<p>I currently have a 3.9 transferable GPA at my CCC. Classes are extremely simple for me, even the most challenging ones. I hardly study, I just show up to class everyday and do all my work and very rarely don't get A's on tests.</p>
<p>I can only assume that UC's are much more difficult. For those of you who are CCC transfers how much harder were these classes for you? I will most likely get into UCSC and UCSB, are all UC classes about the same difficulty or if I somehow miraculously got into UCLA or UCB would the classes be noticeably harder then classes of other UC's? </p>
<p>Oh, also I am an Economics (or Business) major.</p>
<p>I’m a transfer to UCB (bio major) and I can honestly admit that CCC courses were pretty much a joke compared to classes at UCB. </p>
<p>At CCC, bio classes were mainly 80% multiple choice and 20% free response. My first upper division bio class midterm at UCB was 100% free response, but that’s not all, it was also 8 pages long and we only had 1 hour 20 mins to complete it. </p>
<p>I’m also taking lower division physics class and half of the midterm’s are multiple choice, which means that you get zero partial credit. Pretty harsh for a class like physics.</p>
<p>So be prepared to not just memorize information, but to apply it to problems that you’ve never seen/thought of before. Regardless of the difficulty, I’m really loving Cal… Such an amazing school with amazing professors/GSI’s.</p>
<p>According to [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) , 2004-2008 transfers from CCCs with prior college GPAs of 3.80-4.00 had the following first year GPAs at UC:</p>
<p>Berkeley: 3.34-3.38
Los Angeles: 3.38-3.44
Santa Barbara: 3.33-3.50
Santa Cruz: 3.45-3.71</p>
<p>It’s night and day. Especially business and Econ. Financial modeling and econometrics are the kinds of classes that really test your skills where as intro level business classes and lower division Econ classes can be passed by a high school freshman with little effort. It’s all about adapting, putting in more time, more effort. The UCs are prestigious for a reason. You’ll be fine. My brother is attending ucsb and is having a little difficulty adapting to the material but he’s a freshman.</p>
<p>@kamelred
Dang! That sounds much more difficult then I was expecting. GE’s at CCC’s are pretty much all multiple choice tests and then maybe an essay or two so really easy. The hardest class for me so far has been Business Calc which I have a high A in right now. I’m glad you are enjoying Cal. I would love to go to Cal but my chances are beyond low. Beautiful area though! </p>
<p>Thanks, that is very insightful. I can somewhat understand how tests will be now.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
Ah very informative! If I were to get into only SB or SC I would choose SC and I would be satisfied with a 3.45 or up. Should get me into a decent masters program. </p>
<p>@Emprex
Is econometrics really that difficult? It seems to come up pretty early after I transfer (at least at UCSC). Maybe I will hold off a quarter or two before I attempt it. I’m willing to put the work in, it’s just in HS and at CCC’s you really don’t have to try so I’ve developed terrible habits. </p>
<p>I’ve also heard at 4-years your grades are more of a mystery and that you don’t really know what you have until the class is over. Thats going to drive me mad! I closely track my progress in every class, so I will have to adjust to that as well.</p>
<p>Note that if you want to go to graduate school in economics, you need to take the lower division courses for math majors, including multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations. For the intermediate economics and econometrics courses, choosing the more math-intensive versions, if offered, is recommended. Also, upper division math courses like real analysis and advanced linear algebra are also recommended. See <a href=“http://econ.berkeley.edu/grad/admissions/preparation[/url]”>Preparation | Department of Economics; .</p>
<p>You may be finding your classes to be easy because courses like introductory economics and calculus for business majors are not very difficult anywhere (including UCs). Many common introductory courses taken for breadth purposes are also not very difficult (particularly science courses for non-pre-med non-major students). Upper division courses of the type you will take after transferring to a four year school will go into more depth in the subject than the introductory courses will.</p>
<p>Grades at UCs are not necessarily a mystery; instructors will often show the score distributions after each test.</p>
<p>Oh when I said graduate school I meant for an MBA, regardless I still want to do Calc 1 -3 and potentially linear algrebra. It seems a little less needed for an MBA but still advised from what I can tell.</p>
