Houston Community College - Spring Branch Campus — Local services in Houston

As an international F1 student, I truly regret choosing HCC. I invested a lot of money expecting proper guidance and support, but the reality has been the opposite.

My main problem with HCC The biggest issue was that no one informed me that the program I chose was not F1-friendly. Because of this lack of basic guidance, I ended up having to enroll in six classes this Fall 2025 semester just to maintain my status, since all of my courses turned out to be online. This is something that should be mandatory to explain to every international student from the very beginning.

Partially good Teaching / System Failures

Student services are disorganized and inefficient.

The IT department in charge of class scheduling and program structure, led by Anci Shah, was especially unhelpful. I emailed her consistently for over two months asking for assistance, and she only replied once. It felt as if I was begging for a personal favor rather than receiving the support I was paying for.

I have paid around $3,8k - $4k per semester, and yet the level of support provided does not reflect what is promised on their website.

The good part. So far. The only positive part of my two years at HCC has been a few people: Mona and Mr. Denzel from the advising center, along with my professors in programming (Python and R), pre-calculus (Edgar Smith), and statistics (a professor with an unpronounceable last name). And all my current professors have been good so far (fall 2025). These individuals truly showed professionalism and dedication.

Conclusion / Message The education itself is not bad, but the administrative support system is chaotic, unhelpful, and in some cases even misleading. I believe it is almost unethical, if not illegal, that international students are not warned beforehand about programs that are not F1-friendly. I am seriously considering making a video to expose this inoperability, because other students deserve to know the risks before they invest their time, money, and effort in a system that could even jeopardize their immigration status.

I truly hope HCC addresses these opportunities for improvement. Honestly, I used to think the education system in my country (A little country in Centroamerica... CENTRO AMERICA, a third world place) was bad—until I...

The classes are very easy to find once you've got an understanding of the building layout, & the gentleman (older guy w/ the beard) is always friendly.

The HCC Police, on the other hand, are what you might want to watch out for. Not to be rude, but there's a darker-skinned Officer (looks Latino, again not trying to be rude) who has a knack for following students. I made the apparent mistake of sitting in my vehicle a few minutes before class starts (I'm within HCC parking grounds & have my parking permit visible) & watched him move his patrol vehicle to angle toward me & shine his headlights directly into my vehicle. I then watched him step out shortly after I did & follow me into the library & overheard him tell the librarian that he "thought" that I was a perpetrator of some sort -- why act so shady if you're not even sure of who I am? And why are you so suspicious of someone who's literally standing at the printing machine waiting for a document to print out? What does that even mean? You assumed that I'm guilty of something just because I sat in my vehicle before class starts? How many other Students are you harassing like this, knowing they won't say anything?

Every time that I see him now, I keep my distance but he makes sure to go out of his own way to watch me, & I'm contemplating reporting him but I doubt it would get anywhere.

I've always had a very neutral perception of police, but this man genuinely makes me feel unsafe being there when I'm LEGALLY ALLOWED TO BE seeing as I'm a Student there for my class. Very trigger-happy Officer, it seems, & I can definitely see why there exists such a poor relationship between communities & LEO. The sad thing is that I jokingly mentioned this to two other classmates of mine the past semester & they actually made a comment on how they experienced similar from that exact...

This is one of the most disgusting public buildings I have ever entered in my life. With surrounding competition from Lone Star, this is an embarrassment to HCC. This location is run by the most stingy and lazy administrators you can find.

Let's start with parking. You have to park far away, which is expected with a campus of this size. But right as you step out of your car, you're greated with the glorious smell from the land fill right next door. To make it worse, the parking lot is covered with trash.

However, the parking lot is the cleanest part of this campus. It's when you step inside when things become disgusting. The interior is falling apart, and smells quite bad. I remember a time when I went to get water from the water fountain. As I was about to get a sip, a roach crawled out from the drain. I noped out of that situation pretty quickly.

However, the worst part of this location are the restrooms. They smell terrible, they are constantly messy and are out of things like soap and paper towels. The cleaning staff do absolutely nothing. I remember a time I walked in right after the janitor left after "cleaning" the bathroom, only to find a huge puddle of urine on the ground.

To make the restrooms worse, the water pressure is like that of a mouse blowing through a straw. Good luck trying to get all the soap off of your hands.

This campus and its administration is embarrassing. For a corporation as large at HCC, they need to do better. I know HCC can do better because the Alief Hayes campus is significantly better. But instead of providing a sanitary place for students to take classes, the higher ups just stuff their...