"I am having the worst time here. The BC advisor, Brynn, is screwing me up so badly by taking classes I don't need and didn't tell me that I need 60 units to graduate, and that's both in early childhood and General Education. I tried another BC counselor, and she hasn't responded to me in three weeks! They are useless. I am not getting any guidance or anything except for Brynn telling me to take classes that I don't need and putting me into this statistics class without telling me that I needed to take intermediate algebra before taking this class. And I told her I haven't taken a math class in years, and I am bad at math, and she won't listen to me. She is refusing to answer my emails and refusing to see me. I told her about this English teacher who gave me all the points for my assignments, and the teacher went back and regraded all of it, and Brynn did nothing. I just found out that I need to take General Math 101 before I take other math classes, and of course, Brynn didn't tell me that either. I have to have other people tell me what I should take because these counselors aren't doing their damn job. Brynn and other counselors need to be better at their or BC should fire them. I told Brynn I won't transfer to Cal State but she's gonna try and make me put in a transfer. Once again, she and everyone at BC aren't listening to me. I am being ignored by everyone. I can't find the dean's name anywhere on the site. Don't come here!"

angie Barber

"attended UC Davis and honestly, it was one of the most overrated and toxic experiences of my academic life. The environment was full of mediocrity and full of backstabbing, not collaboration. Instead of support and mentorship, I found cliques, politics, and a lot of performative academics and ass kissing and ego driven decision that did nothing to help my actual career.

And let’s talk about money—UC Davis costs upwards of $35,000+ a year. For what? A name brand that doesn’t guarantee a job, especially when half the “guidance” comes from overbooked advisors and disconnected professors. If you’re not in the top 5% or already well-connected, it’s easy to get lost and left behind.

Bakersfield College, on the other hand, is honest, affordable, and practical. I paid less than $2,000 a year, got hands-on training, real-world career pathways, and transfer options that didn’t bankrupt me. I had professors who actually cared, a flexible schedule, and advisors who knew my name.

ROI? Not even close. BC set me up to earn, transfer, and grow—without crushing debt or wasted time.

If I could go back, I’d skip UC Davis entirely and go straight to Bakersfield College. That’s the truth."

C.

"I really wish I could put 5 stars. I graduated in 2022 after two decades of being a bad student, finally figuring it out and then working while attending at the same time. It helped put me into a very good career, and I am grateful for the repeated opprotunities this place has given me.

However, they use this program now called Certree to handle official transcripts. It is 23 dollars even if you only need one transcript, although technically that 23 dollars will get you any number of transcripts for 3 months (it's a subscription service). The college does offer 2 free transcripts, but if you are like me where you are a graduate who only needs the transcript for a couple online courses you have taken to pass requirements for other degrees, you have probably used all of those when you first applied to other colleges. Also, Certree has no other colleges that I attended using it, only BC. So it has a very limited use case - if you are sending copies of your BC transcripts to multiple colleges. By my math, since Parchment (which every other college and even my high school use) charges $5.75 per transcript, you would need to be ordering about 4 BC transcripts for this option to be economical. The whole system seems so niche that it is hard to see how it isn't a price gouge. Also, the school I need to transfer the grades to (San Jose State) hasn't heard of Certree, so I am dumbfounded as to what meeting happened and all of these issues were bypassed or ignored in favor of going with Certree. Just.....as an expert in bad decisions (which BC can attest to based on my transcript), this is a doozy that has affected a large subset of BC students and seems to indicate the admin is out of touch with the diverse needs of the student body.

So just know that yes, you can get a good education here even if you struggle with school.....but then, unless they change something or you are applying to 4 or more colleges, getting your transcript will be more expensive than most other colleges. All other things held equal (since the cost per credit is similar across community colleges), I recommend a college where you will likely pay the same amount per credit but have a lower cost for a transcript when the time comes as well as in any future cases. The only case I see for going to BC at this point is if you live in Bakersfield. I used to, but now I live in LA (thanks to the career path BC helped put me on), so I am not limited to their campus. I now regret taking online courses after the fact due to this issue. It was not like this when I graduated."

Sam wise