared coming in and how much effort you put in while you are attending. It is diverse at Cabrillo in the sense that there is a spread of intelligence, age, income, but not really ethnicity. Walking around you will see 40% white, 40% hispanic, 5% asian, 5% black, 10% other. It is an accurate representation of the communities being served. There are a number of very intelligent students in the honors transfer program, engineering, and science, but the vast majority of the school is on the low end, causing many students to think they are on par with others when they go to a university. Students transferring out of Cabrillo see a huge spike of quality in students at a university. You will also see people in their 30s, 40s +, especially at night classes. Most of the students are low income or low middle class, hence the reason they are at a CCC, however there, for some reason, are a couple of rich kids in the mix too. There is a belief that going to Cabrillo is going to be way easier than attending a univeristy right out of high school. This is true for any major besides engineering, science, and math. Depending on who your instructor is, most of the liberal arts type classes and business clases are a joke compared to what their equivalents would be at a higher end school. The exception is the honors version of GE courses which are not an easy A. If you came from a high school that didn't prepare you well, or if you didn't prepare yourself well, you will find even the "easy" classes pretty difficult and will have to begin with remedial classes in english and math. The level of difficulty is notably higher than high school and you will see people give up on trying to transfer and settle for an associates degree. After time, you will realize that there are much harder classes than those first ones. Lets see, where to start. The counselors here are terrible and should all be fired because 1. they are bad at their job 2. they know nothing outside of the major they studied, 3. they tell you to go to X UC school and get whatever major doesn't matter because that is what they did back in their day and they ended up as counselors, 4. their services are not needed, and 5. it would save the school money that is needed elsewhere. Anything that a counselor tells you could be found on Cabrillo's website, assist.org for public schools or the website for a private school for transfer information, and google searching for anything else. There's even a test or a class that they refer you to if you don't know what to study. They even complain when you make them do any work. A fine example of government funded jobs. One reason Cabrillo is 3.5/5. Next, at least half of the "instructors" should be replaced because 1. they are bad at teaching, 2. they are lazy and don't care about the quality of their instruction since they have tenure, 3. they don't care about students success and that they are affecting their ability to have a decent life, 4. some of them are paid too much, 5. it seems like Cabrillo doesn't hire anyone that isn't super liberal, thus creating a homogenous perspective for the student that is broken when they venture out of the area. You are encouraged by them to be an activist and avoid private industry as a career, pretty much destroying your future for their agenda because they are from the 60s-70s and think you will still be fine if you don't prepare yourself for what employers want as soon as possible. Many give off the aura of having a laid back attitude and lettings things figure themselves out. Not true of all instructors of course, but it is for several. I've also heard of these students being rude to veterans attending Cabrillo. Refer to ratemyprofessors.com for student's rankings of instructors at Cabrillo or any school. If you are a new student at Cabrillo, good luck getting into any classes with the popular teachers. Even after semesters of being in the school full time you still can't get into some of those classes. read more

