Community College Program

The Puente community college program is designed to assist students to complete community college courses and to transfer successfully to four-year institutions. The program provides extensive initial and on-going training to community college instructors and counselors who have been selected to implement the Puente program on their campuses.

These specially trained teams provide students with the following: 1) an accelerated writing course sequence that incorporates Mexican American/Latino and other multicultural authors, experience, and issues, through which students progress from pre-transfer level writing through the transfer-level English composition class, in one year; 2) counseling that provides students with sustained, in-depth, career and academic guidance throughout their enrollment at the community college; and 3) mentoring by members of the professional community who are recruited and trained to share with Puente students career advice regarding their personal experiences of integrating culture and family with academic and professional success.

The first semester of the Puente program is known as Phase I, the second semester as Phase II. The remainder of the time at the college for a Puente student who has finished the formal Puente training but not yet transferred to a four-year institution is known as Phase III. Phase III students receive ongoing academic advice from their counselor until they graduate or transfer.

"I have taken several honors courses at UCLA... and excelled academically in them. I do have to thank [my counselor] and Puente for this. I thank [her] for guiding me towards finding the confidence in myself and I thank Puente for honing my scholastic skills... Now, I am just preparing for the GRE exam so that I can further my education..."
— F.C., former Long Beach City College Puente student