This is certainly a hot question and depending on your specific circumstances the answer may vary a bit. While COCC would love for you to get an associates (2 yr) degree it may not be the most efficient path for you to your B.S. degree. It is important to recognize that the traditional picture of a college student is someone who can take 18 or so credits a term and has nothing else to do except study like mad and do great in school. The reality, as most of you know, is generally more complex. You need to balance your work needs and your school career in some way that gets you to the goals you have for yourself. I'll talk more about that later in this advising guide.
The short answer is that if you are headed for OSU you will usually transfer without a degree.
Most students who are transfering to OSU in engineering or physics will find it more efficient to take the specific courses they need at COCC and then transfer to OSU as a junior with no degree. If you choose this path you must be able to take responsibility for knowing your program requirements as well as the Baccalaureate Core requirements (though you don't have to be able to spell it) at OSU. Your advisor can certainly help but in the end you gotta know whats going on. If you are planning to transfer to OSU or any other particular institution and you don't already own a catalog from that school don't waste any more time -- GET IT! Once you got it study the silly thing and know what it says. Transfering to OSU without a degree means you will save between 10 and 20 credits of coursework that COCC would require for a degree.
If you are headed out of state to complete your program you will rarely benefit from a COCC degree.
You might want to get a degree if......
There are a number of reasons you might choose to get a degree from COCC anyway. You might be eligible for a promotion at work and be able to get a better job when you transfer if you have an associates degree. It might be important to your family for any number of reasons. It might be a powerful affirmation of your ability to cut it in a challenging program. You may be very close to a degree because the range of your interests and courses at COCC has been broad and you are only a course or so away from a degree. If you're that close why not complete the degree? If you do complete a degree there are some benefits to you if you are transfering to a 4 year school in Oregon. The two relevant degree choices for students in the sciences are the AA (Associate of Arts) and the AS (Associate of Science). Here are the reletive merits of these degrees in the context of engineering and physics.
This degree, which requires you to take a broad range of courses, is accepted by all other Oregon schools as indicating that you have fulfilled the general education requirements of their institution. This can be very handy and certainly tends to keep the registrar at the institution you are transfering to from getting so antsy. When you transfer without a degree you will need to take courses at COCC that match up specifically with the general education (called the baccalaureate core as OSU) requirements at the institution to which you are transferring. For science students you will normally need to take around 15 credits of coursework that you otherwise wouldn't need to in order to meet the requirements of this degree. This is not necessarily a problem but it is important to know why you are doing this.
This degree is designed to allow students to get a degree for completing a coherent program of study leading toward a particular academic or career goal. In years past it was possible to find decent employment with an AS degree in Engineering Technology. Those days have passed but the degree still recognizes that you have completed a rigorous course of study that meets a range of requirements that are more specifically adapted to your program. IMPORTANT!! This degree DOES NOT help you meet any requirements at the institution to which you transfer. Each of your courses will evaluated by the registrar to see if it correlates with general education or program requirements at their institution. If you are careful about what you take (this is where personally responsibility comes in) it will usually work out fine. Registrars seem to be genetically selected for cautious decision making and you may have to convince them that your course is really equivalent to their course. You are likely to have to take one or two extra courses to fulfill the general ed requirements for an AS degree but it is usually not much of a problem in my experience with students.
Think seriously about an AA degree if......
If you are planning to transfer to UO in physics or some related program you probably want to either transfer after your first year here or take the time to complete an AA degree. The general education requirements at UO are not easily met by taking specific courses at COCC. For whatever reason there is limited overlap between the course offerings and whiule many courses seem substantially similar students have historically had difficulties convincing the decision makers at UO. If you have a completed AA degree from COCC nobody will ask you any of questions about general education requirements and your program requirements will transfer just fine.