(Continuation) So.... if you want those years of life, effort, blood, sweat, tears, and money to be worthwhile.... here is what you need to do: If you plan on transfering, you should always be a full time student because even at that rate it may take you 3 years to get all the courses you need to transfer, especially as an engineer/science major. Students do it in 2 years by taking at least 4-5 classes per semester, and summer courses if needed. 3 years if you need to take some remedial classes, if you drop a class that is a sequence class, if you fail a class, if you want to take things easier, etc. It shouldn't take you 4 years to trasnfer unless you are a part time student or messed up in a combination of things (unable to get class, fail class). School selection matters A LOT. There's the fair share of people who under-rate this. If you are a liberal arts or business major, you NEED to aim for a high tier school. These schools with connections that will get you internships, jobs, and a good network for switching jobs. They include UCB, UCLA, UCD, UCSD, SCU, USC, USD and Cal Poly. The other UC's are mid tier along with USF, SJSU, SFSU, CSUN, SDSU, Sac. Other csus are at the lower end. Pick your school depending on the area you want a career in. You will regret settling for a low tier school. If all you can get into is mid-tier, expect to work harder for an internship/job. If you are an engineering major, you should be fine at any UC school or SJSU/SFSU. There are many jobs for engineering majors in the bay area (THERE ARE NOT MANY OUTSIDE), however there are also tons of engineering graduates and skilled foreigners to compete for those jobs. Outside of the bay area its mostly municipalities and construction companies. Thus, engineers at better schools with a higher end resume will have a much easier time finding employment. As an engineering major it could still take you up to a year to find a professional job. It will take less if you look in fields outside of engineering like business analysis or technical sales. If you are a computer science/computer engineering major you don't need to worry about anything, including school, gpa, or extra activities IF you want to work in the bay area. Other sciences are mostly for research at hospitals and such. They are difficult to get into, and require post graduate education. I have not heard of science is a big employer in Cali. When it is, its for drugs (pharmacist) or health (cancer etc.). Don't go to a school outside of California unless you want to live there. While you are at Cabrillo, make friends with as many people as you can. Never burn bridges. They can possibly help you later in life. Talk to the person no one talks to and you will be remembered for years. If you are limited on time, select wisely and don't let it conflict with your grades or other responsibilities. If you are shy you NEED to get out of your comfort zone, even if it means re-branding yourself. Nothing will come to you and no one is going to hold your hand. These people will matter once you graduate, don't underestimate it or postpone it. Build a relationship with as many instructors as you can. Show them you are a good student and have them write you letters of recommendations. You are going to need these for sure for schools, internships, and scholarships. Ask them what it takes to be succesful. Your interest will grant you special opportunities that they only give to their best students. These include summer prorgams or jobs. They will give you a higher grade if they know you. Do not settle for a high B or high C. Constantly nag them about it until they give you the bump. Cry if you need to. You need a high GPA to transfer, to find employment easier, and because it will get slaughtered at the university. You need to be doing something outside of school if you want a job or to go to a good school...... period. You shouldn't be sleeping more than 4-6 hours a day. You should be doing nothing besides school and your extra activity/activities that will help you transfer or be employed. Never waste a summer, it is better to be in a summer program related to your major ASAP. Instructors are great for this. If you can't, then work. Don't take a class unless you need to. If you do nothing, you have failed and are way behind everyone. At least volunteer somewhere. You will probably need to volunteer at a nonprofit after you graduate and then apply for jobs once you have experiance there. Good luck paying your loans. Don't be suprised if there is competition to work for free either. read more

If you want to know what a police mentality ran college looks like, look no further. Their system exactly mimics the abuse that occurs before and after a police officer abuses their power. They protect their own at all costs and refuse to do an objective review. They have staff in place that have tried to remove the power from students(personal experience here) for years ongoing and they are a close knit fraternity that protect their own. Just spent over a thousand dollars on python tutoring this semester since all teachers and tutors at Cabrillo are extremely impatient and have limited availability. Every time I went to tutoring for python, they sent someone over who was far behind me(and I'm a first semester programmer). I loved the teacher's structure even though he has zero talent for teaching and recommended his class to many friends. I asked the teacher multiple times during the semester: "who can you recommend in tutoring to help with python, since every time I go there, nobody can help?" His first repsonse was "anyone can help." Every time I asked again after that, I was ignored. I also asked tutoring centers repeatedly, "who is at least intermediate at python here?" I was never given an answer after several attempts early on in the semester. I finally gave up and started paying private tutors. Unfortunately, another abusive scenario has unfolded where the teacher gave me a zero on the final claiming I used chatgpt LOL!!!! First off, I've never even tried to use chatgpt for coding. Secondly, there is no method that exists to prove someone used chatgpt for coding. Here is a quote from openai, the chatgpt company: "Each document is labeled as either very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely AI-generated." Ummm, where is the part where it can confirm beyond a doubt that code is written by ai??? I wrote some code up off my head and checked it with multiple "ai checkers." Each checker gave me a widely different response from 20% likelyhood to 90% likely-hood, USING THE SAME EXACT LINE OF CODE. Watch a video on youtube called "what happens when you try to file a complaint against the police." This will show you EXACTLY how staff at cabrillo abuse their power and don't properly follow up with complaints of teacher abuse and staff misbehavior. Oh, btw I just graduated from their corrupt system with a 3.9, yeeah for me, despite all the BS I've endured. read more

