As a psychology student (substance abuse use disorder counseling), this was the school for me. This campus is beautiful, financial aid advisors are amazing along with instructors and counselors being helpful on your academic journey. With 7 semesters to go before transferring to UC for my masters, I'm happy I chose Columbia to start my dreams in my higher education goals. Go Claim Jumpers! read more

I decided to apply in 2021 and got my Associates in 2024. All of the professors are amazing and want you to succeed. Their counselors are hands on and help you plan your degree path step-by-step as well as finding educators that cater to your learning style. This school is affordable and offer grants to help you succeed because those books can be so expensive. Not to mention the campus is so beautiful and is well taken care of. read more

Instructors are cool, outside of that it's been nothing but frustration. The website is all one horrific puzzle which nobody seems to actually know how to navigate. 3 out of the 4 classes the counselor set up for me I ended up dropping. I'm doing my best to stick with it since the funding is already there, but I would definitely bail all together if it wasn't already approved. If it's an education you seek, seek it somewhere else is all I can say. read more

Here is where new knowledge can and will improve not only your current station in life but future connections. And, educators are human, you will find benefit helping them ease over the fear of public speaking by sharing funny jokes as ice breakers. They must be funny and not off-color. But I digress. How much will it be to attend say a bread making class you ask? 43 bucks. A good deal. In closing, here is a funny joke for your classmates: Cletus wasn't having much luck with the ladies. He asked Sam, the life guard, how he became this chick magnet: place a russet in your speedos Clet Said Sam. Cletus drew a crowd the next day. When Sam saw Cletus he pulled him aside and whispered: were the potato in FRONT! read more

Professor Ted Hamilton (history, political science, geography) and Dr. Paula Clarke (anthropology) make going to this school worth EVERYTHING. They are truly inspiring and life-transforming. I would venture to call Columbia College THE most beautiful community college in California. Located in the Yosemite Community College District, attending a class here feels like going on a hike in a regional or national park. I can understand that the remote rural location (the nearest small town: Sonora) and the lack of diversity might be a problem for some; it was a problem for me back then... San Francisco is 3 hours away! SF = hippies, diversity, progressive liberals, urban and fun. Here = pick-up trucks, bikers and trailers. However, in here, you wake up among pines, aspens, redwoods, sequoias... you walk around that incredibly beautiful lake every single day. Air is fresh and hiking trails are all around. You just don't get this in a city. I'm still glad that I made the choice of spending 1.5 years of my youth in this beautiful school! read more

I am writing this in response to the one star negative review. To that reviewer: before you lambast an entire institution over the limited personal experiences of your own children (whom I'm sure you are quite fond and trusting of), you should consider how lucky we are in this State to have access to the World's largest higher education system. In many other areas of the world, people are not able to boast that there is usually an institution of higher learning within driving distance. The California Community College system can provide an opportunity to learn, but it cannot rid your mind of what seems to be a prevailing perspective that is based on what, in this review at least, amounts to a whirlwind of banal complaints and negativity. Come on. Goose fumes? I think that's a local craft beer perhaps, but it certainly isn't the odor of Columbia College. I, too, was quite "different" when I attended the campus (I am not from the area, and the foothills certainly do host their own unique blend of people--all decent and fine people in most of my experiences). Still, I made friends and never felt wrongly judged or mistreated by any staff or faculty. I actually found your review to be more of an unnecessarily long rant from a parent that is probably wrestling with the fact that, for whatever reason, College might not be what your kids want for themselves right now. Because (and I can truly say this from experience--I was a high school drop-out before coming to Columbia) if you want an education, you will EARN one. And no one ever earned anything riding the sort of wave of pure detraction that your entire review is surfing on. You mention a few professors that are decent, but attribute most of the teaching being done at the campus to the lab assistants. That is a blatant misperception that seems to have been formed based solely, again, on only the experiences of your children. (I truly do hope that their current adverse perception of College is a result of some catastrophic string of events that only happened to them and that they move on to find a much happier experience elsewhere.) For me, and I will limit this to my own experience, Columbia College was the place that I really began my true adult education. I still think about my time there and the lessons learned (both life lessons and academic lessons), and not a day goes by that I do not feel extremely fortunate to have had the pleasure of learning from the many talented and wonderful faculty members who call the place home. Who knows, maybe I'm just immune to Goose fumes and just happened to be "bait-and-switched" into all the right professors classrooms, but I highly doubt it. When I went to Columbia, I was ready to learn; and when a student is truly ready to learn, not a thing can stop them. However, I wouldn't attribute my positive experience entirely to myself--though I was and had to be the largest stakeholder in my own education--rather, I'd say that Columbia College, like all of our Community Colleges, is a place that is thriving with opportunities for learning and growth; one just has to be truly ready to accept and work hard for them. Professors that helped me along my way: Professor Paula Clarke, Anthropology Professor Jim Toner, English Professor Bill Wilson, Psychology (I took his Career/ Life Planning course) There were so many others, but that dream-team above taught me so well that I'm still learning from each of them even though I haven't seen them in years. So, that is my rebuttal to the negative one-star review left by another reviewer. Columbia College is a special place, and I am glad that I found it. read more

