Bakersfield College, as well as all the other colleges in the Kern Community College District, is going to be facing a budget reduction of $17.8 million. This situation should strike a nerve with every student continuing at BC next year, as well as future newcomers to BC.

Most students come here to eventually transfer out, but with the budget cuts coming, classes will be reduced, making it harder to get the classes needed to transfer. And how about the students who still have no idea what they are going to study? BC has also played the role of a safety zone for those students. With plenty of classes to take at a great price, students are free to explore and discover what they are about. Unfortunately, we will have to say goodbye to that. These money issues are killing the soul of our college. BC will no longer be about students discovering what they want to do and who they want to be. Students will just get in and get out. As someone who has one more year left on this campus, it saddens me that students coming in after my departure will not have the opportunities I did. I came into BC not knowing what I was going to do, and thanks to all the available classes, I explored philosophy and photojournalism.

With the budget situation, classes such as photography may be the first ones to go.

Classes will be even more difficult to get into, so the opportunity of taking a class on ethics or political science simply for mental bliss is no more.

Even the extra time to take courses for fun will be taken away with everyone cramming into any class they can get.

There are plenty of students that have come to BC for a second chance. People in their 30s and older come to BC because they’ve lost their job, were never able to come to school, or made mistakes in their youth.

With these new cuts, it will be a lot harder for these people to find their place.

I was always told that college was important to pursue my education and to get my degree, but it seems to me that college administrators don’t see that.

They only see numbers, and now it’s hard for me to walk through campus believing BC has a giant opportunity waiting to unfold. It seems that book has been closed, and the new one doesn’t care about students.