Getting an Associate of Arts degree at a community college will soon take extra effort.

On Sept. 4, the California Community College Board of Governors voted unanimously to adopt the Academic Senate’s proposal to raise the minimum graduation requirement for English and Math classes by the fall of 2009.

The proposal partially states, “The effect of the changes will be to raise statewide minimum graduation competency requirements by one-course levels from existing statewide minimum standard.”

Currently, Cerritos College students are able to receive an AA degree if the student earns a satisfactory grade in elementary algebra and Introduction to College Composition.

But with the new requirement, students will have to pass intermediate algebra and freshman composition in order to receive the degree.

This will affect all 109 community colleges across California who currently have lower graduation requirements in math and English and there is a mixed reaction from Cerritos students regarding the proposal.

“If the graduation requirement for an AA degree is raised for English and math then it would suck,” Ruben Cruz, criminal justice major, said, “because that would mean that students will be forced to pay more money for classes.”

William Farmer Jr., vice president of academic affairs, said that there is a reason why the math and English requirements are being raised.

“It is an effort by the faculty in community colleges across the state of California to improve student learning,” he commented, “and high school seniors who will be attending college will have to be able to write when they get to a university.”

Not only will college bound students have to know how to write, explained Mario Ville, business major, “but math students will have to know how to calculate because it is essential to a person’s education.”

Ville said that students who think that they won’t need English or math are wrong because no matter what subject a student decides to take, those subjects will be key.

Farmer agreed and that is why Cerritos College is working with surrounding high schools to ensure that students take the assessment test and succeed within the two subjects that have given students a difficult time.

Sonia Sanchez, education major, and Veronica Sandoval, history and anthropology major, admitted that when they first took the English assessment test, both began at basic writing.

Math however, Sandoval said, is the subject in which she can sympathize with adults returning to school after a long period of not being in college.

“I have been out of school for eight years because I began working,” Sandoval said, “and those adults who are returning to school and enroll in math classes have a difficult time because they can’t remember.”

When she returned to school, Sandoval said that after she took the math assessment test, she was placed in basic math, and she feels “embarrassed” that she had to start at the beginning, but it was only because she had not been in school for those eight years.

“Another thing that happens is that those adults who were in high school probably didn’t learn properly,” Sandoval added.

However, she did believe that English is important because she said that students will always have to write research papers and will have to express themselves through English.

Joseph Walker, paralegal major, said that there are more high school students not learning properly as they move toward graduation and apply for college.

“The high schools should add more math curriculum before students come to college!” he said.

Rene Gonzalez, architecture major, disagreed that there should be more of a math and English curriculum in high school because he said that it’s the students themselves that have become lazy in high school and that laziness continues into college.

Ruben Leon, math instructor, also agreed that students have become lazy as far as math is concerned.

“For students, math has become the hardest,” he said, “but it is the parents that have to make sure that students not only study but attend and are prepared for class.”

With this one graduation requirement Leon said that it will make students think about wanting to learn, “because not only will students have to deal with elementary, but that when the requirements take affect in 2009, students will have to deal with intermediate algebra as well.”

In hearing that community colleges will now have a level higher for students who want to receive AA degrees, Veronica Orocco, undecided major, said that it is a good idea because students, whether they are in high school or in college, are looking for a passing grade.

“It won’t affect me as a student when this initiative takes affect in 2009,” Orocco explained, “because by that time I will have transferred out of Cerritos.”

“I was lazy in high school,” Gonzalez said, “and I was focused when I came to college, but after taking the math assessment test it was a wake up call.”