I am so disappointed in this school in all aspects. I was looking to start a new career and join the fire academy. I began the process in early December. Since school has started, I was informed that the first week one of classes was canceled. I never received an email with this information. I signed up for the same course with a new teacher. She was never given an authorization code which I found weird being that she was a professor and that she had to manually enter me in the class. with that being said I was waiting for financial aid to kick in. I spent the first two weeks broke, no financial aid, and no school books or materials. I finally got on top of admissions and financial aid. Admissions said my class was added and I was good to go. They couldn't have been anymore false. I am no longer seeing my class online. which means I was probably dropped yet again. The information desk always says they're new to this or refer me back to admissions and finial aid. I been going around in circles with these guys and they are unhelpful with providing anymore solutions. A complete fail in trying to get help on what was suppose to be the only free semester. So much for getting back to education. Guess ill just have to look for another job and figure something else out. Maybe look for another school that actually will get me in my classes that I need And keeps me informed. read more

To the person who denigrated Columbia College on the basis of an incredibly limited sample.. Full disclosure: When I retired, I taught beginning Business and beginning Marketing at two different community colleges in the SF Bay Area I told my students that we were operating under an implied contract. The instructor's side of this contract is to provide information in a cogent, hopefully meaningful way. Most instructors do. Of course, being a group of human beings, some are less effective at this task than others. The students' part of this implied contract is to remember the information long enough to recall it for testing purposes. That is actually the total of the routine implied contract. BUT..........There is a higher purpose. If the student actually wants to LEARN something, then s/he must be on time, pay attention, ask questions for clarification, and retain a positive attitude toward learning. The educational process is a bilateral protocol. If a student merely attends class physically, but is not providing his/her full attention to interacting in a positive way with the instructor and the other students, then real learning will suffer. If the instructor merely "phones it in" but is not genuinely excited about exposing people to new and interesting information, then real learning won't take place, either. Anyone who has gone to college has had instructors/professors who were incredibly interesting and wonderful knowledge resources. Also, sadly, we have all run into instructors/professors who were going through the motions. The university I attended put huge stock in publishing and obtaining Nobel prizes. Consequently, some of the professors didn't want to be teaching a class to undergraduates. However, even in the publish or perish environment, there were a great many wonderful professors. People who inspired their students. It is inappropriate to denigrate Columbia College on the basis of the experiences of a population of just your children. I'm sorry that your children didn't gain what they and you felt they needed from their time at Columbia College, but that doesn't represent the entire college. Especially at a community college, most instructors are there to help.....to teach......to inspire. It is not a publish or perish environment. Have you or your children been to other campuses, both at the community college level and the university level? The ecology of any large tract of land is diverse. Focusing on that aspect is pointless. The purpose of the college is social interaction and learning. Instead of duck poop, my college reeked of tear gas. It is about learning and transitioning into a functioning, positive adult. Instructors/professors at any college/university can give students any mark which they feel appropriate. It is not unique to this institution. At the university level, your children will experience a greater difference between the lectures and the sections. They will experience a greater difficulty getting lab time. Even back in the stone age when I was in college, our labs were impacted and our lower division courses were hugely crowded. It is a fact of educational life. One of the tremendous gifts that the community college system gives to students is help in the transition from the highly structured high school environment into the self-motivated environment of a major university. This transition is more difficult for some than for others. Did your kids seek help from counselors and other students? Were your kids part of the overall college social experience? I happened to be at Columbia College signing up for a geology course a couple of days ago and overheard two students helping each other with a homework assignment. They were non-judgmental and they each gained from the teamwork. Any organization is merely a collection of people, working together for a common goal. For Columbia College, that goal is education. It is up to the students within the institutional environment to glean as much as possible to help them maximize their potential throughout their lives. Go into the college environment with a positive outlook. Seek out instructors/professors, administrative people, and student peers for help and guidance. It's sad when any child is not able to realize his/her full potential. I'm sorry that your kids had such a negative reaction to the college. Perhaps it would be meaningful for them to chat with one of the college counselors to express their concerns and frustrations. Their concerns are real and important. I am confident that the counselors will do everything they can to help. read more

