<p>I want to do Politics and IR or Political Sciences. My mother wants me to do engineering.</p>
<p>My father has come up with a compromise. Because I am studying in the British Education system (13 years), I get one year's credit in U.S unis apparently?</p>
<p>He says that the first two years of university are all core courses that everyone has to do. He said that I can do my engineering degree and by then will have accumulated enough credit to do a year on Politics. Is this possible? </p>
<p>Thing is, I want to do my Politics/IR degree from University of Edinburgh (Scotland). Doubt my parents will approve, but I want to do it anyway. </p>
<p>Anyway, if I were to complete my undergrad degree in Scotland, could I then complete an engineering degree in a U.S uni within 1-2 years as I wouldn't have to do core courses? Surely I'll get some credit and I think A-Level give you credit anyway don't they?</p>
<p>As you can see, I'm not exactly well versed in the U.S education system so any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>“Surely I’ll get some credit and I think A-Level give you credit anyway don’t they?”
Not necessarily. Private colleges in the US [ and most of the 4000 colleges here are private] may require you to take THEIR core classes. There is no Universal transferability of classes taken at another college, especially one outside the US. You need to research individual colleges to see what their graduation requirements are.
Transferring into a private college may be much more difficult than being accepted as a Freshman, especially for the most selective colleges. Public Universities are generally set up to allow transfers from 2 year college within the same state, but most have strict prerequisites regarding which college classes are transferable.
You are going to have to do a lot research to see if what you want to do is feasible.
I will mention that my son’s private university [ University of Southern Calif] does have great IR and Engineering programs and does accept a lot of transfer students, but they are the exception.</p>
<p>1]there are thousands and thousands of top scoring International students [ especially from China, Korea and India]applying to Engineering programs in the US each year. All but the most high scoring are not accepted, and the competition is fierce,especially at the highly ranked U’s.</p>
<p>2]A US university is going to cost you an average of $50 K per year. There is very, very little financial aid available for foreign students. So if your parents can’t comfortably afford that, your search should probably stop now.</p>
<p>3] you need to research and contact individual Universities and colleges to see what their transfer credit policies are. Private colleges in the US can give credit or not as they see fit, as there is no legal requirement for any college to accept classes taken outside the US. </p>
<p>Now, given all that, IF you apply to a college and not a University, that does not have thousands of foreign students applying each year for their highly “impacted” programs, [such as the Engineering program at UC Berkeley], AND you have top grades and test scores, you may very well gain admittance.<br>
You are going to have to do a lot of research and send a lot of emails to find out the admissions requirements for individual colleges, what test results are necessary, what A lever classes would transfer [ look for Articulation agreements- which is university bureaucratic-speak for transfer policies]</p>
<p>yeah, its possible, especially at a U such as U of Southern Calif, which DOES encourage students to double major or do a major and minor. Realistically, it may take you more like 5 years to do 2 majors because of all the science prerequisites for Engineering. You don’t have to try to cram the core classes into the first years unless a college requires it.
And, at USC, for instance, you would have to be accepted into both USC’s college of Letters and Science, which administers the IR major and minor
<a href=“http://college.usc.edu/sir/undergraduate/IR_major_requirements.cfm[/url]”>http://college.usc.edu/sir/undergraduate/IR_major_requirements.cfm</a></p>
<p>Just to digress, I am not sure you can complete your degree in Edinburgh and then obtain a new undergraduate degree in the US. My impression has always been that you can only get one undergraduate degree (but someone correct me if I’m wrong). Your best bet would be probably to do a double major in the US college.</p>
<p>Also, do think about whether you actually want to study engineering (in addition to politics/IR) or whether it’s solely because your mother wants you to do so. From my experience, people who aren’t enthused about engineering often don’t do very well in it. Especially if they’re also doing a double major.</p>
<p>there are dual/multi degree friendly unis (e.g. University of Pennsylvania) but many will only allow you to double major within the same school (and thus no dual degree).</p>
<p>there are scholarships for a second undergrad degree too (the UK to US equivalent of Rhodes but I forgot what it was called). </p>
<p>Generally, you won’t be able to transfer that many credits. Its easier to do 2 degrees at the same school since many core classes overlap. As for A levels, I don’t think you’ll get a full year of credit out of it but it’ll likely waive some courses. For some courses, you’ll still be expected to complete other courses in its stead (so it acts as a waiver instead of giving full credit).</p>
<p>I would not mind studying engineering and I’m willing to put the hard work in to attain the level of respect and quality of life that comes with it. </p>
<p>But I’m not as enthusiastic about it as Politics and International Relations. This is something that I can see myself excelling in.</p>
<p>Places like Penn and Johns Hopkins (both highly selective schools) allow students to double major in whatever they like and still complete in four years.</p>
<p>Apologies for bringing this post up again, but I just wanted to wonder, whether you would recommend a double major engineering degree be completed in 4 years, or whether I should spread it out over 5? </p>
<p>And where could I post to get a better idea of college life in the U.S? At the moment, I’m a little too well versed in the U.K system, but I’ve made up my mind to go to the U.S. I don’t like taking a load of general subjects, but the U.S’s liberal art programme sounds right to me. It’s diverse but specialised enough for me to enjoy it. </p>
<p>I’d like some opinions from other U.K students, how they dealt with the constant flying, how they kept in contact with old friends, how they found the new lifestyle etc.</p>