I’m a senior in high school and wish to go to UCD via the community college route to save money, but I don’t want to be there for a long time and would want to transfer asap. I plan on majoring in economics so i want to know how I can go about doing this and when am I supposed apply for the TAG, my first year at cc or second?
Here’s what I wish I was told during my senior year, prior to CC (I’ve had to figure everything out on my own, pretty much).
At community college, you will have to complete two things: general education requirements and prerequisites for your major.
- General education requirements can be satisfied by something called IGETC (Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum), and it is good for all of the UC’s, in specific majors (engineering majors, computer science, business for UCB, and certain other ones usually have to or should follow a different path). Because you are currently interested in Economics, I presume you are interested in the social sciences/humanities (this is a blanket term) - and are not incredibly interested in hardcore STEM fields.
UC Berkeley offers an undergraduate Business major, but it is very competitive - anyway, they do not accept IGETC, so if you were interested in Business Administration, and had a very high GPA, you would have to fulfill their specific requirements. Something to keep in mind, as Business is related to Economics.
So, generally speaking, it is a good idea to complete IGETC. Here is the IGETC pattern (your CC will probably have a pdf of courses they have that satisfy IGETC, so just google “________ Community College IGETC” and you should be able to find it.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/glossary/igetc.html
If you’re curious, here is my CC’s IGETC pdf (I’ll link it here only because it’ll give you an idea of what courses you’ll need to take, and it’s laid out rather nicely): http://www.berkeleycitycollege.edu/wp/counseling/files/2015/02/2015_16_UC_IGETC.pdf
- You will need to complete prerequisites for your major. You can find this on Assist.org. Just plug in your CC, the UC of your choice, and your major (or some other major, if you’re curious like me), and you will find an articulation agreement that looks like this:
All of the information you need to know about that will be shown on assist.org. It’s an incredibly useful resource. You should check it somewhat often, to make sure the requirements don’t change (they change occasionally, and people are always angry - don’t be that person.)
So the combination of IGETC and major prerequisites will be the sort of courses you should take. For your first semester, don’t take too many courses - and get your English/Math courses out of the way early, for reasons I can mention only if you’re curious. Take my advice, though, and just get them done. You’ll be glad you did.
If you have any AP exam credit (scores of 3 or higher), you will earn college credit for it, which will enable you to take fewer classes, and satisfy IGETC requirements. If you don’t have any, don’t worry about it.
You need a minimum of 60 semester units, or 90 quarter units (they are equivalent), to be eligible to transfer. That’s an average of 15 units per term. Classes are generally 3-4 units - it depends. I really recommend taking a light semester next Fall to get acclimated to college - it’s a big jump from high school. You’ll generally be taking 4-5 classes on the semester system, or 3-4 on the quarter system (depends on which CC you attend). Don’t overload your first semester, plenty of people do it, and it negatively affects your GPA. You don’t want that - CC is a fresh start. Take advantage of it, don’t screw up, and keep your GPA high. Transferring in two years is very doable. If you have AP units, you can transfer in one.
You will have to do placement tests for English and Math - try to do your best to do well on them. If you don’t, you will be stuck in remedial classes that UCD will not even recognize (they won’t count towards the 60 unit minimum, and they won’t affect your GPA). AP tests can place you out of them.
That being said - you really don’t know if you want to major in Economics. Trust me. For your first semester, I recommend taking one Econ course (macroecon), an english course, a math course, and one filler course. All should satisfy IGETC requirements, if possible. To give you an idea, for my first semester, I took Intro to Philosophy (a class in my major), Intro to Psychology (satisfies a social science requirement for IGETC), English 5 - Critical Thinking (I skipped English 1A through AP credit - this fulfills the second english requirement for IGETC), and Introduction to Statistics. 13 semester units total. Try to have a balanced schedule - it helps you deal with the workload better IMO. After your first semester, you’ll have a better idea of what you want to study - if it’s Econ, great. If it’s something else, that’s fine too.
Also, you shouldn’t aim for UCD only. Aim to have the minimum GPA for TAG, and all requirements completed, such that you have UCD as a guarantee. It is a very good backup. It’s good to apply to more schools than that - transfer admission for schools like Berkeley and UCLA is less competitive than freshman admission (although it’s pretty competitive for Econ, still) - so if you work hard and do well (3.8+ GPA), you have a good shot of admission to those or other schools. Just something to bear in mind. TAG should be a backup option.
Here’s the TAG website: https://tag.ucdavis.edu/
You will apply for TAG in the end of September, during the year you are applying to transfer (your second year). They will notify you if your TAG was accepted some time in November, I think. You will apply to transfer by the end of November during your second year, and you will hear back in the Spring.
Let me know if you have any other questions. I probably forgot about important things.
Thank you so much!
Oh, last thing(s). Make sure you go to a CC that offers the courses you need, or programs you may potentially be interested in (check assist.org). Often the closest CC will suffice.
Also, check ratemyprofessor.org when you are choosing classes. It’s usually pretty helpful.
@goldencub You are an indispensable asset to this community! I’m always amazed at how clear and helpful your posts are, not to mention the time you take to craft them. Thanks for helping everyone out!