Taking College Courses at CECHS

The matrix below indicates the number of targeted college hours for students, for each semester and school year. It is possible for students to earn up to sixty-one college credit hours and may enable a student to finish an associate's degree with this schedule. The number of required hours will be decreased for students who earn Advanced Placement credits or who have completed advanced course work in middle school. Furthermore, students who take additional courses during the summer can complete a moderate course load or accelerate the process.

Course Outline

The matrix identifies certain core courses to be taken in particular semesters. These courses might be called the “core of the core,” because either everyone needs them and will have to take them, or they are core courses that must be taken in a certain semester to match a high school requirement. For example, all sophomores who can meet the placement standard will take speech in their spring semester. All juniors will take their history sequence in their fall and spring terms. Students will take English Composition I and II when they are in their fourth year.

Students will be placed in other college courses based on their majors and interests. Students majoring in math, science, or engineering, for example, will take more math and science courses. Business majors will take micro- and macro-economics, finite math and business calculus, as well as two accounting courses.

Although most of the students and their parents are focused on academic transfer, many of the students are interested in workforce courses, especially Digital Communication and Computer Science. Some of the workforce courses are also transfer courses. BCIS and COSC are computer science transfer courses that academic students could take either as electives or as major requirements if they are computer science or business majors. We are also working on cross-listing a digital arts course as fine arts so interested students could take it to satisfy a fine arts requirement.

Transferring HCC Courses

Houston Community College classes typically transfer readily to colleges and universities throughout the state of Texas and the rest of the United States. HCC is fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which is the regional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. State law also facilitates transferability of credits within the state. The three different types of courses offered at HCC are the following:

  1. Academic courses
    Academic course credits earned at Houston Community College are readily transferable. State law requires other public colleges and universities to accept transfer of core curriculum courses earned at HCC and to accept them as core courses. If a student completes the HCC core curriculum, all other public colleges and universities in the state are required by law to accept that student as core complete. Although out-of-state schools and private institutions may pick and choose what courses they are willing to accept, most colleges and universities accept HCC credits because of the SACS accreditation. Students planning to transfer to private or out-of-state universities should consult those institutions about transferability before taking particular courses at HCC. Grades of "C" or higher are transferable.
  2. Workforce courses
    The transferability of workforce courses depends on the course and the receiving institution. Some workforce courses are included in the Academic Course Guide Manual (ACGM) and will transfer to colleges and universities throughout the state as academic courses. That means that they can count toward a bachelor’s degree. These courses include ACCT, BCIS, BUSI, COSC, ENGT, MUAP, and others. Workforce courses that are included in the Workforce Education Course Manual (WECM) can transfer as workforce courses, generally to other community colleges, but generally will not count toward a bachelor’s degree. Nonetheless, some private colleges and universities such as the University of Phoenix will accept workforce course credits and count them toward a bachelor’s degree.
  3. Developmental courses
    In general, developmental courses do not transfer because they do not represent college-level work. Nonetheless, area community colleges will generally accept a student who has completed a developmental sequence at a neighboring community college as having completed remediation.