<p>So I was accepted to UCLA as a Math-Econ major and I feel like I'm comfortable with math and better than your average student in math-y classes, but not spectacular at it (even at a community college). </p>
<p>From what I understand, there are under ten math classes that I'd have to take for this major, but even that intimidates me. I fear arriving at UCLA and cutting my wrists (I don't actually do this...don't worry) and majorly stressing out to pass my classes. </p>
<p>Can anyone (any Math majors?) chime in and give me a little bit of advice on this? </p>
<p>It's really the math that intimidates me and is the only thing holding me back from attending UCLA. I'm from the Bay Area and just visited UCLA yesterday and absolutely loved the atmosphere. I'm deciding between LA and SD (Management Science major) and while the major at UCSD seems a lot less challenging, it's not a school environment I really loved.</p>
<p>In short, I like my major at UCSD more, but like UCLA more on all other aspects. I don't know how to weigh those two against each other.</p>
<p>ucla's math program is really strong, and it's all about what you enjoy. if you enjoy math/econ, then major in it. if you enjoy management sciences (whatever that is) then major in that. most of your upper divs for most majors (especially math/science/econ majors) will be challenging. </p>
<p>it also depends what you wanna do after college. if you want to go into finance then come to UCLA because it's better known than SD. if you wanna go into graduate school, it won't matter too much.</p>
<p>also, don't just choose where you wanna go based on the academics. you should enjoy the atmosphere, student body, etc. because you can't feasibly study all day and be happy</p>
<p>Bruinboy, what you said makes complete sense and I couldn't agree with you. Where I find trouble is that I'm actually conflicted between two of the things you said. I feel like I'd enjoy my major at UCSD more than my major at UCLA, but I enjoy everything else at UCLA... I don't know how to weigh major preference over everything-else preference. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>And the question I've got for math majors or anyone who has taken these upper div math classes is the actual level of difficulty. I know they will be hard, but are they classes that I'll be regularly pulling all nighters for? And how does the school accommodate these students? I know there's free tutoring for lower div courses, but is there anything like that for upper div students? Again, I fully expect to take advantage of prof and TA office hours.</p>
<p>Know your limitations, but that definitely does not mean to give up without trying. If you got into UCLA, you shouldn't doubt your ability to do well here.</p>
<p>so now I think I'm leaning a little bit more towards UCLA than UCSD. I've begun to look ahead using UCLA</a> Department of Mathematics</p>
<p>and ratemyprofessor.com to see who the good profs are for my required math courses:</p>
<p>Mathematics 115A Linear Algebra<br>
Mathematics 131A Analysis<br>
Mathematics 170A Probability Theory
or Stats 100A Statistics<br>
Mathematics 170B Probability Theory<br>
or Stats 100B Statstics </p>
<p>2 from Mathematics (110A or 117), Math 181*, Math 164, 167
1 from Mathematics 110B-199, Stats 100C, Stats 102AB </p>
<p>but ratemyprofessor could only offer me a few of the reviews I was looking for.. I know these schedules/profs aren't set, but could anybody lend some insight? </p>
<p>I have received your private message but unfortunately, I can't send out or receive any more private message due to their limit. There are many members asked me about USC, UCLA and transferring admission in general. So may be I would quote what you wrote in the private message here and provide my answer here?</p>
<p>thanks for replying to my thread about math courses at UCLA.</p>
<p>I was actually accepted as a Math/Applied Science major as a transfer student. I THEN found out that the management/accounting track is no longer available, so I decided that if I do attend UCLA, I'd switch to Math-Econ.
