OCC program cheats students, prof. says

Engineering professor Desi Kiss believes that OCC is short-changing its students by offering subpar engineering courses, an allegation OCC officials deny.

Kiss contends that many of the engineering courses’ curriculums were designed by people without engineering backgrounds, and because the course materials are outdated and unfocused students are having a difficult time transferring them to four-year colleges.

“The students are enticed and cheated into an engineering program, and most of these classes can’t be transferred to the University of California and Cal State University systems and elsewhere in the United States,” Kiss said.

After Kiss took his complaints to the Coast Community College District Board of Trustees late last month, the board asked OCC President Bob Dees to look into the matter. Kiss presented a list of students who had trouble transferring engineering classes to universities.

A staff member at OCC looked into each claim, according to Dees, and found that most of the students simply didn’t talk to an advisor or check with the university to which they were transferring to make sure that the classes fulfilled the requirements they wanted.

“Those students misunderstood the transfer requirements of the program they went into,” Dees said. “If they had had the advice of a counselor they probably wouldn’t have made the mistakes that they did.”

Kiss has had some “ongoing personnel problems” with the college’s administration, Dees said, but he said he couldn’t elaborate further.

Engineering student Jonathan Canton is a past OCC engineering student whom Kiss cited in his report to the board. Canton transferred to a school in Michigan that did not accept his engineering graphics course or his circuits class.

“My engineering courses should have transferred, but they didn’t,” Canton said, noting that the course descriptions from the classes at his university in Michigan and OCC were nearly identical.

OCC’s classes are not meant to transfer out of state, though, according to Dees. He says the conflict was caused by Kiss’ misunderstanding of the transfer process.

In 2002, when Kiss was hired as a part-time faculty member, he applied for a full-time position, but was snubbed, he said. This semester he was not selected by OCC staff to teach any classes. He sees this as the college retaliating for his taking issue with the engineering program.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].