I’m transferring to UC Davis for the fall 2017 as a management econ major, and for awhile I have been contemplating on changing my major to Computer science if possible. I have not taken prereqs for cs but i do plan on dropping in to CS advising, can anyone give me an insight to the major changing process or if it is even realistic to change at this point? I am willing to attend for an extra year if it means doing something I have a passion for, opposed to something I thought was the convenient major at the the time. I have seen the requirements that state: You must have successfully completed (received a C- or better) in Math 21A, Math 21B,ECS 20, ECS 30 and ECS 40. The student should have a UC Davis GPA of 3.0 or better to change major to CS.
Assuming UCD allows you to switch your major, I think it’s really up to you to decide whether you can afford completing all of the lower division courses required for Comp. Science. As an econ. major, you’ve probably got almost (or all) of the math, but ECS courses usually require many hours of Lab/homework. It’ll help if you’re already familiar or are able to easily adapt to using UNIX/LINUX (know how to use an IDE, compiler, debugger, create Makefiles, etc) so that you can do the homework (involving data structures such as arrays, lists, heaps, etc) and meet all of the deadlines.
I’ve completed most of the prerequisites for Comp Science at my CC, and all of these ECS courses are split in two classes in CC, so I assume the workload intensity is quite higher at UCD. But if you really enjoy programming and see yourself doing it for a living, go for it! Best of luck!
I say try but let me tell you realistically that transfer applications are already denied themselves if do not have all those prerequisites you listed done by the spring of their transfer. Computer Science is becoming so popular and highly wanted that they up the coursework needed just to make the numbers lower of transfers to accept. Also as a different major you may have trouble even getting into the courses needed to declare because all the cs freshman and sophomores already in it get first pick of the seats. Anything is possible though so definitely try to see if you can.
I suggest you call the department undergrad advisor and talk it over with them. One thing to keep in mind is the unit cap. You can’t simply take classes as long as you like at a UC. They have rules on how many units you are allowed to earn. You need to sketch out a sample schedule to make sure you’ll be able to take all the lower division classes you are missing as well as those required for the major without exceeding the limit.
So I spoke to an advisor and she said it can be done, however it would take an additional year and since cs is smaller major in Uc Davis and isn’t in the college of engineering I won’t exceed the unit cap. Thank you all for your input it was indeed helpful