</p>
<p>First of all, congratulation! How did you feel when you received that big package with the acceptance letter inside and some other info regarding how great UCLA is. I'm glad that you are joining our Bruin family! Welcome to UCLA math department!</p>
<p>For the Math/Applied Science with concentration in Accounting/Management, you are right that it is no longer available. In fact, I am in their last year to graduate with this major. It is particularly a strong major because of the diversity of required courses including statistics, math, accounting and two MBA graduate level courses (I'm lucky to have completed these 2 courses and this fact helped me getting many interviews indeed.) </p>
<p>For the Math/Econ, beside all the lower division math courses and 3 basic econs (I assumed you finish most of them), you need to take 7 math and 6 econ for upper division. Here is the link: UCLA</a> Department of Mathematics . </p>
<p>
Anyways, like I said in my thread, I'm a little intimidated by the Math courses. I like math, but I don't LOVE math. It is a subject that gives me trouble (hell, calc III, linear algebra, and DEs was difficult), so I keep thinking I'm not cut out for the upper-div classes. </p>
<p>Are the curves in the UD math courses pretty hard to work against? Are their any accommodations to help these UD math students out besides TA/prof office hours? </p>
<p>Any other advice you could give me?</p>
<p>Thanks"
</p>
<p>Now, you should be relieved with this major because all you need is only 7 math courses but pure math needs about 14 courses. For additional 6 econ courses, I heard from friends that the econ material itself is not as tough as math but there are some tough professors who give lots of work and harsh grades (I personally don't take econ there so i don't know, though). </p>
<p>My general advices for you:
1. Not having the crazy passion for math does not neccessarily mean that you will fail the math courses but of course if you love it, you will probably do better so first of all, don't worry too much! Try your best and you will be fine, at least you will pass!</p>
<ol>
<li>For the first quarter (Fall 2008?), you should take all the lower division if you are still missing them. I strongly advice you to take Math 115A (Linear algebra) before you even touch any other math because that course will bridge the gap between lower and upper division math. Once you do fine in 115A, you will gain confidence and apply those learning technique to other upper division math courses. Math 115A is 60% theoretical and 40% computational. You deal with "linear independence, bases, orthogonality, the Gram-Schmidt process, linear transformations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and diagonalization of matrices." </li>
</ol>
<p>Math 131A (real ananlysis) is considered the toughest math course according to many students and many delay this course untill their senior year. It is VERY THEORITICAL, it is like calculus I. However, you don't calculate derivatives or integration but you rather prove all those fancy calculus theorems, existence of limit, convergence of limit ...etc so you deal with epsilon and delta (remember those in beginning calculus?). </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Taking all math courses in a quarter is overwhelming so for your major, you have the flexibility to mix econ and math courses together. I suggest you either take 2 econ and 1 mah (this is easiest option) or 2 math and 1 econ (this is balanced option). For any math course, you will probably have weekly homework which is very long (we spend average 3-9 hours per week just for 1 class doing homework.) and you won't spend much time on econ (again this is my econ friends' opinions). </p></li>
<li><p>Try to adapt to this new quarter system as much as you can. This is essentially very important for you, new student. I can assure you that you will be shocked by the different grading system (almost all math courses here are based on curve and the the test grade has 70% average and sometimes as low as 30%) , by the pace of the course (finding out that you have midterm on 3rd or 4th week), by the competition among many smart students, by the new environment (you need to walk back and forth at least 20 minutes per day from your apartment or parking to your classrooms)...etc</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So be prepared for new changes like don't judge your grades by the x% but rather judge it by where you stand in the class (percentile). In another words, if you have around the median score, you will get about B- to B+ which is a passing grade which in fact the grade most students end up with. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Math 170 (probability) is very hard, and replacing it with a statistics course would be a good option for you. </p></li>
<li><p>Visit professors in their office hours if you get stuck in your assignments (this will most likely happen). TAs will help you a lot too if you ask them so just be active and ask around, just don't sit there thinking how badly you will fail but rather run around and ask for help. </p></li>
<li><p>Form study groups with your classmates especially the ones who are smart. </p></li>
<li><p>Have a good attitude toward your progress and always reward yourself whenever you get a good grades in homework, midterms and especially final. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Anyways, my final week is approaching so I might not visit this forum for a few weeks... I will come back whenever I have time. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to post them here.</p>
<p>Wow, can I buy you lunch or something? That was a lot of help. I probably (definitely) will have some questions, but, like you, my finals week is this week so I'm pretty packed. I will post here later. </p>
<p>Thanks again, bro, that was really helpful.</p>
<p>Realistically, you don't need a fancy calculator here because we do a lot less computations. Most courses focus on theories and how much you understand, not how tedious you can calculate. </p>
<p>However, we still do calculations but usually involve calculus like taking derivatives, matrices operations and lots of integrations in which fancy calculator would not be that much useful. Of course, you use fancy calculator in engineering department a lot of time.</p>
<p>In some of my engineering courses, the professor allows us to choose the graphing calculator to solve integrals since, like kevin101 said, we mostly depend on the theory and the process of finding the answer than the actual answer itself.</p>
<p>For Warrior2005, the undergraduate courses are usually big (100 to 200 students), the upper division courses are much smaller around 30 students.
Every math majors take the same sequence of calculus to differential equation (in UCLA, the sequence is 31ab,32ab,33ab).</p>
<p>I signed up for 115A this quarter, that's the only math class I'll be taking. Then I'll get on with the whole math thing next quarter as well as Econ 101 or something.</p>
<p>How is stats 100?</p>
<p>I still gotta do PIC 10A and Math 61...but I guess I'll just get to that later.</p>