Drop out or Continue?

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

<p>Ok, so I am in a very complicated situation right now and have a serious decision to make.
I started at a CC in Fall 2011.
I applied for transfer for Fall 2013, got admitted to Cal as an Econ major.
Decided to go to Cal.
So now I am currently in my first full semester here at Berkeley (took one summer class at Cal and got a B in Stat 20).
Recently, however, I decided to switch my major to Mechanical Engineering.
I won't go into why I want to switch to ME, nor is it the point of this post.
(This would have been so much longer if I were to say why I want to switch)
Let's just say I want to go into a technical major, and I am determined to switch to Mechanical Engineering.
As many of you should know, UC Berkeley gives transfer admits a maximum of 5 full semesters to complete their degree and also there is a unit cap enforced.
Not surprisingly, as an Econ major, I do not have the prerequisites for Engineering, except for Calc 1 and 2.
Transfer admits are not allowed to apply for a change of college to the College of Engineering anyways.
So this all puts me in a very complicated dilemma.
In order to me to major in ME, I would have to drop out of Cal and go back to CC and start taking Engineering prereqs, which will take another two years. At first, I was very reluctant of such idea but I figured if I wanna switch, that's what I have to do.
So it really boils down to two options:
1. I could spend two more years at Cal and graduate with Econ and then start engineering for a second Bachelor.
2. I could drop out now and begin taking engineering prereqs at CC in Spring 2014 and apply again in two years. (I will be turning 21 later this year if that helps)</p>

<p>Trade-offs:
If I take the first route, I would practically be burning my tuition and wasting my time. But at least, you could say, I have a degree from Cal.
If I take the second route, I would have to withdraw from Cal and my money and time invested in this semester (and summer) would be wasted. And I would be applying for a transfer for a second time in two years with well over 100 units (right now I have 64 completed, with 15 in progress) , which puts me in a pretty bad place. Also, I won't be getting back into Berkeley COE since I would be on a withdraw from UC Berkeley L&S. The only way for me to switch to COE at Berkeley is to apply for a change of college, which, like mentioned, is now allowed for transfers.
So I will be looking at other UCs like Davis, LA, SD, SC...Or maybe Cal State</p>

<p>I had been talking to L&S advisor, community college counselor and my parents, who are very reluctant of the idea of my dropping out and start in another field. Their argument is that I should finish what I started and then move on to a new phase later.</p>

<p>I am really lost right now and I really need some advice. I thought I'd throw this up here so I can expose my situation to broader range of people.
Please feel free to say anything. I am looking for some raw / unbiased opinions.
Any words will be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>Be careful in that some of the schools have unit limitations for transfer students who have credit from four year schools. So check this carefully before making your decision.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/articulation/PDFs%20for%20Site/ucunitlimits_4yr_2yr.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/articulation/PDFs%20for%20Site/ucunitlimits_4yr_2yr.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>What if you finish out your Econ degree at Berkeley and minor in Mechanical Engineering? Or would that be unacceptable to you? It appears that Berkeley COE offers engineering minors and that would give you some exposure into engineering before you commit to a drastic decision like dropping out of Berkeley. </p>

<p>I think if you’ve just now discovered that you’re passionate about engineering and that’s what you truly want to do when you graduate then you have to follow through with it and try to major in engineering, regardless of what anyone, even your parents, thinks. However, if you’ve just selected ME without having much exposure to it because you think it’s a more practical degree, I think that justification for dropping out is ridiculous. It sounds like you may have half-heartedly selected Econ as your major and are realizing you made a mistake and now may be doing the same with ME. So, what happens if you drop out and switch to ME then transfer and realize you made another mistake? Then you’ve set yourself back even further in terms of time, money, and effort and you still won’t have a degree. I really don’t think there’s an easy answer anyone can give you. You likely just need to do some self-reflection and consider what made you choose Econ in the first place and why are you set on ME now? Also what are the consequences of each decision. Try to think of a best/worst case scenario for each and use all of that information to decide if pursuing ME and dropping out is the right choice for you.</p>

<p>One critical thing you need to consider is that for many of the UC’s you may be ineligible to re-transfer with 100+ units because you’d be considered a high unit senior transfer. Before you make any decision you should confirm with admissions you’ll be eligible after having attended a four year university and gone back down to the CC level. From this chart it looks like the only UC’s you’d be eligible to re-transfer to are UC Davis and UC Irvine.
<a href=“University of California Counselors”>University of California Counselors;
Also you may want to consider a private university like USC or Claremont. They usually have less limitations as far as transfers go.</p>

4

<p>If you’re hell bent on mechanical engineering, why waste time on majoring on something you don’t want. Drop out, go back to your cc, take those engineering classes, and apply again two years later. Your friends will probably be out by then, but aye at least you majored in something that you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life. But what happens if you find mechanical engineering coursework too rigorous and you want to switch again?</p>