Change of Major Denied - Too Many Units?

I am currently a student at UC Irvine. I transferred from a JC into Computer Engineering last year and just finished up all but one of my lower division classes for the major. I still have two years to go, however, and I’m now looking to change majors. My reason for change was simply a lack of interest in Computer Engineering as a field and as a major. I found that the Comp Sci major offered specializations that aligned perfectly with my current field of work and the direction I want to ultimately go.

I talked to an advisor about my interest in changing majors and was told that I couldn’t due to lacking a class for “full articulation” of the intro CS courses as well as having “too many units”.

I asked the advisor if I could return to JC to get the one class I needed and reapply, but was told it probably wouldn’t work as I already had too many units and taking more classes would only add more.

I have to primary questions: First, why is it a bad thing to have too many units? I’m not quite understanding the reasoning and I’m having trouble finding an answer.

Second, do I have any other obvious options to get into this major at this school or another? I’m willing to take more time at a JC or somewhere else but I’m unsure of what direction to head.

Thank you for the help or ideas.

http://senate.uci.edu/uci-academic-senate-manual/part-ii-regulations-of-the-irvine-division/chapter-i-section-3-scholarship-regulations/regulation-386-credit-hour-unit-limit-undergraduate/ indicates that UCI has a unit limit (not including AP or IB credit) of 216 quarter units for non-engineering majors and 236 for engineering majors who are beyond their 12th quarter. Transfer students must graduate after no more than 9 quarters (10 quarters for engineering majors) of full time enrollment.

Can you construct a schedule (taking into account what quarters each course is offered) that will allow you to complete your new major and graduate within the specific number of quarter or units?

The UCs have graduation unit caps because they want to move you out in a timely manner. You’re taking up space that another student could fill.