New opportunities emerge for Skyline students as 13 associate degrees have been added to the list of degrees for transfer. The degrees include administration of justice, anthropology, business administration, communication, early childhood education, elementary teacher education, geology, history, kinesiology, mathematics, music, physics, and psychology. There are also 3 degrees still pending approval. The degrees are now available to students who want to obtain an associate degree while planning to transfer to a California State University.

Many students have already shown interest in these degrees. According to Jacqueline Escobar, Skyline counselor and articulation officer, 97 Skyline students applied for transfer degrees during the 2013-2014 academic year, 26 applications for Fall, and 71 applications for spring.

For more information about these degrees, students should visit the Skyline College website, navigate to the “Transfer Center” icon, and click on “Transfer Degrees.”

Skyline also offers an AA-T and AS-T Degree workshop. Throughout the workshop, students will gain knowledge about the requirements not only for Skyline College, but also for many other community colleges within the state of California. Students will walk out of this workshop with a clear understanding of the new associate for transfer degrees.

“In general, I think it offers more opportunities for students to achieve associates degrees, so it’s a great program.” Suzanne Poma, counselor and transfer center coordinator said. “It makes associate degrees for students whose goal is to transfer more accessible.”

Skyline counselors are here for support and encouragement for students to get the degrees in order to ease the transfer plan.

“The purpose of creating the degrees was really to facilitate transfer for students to create a very easy pathway from the community college to the university,” Escobar said, adding that statistics say students who transfer from community college with an associate’s degree tend to make more money and have a better income throughout their life.

There are 60 unit degrees at Skyline College where all you have to do is complete the courses of the major, or the CSU general education requirements. Achieving an associate’s degree allows a student to have a guarantee of only having to complete 60 units once they enroll in a university.

“Why that’s such a big deal is because you’re seeing students graduating with 155 units, 160 units those additional units is time that the student is not out working,” Escobar said.

Achieving a degree may seem simple, however it can get complicated very fast.

“It’s very important that students meet with counselors, especially about associate degrees, because they can be sometimes complicated to fill out so it’s very critical that they make sure they have the right information and that they’re filling out the forms correctly,” Michele E. Haggar, transfer center program services coordinator said.

Although the new associate degrees for transfer are presented as a degree with a guarantee; it’s more accurate to say this is a guarantee for only certain students depending on which CSU the student is planning on attending, and if their major is impacted at that CSU.

If a major is impacted that student will not receive a guarantee of admissions; however, if you are applying to a CSU in a major that is not impacted and you have already finished the degree at Skyline you will have a guarantee of admissions. In addition, students applying to a CSU in an impacted major will get a GPA bump. The GPA bump depends on where you are applying.

“It’s very common for students to pick up the degree handout and assume if they follow that, that they have everything they need to transfer to a CSU campus when in actuality to be a competitive candidate at a certain campus or different campuses, they might need additional classes so it’s important for them to meet with a counselor,” Poma said.

To get more information about these new associate degrees for transfer, students should meet with school counselors, who are available to assist with any questions.