<p>I'm admitted to Baskin Engineering as a computer science major. The school recommends that incoming transfer students NOT do IGETC. Their reasoning, to paraphrase my own understanding of it, is that classes in the engineering school are hard, so they want us to mix some (presumably "easier") gen-ed classes in with our engineering coursework each semester. (Side question: Am I more-or-less correct in that understanding?)</p>
<p>I'm tempted to do IGETC anyway, though. I figure why not? The fact that I wouldn't HAVE to complete any lower-division requirements to graduate wouldn't stop me from being able to take whatever non-engineering courses I want each semester, would it? It seems like that way I'd have the freedom to take whatever "easier" classes I want, without having to worry about satisfying their list of requirements, and it would give me more flexibility about how many of them to take each semester.</p>
<p>I’ve wondered that myself. Your reasoning seems sound but I don’t know. I figure that the advice is meant as to say: “all else equal, take prereq classes instead of IGETC classes at your CC”. How are you going to do IGETC though if you’re admitted already? You posted this in mid July? </p>
<p>Recent science transfer student here. You can do the IGETC, but you definitely should complete all (or close to all) of your major prep work before transfer. I think they don’t recommend people to complete the IGETC, because they’re still in the mindset that CC is 2 years, and they’re afraid that people focusing on IGETC are not going to take most of their major prep work before transfer. The STEM majors that don’t most of their major prep generally stay here at UCSC for an extra year. </p>
<p>It took me 4 years to complete both IGETC and major prep, so I have a pretty lax 2 years here. With the credits I’m getting for research, it keeps me above 12 units per quarter so it keeps me on track for graduation in 2 years. I am still free to take whatever “fun” classes I would like.</p>
<p>If you don’t do the IGETC but complete all of the GE, they may or may not still all those classes that are meant to be articulated. I didn’t submit a certification initially, and they said that I still had 3 courses to fulfill. I found out that many transfer students had this issue. If you believe that there was an error, you’re supposed to submit a petition for review… I didn’t want to deal with that hassle so I just got an IGETC certification and it was all cleared up once UCSC received it. </p>
<p>Another point: You need 180 units to graduate. The max that the school awards to transfer students are 105 units. Assuming you’re given the max award, you still need to take about 13 units per quarter to graduate. Taking all of the IGETC and major prep leaves many holes in your schedule… where your upper division course work only gives you about 9-11 units per quarter with an extra quarter with no more classes to take (That happened to me). So you are pretty much forced to find units anyway.</p>
<p>So it really depends on how you want to spend your time here, and how long you want to be in community college for. If you’re thinking of doing research, that is also something else you should be considering. </p>