<p>Hi! I was accepted into the electrical engineering program for the fall, but I’ve had a great desire to pursue economics for awhile now. Do you think it would be possible to change my major from EE to economics? If I stay with EE for a quarter and have good grades, would I have a pretty decent shot at making the change? Also how well known is the economics program at SLO? I definitely want to go on to graduate school and get a MBA so I was wondering whether SLO is known for having a good undergrad economics program since I plan on applying to good private graduate schools around the U.S. in the future.</p>
<p>I’m a current first year at Cal Poly who’s currently switching from biochemistry to economics, so I’ll break it down for you.</p>
<p>Basically, you go to your adviser to start your change of major process. Switching into econ requires a 3.0 overall GPA and 3.3 in your econ-related courses (in my case, microecon, calc II, and stats II). Once you complete all three of your econ-related courses and assuming you’ve maintained the proper GPA, you switch into econ. Pretty straightforward process. That being said, it is pretty frustrating to consider how hard it is to switch majors at Cal Poly. I came here with the intent of switching majors like you, and I will not officially switch into econ until the end of this quarter.</p>
<p>One thing that I would be worried about you is that you are entering as an EE and presumably taking EE courses your first quarter. EEs are not exactly very well known for their stellar GPAs (which is more a representation of the rigor of their courses more than the students themselves), so it might be hard for you to maintain a 3.0 overall GPA. Most EEs I know consider a 3.0 GPA to be pretty good, whereas econ majors here regularly get above 3.5 GPAs (hence the high GPA requirements for switching into econ, switching into engineering only requires a 2.5 GPA). I felt this when I went from a 3.3 GPA taking biochem courses to a 3.9 taking my econ required courses.</p>
<p>I can’t really say much about the economics program at SLO as related to job opportunities/grad school, although I do plan to matriculate into grad school after I graduate. At least amongst the student body, the econ program here is decent, although definitely not near the status of the university’s engineering and architecture programs.</p>