<p>depends on your major. I’m at UCI. My GPA in the bus admin courses is a 3.8ish and that’s without effort and taking some of the harder courses offered.</p>
<p>I’m a quantitative economics major however and my statistics and econ GPA is around a 3.0 overall, mostly due to mediocre performance in Statistics and Econometrics.</p>
<p>There are too many variables to give you a definite answer. It depends on each individual professor at your CCC compared to the individual professors at your UC and their respective curriculum. </p>
<p>I’m a molecular bio major at UCSD and I can say that my CCC had a very respectable biology/chemistry department that I felt more than adequately prepared me for UC coursework here. In fact for some courses, for example, Organic Chemistry at my CCC compared to now at UCSD the difficulty and quality of instruction were are on a whole different par… with my CCC being well above my UC. In Organic Chemistry at my CCC there were topics that we covered in depth that my UC Ochem professor just breezes over and says you don’t need to know that, or even worse you don’t need to understand that “just memorize it”. Topics like IR spectroscopy, energetics, etc we don’t even touch in UC, but we covered them first semester of Ochem at my CCC heavily. That and as stated the instruction at my CCC was much better. My CCC Ochem professor was one of the best professors I ever had, one of the most difficult also because of his high expectations, but he was a great lecturer. While I was in his class he once showed us an exam that one of his old students took at UCLA the prior year and we were all shocked, and frustrated to see how much easier it was. I struggled to finish with a B in his class in CCC whereas the last Ochem midterm I took this quarter in UC I got an A without even sitting down to properly study. </p>
<p>That being said, now comparing the work of my lower division biology labs to the upper division Recombinant DNA lab I’m currently taking this quarter and they’re worlds apart, with the UC lab being much more intensive. I just got through writing a 15 page lab report that took on the form of a published peer-cited article in a major science publication. In CCC, bio labs just consisted of filling out a pre-constructed lab manual with short answers and fill in the blank questions. </p>
<p>So I guess what I’m trying to say is, it just depends. Chances are if you were completely unchallenged in CCC you’re probably going to find yourself challenged on a more frequent basis at a UC. But that being said, it isn’t like there aren’t any easy courses in UC (especially when it comes to GEs) or like every class is going to be exceptionally more difficult. That just isn’t the case. Just a word of advice, something that will probably be repeated to you a million times over – I’m not so sure the difficulty is going to make the biggest difference for you, it’s something you WILL adjust to if you are a successful student, which you seem to be. Don’t get me wrong it WILL be more difficult, your classes which are mostly graded on curves will be more competitive, but you will get used to it. That said pace is something that you really feel. For me, the change between quarter to semester system is something that took longer to adjust to than the actually difficulty of the coursework itself. I had 3 midterms before week 3 here this quarter, which is something that would’ve never happened at my CCC. So trying to keep the same course load, say if you went to CCC full time and took 5+ classes each semester will probably be highly challenging at a UC. Anyway that’s just my experience. Hopefully combined with the other responses you’ll transfer with pretty realistic expectations and you shouldn’t be too surprised.</p>
<p>I was looking at the Comm department at UCLA specifically a few months ago, for those who graduated from the U in 2009. I’m not sure if this information is available anymore, through any of UCLA’s sites. </p>
<p>Around 80% of the transfers entered in 2007, which means they had a gpa of ~ 3.9 from cc and other colleges into the dept. They graduated with mean gpas of 3.44, which is ~ a downgrade of 0.45 points, which is similar to the downgrade that UCBAlumnus listed.</p>
<p>Those who entered in from high school into the same dept graduated in 2009 with, either a mean of 3.63 or 3.68 gpa, which is honors for just about everyone.</p>
<p>It all depends on you however. I was looking at a CV of a robotics surgery MD who listed his college education as:</p>
<p>El Camino College, ~ 3.55 gpa
UCLA, 3.80, (Magna) Cum Laude, whatever
UCSD Medicine
Post grad training, residency, etc, wherever… </p>
<p>So his gpa went up from cc to UCLA, a rare occurrence, but if you put forth the effort, you can probably maintain your gpa or even enhance it if you, say, double your study time. So in other words, put forth the time needed to at least maintain your gpa.</p>
<p>As other posters said, it’s a very different.