I have been a student (off and on) at Cabrillo College since 2008 (I have 80 completed units, only 60 are required) I am personally enrolled in the Computer Networking and Systems Administration program and have taken nearly all of the classes Cabrillo has to offer therein. I can not speak highly enough about the CIS/CNSA teachers, they are some of the best, most knowledgeable, most committed people I've ever had the privilege of studying under. My experience has been the same in the Communications, Anthropology, Music, Art, Kinesiology, Astronomy and History departments. I hope that the people on here giving Cabrillo a 1/5 commenting on the quality of the cafeteria get the reality check they need when they finally make it out into the real world. A School is not to be judged based on the quality of it's food. That is simply absurd. Especially since there is a wonderful restaurant on campus run by the culinary program (The Sesnon House) and there are literally a dozen awesome food joints within a 5 minute walk or a 30 second drive. (Zameens, Taqueria Los Gordos, AJ's Market and Deli, Sushi on the Run, there is also a Safeway about half a mile from the school.) The bottom line. You will not get a better education opportunity anywhere else in the state. (I've lived up and down from Yreka to San Diego, all over the SF Bay and Monterey Bay, Sacramento Valley, been to several high schools and community colleges and spent my childhood on UCSC Campus. There simply isn't anywhere else that offers the same level of commitment and service to students) read more

Please do attend this school, and when you do please escalate complaints bout bad teachers. All the student Deans like Michelle Donahue care nothing about their student's complaints and will bury it all under the rug. They have many staff members who are extremely immature and refuse to help by making themselves available during office hours. Then after you don't get the help you need, they will maliciously give you a low score (like 10%). They won't accept responsibility for not helping you and will insult you instead. Most of them obviously have had very pampered backgrounds and no desire to help but only to power trip and NOT do their job. One way to go past the Deans who only protect staff, is to go to the REPORT IT section of their site. https://www.cabrillo.edu/ Let's get people like Michelle Donahue and other staff members who don't serve the students OUT OF HERE! read more

This college is a micro representation of everything that is wrong with our country. Our leaders and representatives believe themselves to be ABOVE we the people and we the students. This type of corruption MUST be addressed. They abuse students by making them think they have no power. They will not side with students no matter how abusive or negligent a teacher or staff member is. F YOU COMPLAIN, THEY WILL SUPPRESS IT AND DO NOTHING. I highly suggest you attend this school and let your voice be heard. All too often I hear complaints from students but they are too selfish and too weak to make a complaint. WE THE PEOPLE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WE HAVE THE POWER - WE MUST REMOVE REPRESENTATIVES WHO WISH TO SUPPRESS US AND FOOL US INTO GIVING UP OUR POWER, IN ORDER TO MAKE CHANGE FOR THE BETTER! read more

I've been a college prof for many years and have seen a few good colleges and a lot of bad ones. Cabrillo is definitely in that latter category. The students tend to be lazy and rude (the Santa Cruz influence?) and the instructors, with their extremely narrow compass, are some of the most incompetent "professionals" I've ever encountered. If you are a good, serious student and want a solid education, don't go there. And if you're a good, serious academic, looking for a teaching position, avoid Cabrillo at all costs. It's pure poison. read more

The Deans will suppress all complaints regarding BAD staff and teachers. They are 1000% committed to serving and protecting themselves and ONLY themselves and their careers. They have ZERO desire to weed out or reprimand ANY of their staff NO MATTER WHAT. They will ask you to go to another school if you don't like it. This school is ran by evil selfish pampered spoiled brats who LOVE to power trip. read more

I love this college! I have been attending here for several years on a very part time basis. I have never had a bad teacher here. The layout of the school is easy to maneuver. Class selection is ample. A nice benefit also is to be able to head to the beach once class is over. It does not get any better than that! read more

Have you ever pulled your pants down and ran backwards through a corn field? Every time I do it reminds me of Cabrillo. On the other hand a lot of people go there and some of them are alright. read more