San Diego College of Continuing Education (SDCCE) is a division of the San Diego Community College District that focuses on providing free flexible education to adults seeking enrichment, certification, or a place to learn. SDCCE’s main goal is to provide equal educational opportunities to everyone, regardless of their income, age, or education experience. Their classes are available to all California residents over 18 and are designed to open new hobbies, career paths, and opportunities for their students through their community partnerships and expert faculty.
What is SDCCE?
SDCCE is a school first and foremost. The main difference between it and other SDCCD colleges is that it is free and is less focused on degrees and is more focused on certification. That being said, you can earn credits toward degrees through SDCCE, just not from every class. By putting an emphasis on certification, students at the college have a direct path from SDCCE to the work force. There are also classes that focus instead on learning/mastering a skill rather than certification, such as: music, art, creative writing, ESL, and more!
Other academic areas: https://sdce.edu/#academic-areas
You can also use SDCCE to advance your own career or to launch your own business! With classes in project management, Amazon Web Services, construction management/math, IT courses, and more, you can really improve your own job experience and possibly open up your skills to negotiate a promotion. They even offer generalized business courses that would be helpful for anyone in the workforce to take!
There are also classes that teach more practical skills, such as cooking, automotive repair, plumbing. You could even learn another language! These sorts of personal enrichment courses can save you money at home, but also are just handy skills to have!
You can view the entire course catalog on their website or search through it here:
https://www.sdccd.edu/students/class-search/cesearch.html
What’s Special about SDCCE?
In addition to offering a career path to all California residents, SDCCE also allows its students to approach education flexibly! Many classes have a “open-entry/early-exit” policy. Meaning you don’t have to wait for the next semester to start in order to sign up and you can leave if you’re unable to access full semester!
Additionally, it's free! There aren’t too many places where you can become certified for free, let alone have access to all of the amazing staff and faculty that SDCCE offers.
Signing Up
In order to sign up for classes, you’ll need to first apply: https://sdce.edu/services/registration-enrollment.
Once your application has been processed, follow the directions emailed to you in order to complete the enrollment process! After that, all you have to do is head to their class search page and sign up for any class you’re interested in (that’s also available). https://www.sdccd.edu/students/class-search/cesearch.html
The Fall Semester begins September 7th! So, start looking now! Be sure to share this information with anyone who might be looking to develop more skills too! This program doesn’t apply just to SDPEBA members/public employees!