A beautiful location, good faculty and diverse programs make this school something special. The campus has a park-like setting and is only a few miles from downtown Sonora, with all its restaurants, bars and stores. What is also wonderful about this campus is the sheer lack of the typical "crowded campus" feeling. Columbia College is the type of school you choose, not someplace you simply "end up attending." read more

Heartbreaking. Do not send your children here if they really wish to learn! The teachers do not know how to teach the subjects they are supposed to be teaching. Those with tenure are the hardest to get good explanations from. (They know they can't be fired, and so they don't care, and even tell the students this.) The lab help does most of the teaching, and they have long waits to utilize them. (This means many students don't even get to use them.) The math teachers do not care if you understand what they are teaching; they go through a problem quickly, once, and if you do not get it, forget it. They will not help you. Even if the entire class is failing it, they will not go through the problem again. The math lab assistants are left to do all the teaching. (And good luck getting time with them!) There are a few good teachers there, a female in Psychology and one in fire and rescue, one of the English teachers, and I have heard positive things about their welding, childcare, baking. and auto repair classes. The computer tech classes are a joke, the teachers might be applicable technicians, but they most definitely do not know how to teach! They give the assignments out, but leave it to the students to find out how to do the work. The students often had to turn to the internet, (to other videos of teachers teaching,) to find out what they need to know. The administration is so messed up, that it can take months upon many months to get things like classes and transcripts sorted out. No one really seems to be in charge there, so complaints just get circulated around until they get lost in a file or thrown out. Teachers can lower your grade level, simply because they feel like it. Being different here, is a handicap, not a plus. My kids have had teachers lie to them, hold them responsible for an administrations problem, and then turn around and give them a lower grade because of their mix up. Filing a protest does no good. Teachers can repeatedly decide not to show up for class, threaten to destroy their grade for tattling to the administration of what they really do in class, and even use class time for tangents on their love life, and nothing is ever done about it. Emotionally Abusive teachers are known by many of the female students, and many have tried to avoid those teachers. Sadly, the college uses a 'bait and switch' application to the teachers assigned to the courses listed, so this does not work. You think you are signing up for the teacher you want, but then at the last minute, the college changes the teacher on you, leaving you with the ones who are abusive. Many think that the park-like surroundings are so nice, but they can be a problem, too. The geese can attack you if they get too close to you, and they have caused other problems with their feces stinking up the pond and grounds. Summer is almost unbearable with the stench of it all. The fumes from their urine and feces can burn the eyes. (Fresh geese poop on your shoes, anyone? Be careful now, and don't slide in it!) They could put up signs of coyotes to deter them like other places do, but they choose not to. I am so glad my kids are out of there now! Sadly, they have had such severe burn out from the college, that they are thinking of just giving up on all colleges period. Very sad, because their grade point averages are high, and they are smart. If I had a wish to re-do one thing in my life, I would stop my kids from ever setting foot into Columbia Community College... read more