Dr. Bryan Reece expressed how proud he is about the Math Success Center being so successful, based on students doing significantly better in math.
Reece, dean of academic success and institutional effectiveness, runs the Math Success Center located in the Learning Resource Center.
“Every year we assess about 7,000 new students; these are just new students coming to Cerritos College. For the last five or six years when we assess students in math, most of them or the larger number assess into Math 20 and about 7 percent of those 7,000 students assess into a college level math.
“So, 93 percent of those students, when they come to Cerritos College are not ready to do college level math. The biggest challenge for students is pre-college level math. That is not just Cerritos College, that is a statewide trend,” Reece said.
At the Math Success Center the highest rate increase of retention is at 88.4 percent for students from 78.1 percent who visit the success center frequently at 11-20 times a semester. And students who visit 21 times or more a semester have the best rate of success and retention at 90.6 percent.
Making the Math Success Center a big success is going frequently, it helps students grades and ability to understand math.
The faculty face the challenge of getting students ready for college level math.
Victor Barillas, automotive mechanical repair major, said that math has always been something he has struggled with.
“What makes it hard right now is I took a whole year off from math and that gap really made it difficult,” Barillas said.
Barillas mentioned how the tutors at the Math Success Center are a huge help and are great at explaining math problems he has trouble with.
Angela Raquelsantos, nursing major, had tested right into a transferable math class.
“Math classes in general are quite demanding and being able to allocate my time between school, work and family accordingly is sometimes a challenge and unfortunately this takes a toll on my academic performance,” Raquelsantos said.
She said she’d appreciate some more elaboration on certain concepts from her teacher.
“I feel like if my knowledge on the concepts were to go a bit deeper than I’d be more familiar with the whole subject. (Then) statistics would come much easier for me,” she said.
Maria Hernandez, nursing major, expressed that the material she’s facing is a little harder to understand this year in Math 114.
“The biggest challenge is definitely the homework. I don’t make time for it because it takes way too long to get through one assignment and I have three other classes to worry about,” Hernandez said.
Roshni Choksi, graphic design major, is in her first semester of college and is surprised she is doing really well in math. “My biggest challenge would be not understanding some methods they used to teach us,” she said.
Although students are having trouble with math, the resources available such as the math success center can be a huge help in students success rate for mathematics at Cerritos College.
The Math Success Center is located in the lower level of the Learning Resource Center in room LC 137. Hours of operation are Monday-Thursday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
