The summer sun will be shining down on Cerritos College students looking to take general education and special skills classes starting Monday, May 23.

In an effort to help students be ready for the fall transition, the school has added approximately 100 new sections plus to the summer catalogue.

Cerritos College President Dr. Jose Fierro stated, “I’ve spoken with different groups around campus, especially students, the general comment I get is that we have bottleneck courses in some of our general education.

He continued, “So we want to make an effort to increase the summer sections, especially in gen eds and special skills to try to help our students to be ready for the fall and transition to the next term.”

He noted that although good work has been accomplished reducing waiting lists, there are still people on those lists and hopes class additions help ready students for the fall.

Fierro expressed that he doesn’t want students to spend an entire term waiting for classes to be available.

“This is one of our first attempts to fill the schedule with completion and gen ed courses with the hopes of decreasing the bottlenecks in some of our courses, he said.”

The school president noted that although enrollment is softening, there are still waiting lists in some high-demand courses, so those will be available over the summer.

Acting Vice President of Academic Affairs Rick Miranda agreed with Fierro noting the president’s concern with student success.

“Dr. Fierro is very concerned about new and continuing students so much so that he asked departments to add more sections to summer than originally scheduled.

“There are nearly an additional 100 sections being offered for the May start and more to come for the second half of summer.”

Miranda also noted that students have been vocal about the addition of sections to allow them to transfer to four year school, complete an associate’s degree or certificate program that will allow them to get a job or move up in their current employment.