I went from CC => UCI
First day of UCI, Professor notifies the class we already have a mid-term on the 3rd week.
Classes are super faster, no time for procrastination (literally)
Classes are only 10-weeks long
Requires more writing
Exams are a lot more rigorous, just memorizing the answers will get you a 'C". CC exams are easy.</p>
<p>This is just my opinion, but many CC’s differ in their difficulty. What KamelRed said is totally the opposite of how the science department operates at my CC. We are like 80%+ free response and x<20% MC… but anyway I am having a difficult time because I was a complete goon in high school. =_=</p>
<p>Many of my engineering major friends had a harder time in our CC than they did in the UC’s. One guy transferred to Davis and said his GPA became significantly higher. A girl who transferred to Berkeley as a Biochem major said the Cal classes were the same difficulty as our CC, so she didn’t have much trouble adjusting. </p>
<p>My closest friend dropped out of Irvine’s Electrical Engineering program to pursue another major. Over there, he got mostly B’s. He took a Thermodynamics class here to refresh his memory on some concepts and straight up failed it. Said the CC professor was way harder than his Irvine professor for the same class.</p>
<p>If your CC has its **** together, you’re in good hands.</p>
<p>I completely agree with physloop24. I have not transferred yet but many of my engineering friends have. They mostly went to UCSD or SDSU. In general I am told SDSU is similar, if not easier, than community college. UCSD is harder (to get an A), but mostly because the quarter system takes getting used to, and because when you think an exam was easy, others probably did well too so the curve will end up giving you a lower grade than you thought.</p>
<p>Also, when I took General Chem 142 (known as Chem 6B at UCSD), there was one UCSD student and 4 SDSU students in our class. Two of those SDSU students did not survive after the first test. They dropped (that says a lot considering credit xfers as pass/np for them). The other two struggled but stayed in, hopefully getting at least a C. The UCSD girl told me she was also taking Calc and a couple other GE’s at UCSD but Chem 142 at our CC was her hardest class. We had two lab reports due a week: Cover, abstract, data/tables/calcs, analysis, conclusion, apparently modeled exactly the way she learned how to do them at her alma mater.</p>
<p>It really depends on your professors. This semester, my engineering materials professor told us he teaches the same exact course at USD and says everything is the same except that our exams are longer because we have more time (and we pay less per unit).</p>
<p>1st quarter at ucla and it’s been a hellhole compared to CC. The exams are mostly written…even for sociology class. I memorized every damn information and still did horrible on it. it’s definitely different from CC.</p>
<p>So basically one thing is for sure, it will be different. It will be down to me to adjust (which doesn’t really worry me) I actually enjoy being overwhelmed for whatever reason. I’m not sure if my CC is all that good to be perfectly honest. It seems like the place to be for people who like to linger for 5 years. I feel I’ve learned a lot in math classes but other then that, not really. GE’s are a waste. Classes like micro and macro econ and Accounting are too easy if you do them online, the only way you learn in those is if you really really want to. </p>
<p>I’m a little worried, but based on how grades translate especially to UCSC I feel a little more comfort. My brother did not do nearly as well as me in CC and hes starting at UCR this year and its midterm week for him, so I think I will get a good idea of what I can do when he gets his scores back. </p>
<p>I think my main distraction is that right now I really don’t have a social life, I just spend my time at work or at school. When I transfer I want to live in the transfer dorms, so I will have all sorts of distractions, it’s just something I will have to adjust to I suppose.</p>
<p>Thanks again guys! That was very very helpful!</p>