<p>Hey, everyone. :) I graduated from a well-respected early-college high school last spring with my associate degree from the lower-tier university my high school partnered with. I had a 3.95 GPA up until my last semester of senior year, at which point I got depressed and totally crashed and burned after not getting into any of my preferred universities and being left with BYU, my last-choice nightmare school. I had great extracurriculars and test scores (2280 SAT), and I did get waitlisted at Columbia, which must have meant something, but my cumulative college GPA is now 3.75.</p>
<p>I enrolled at BYU intending to make the best of it since it's a good school, but I'm having a really hard time culturally and my journalism program in particular (I'm currently doubling in Environmental Science and Journalism) is pretty unimpressive. After some consideration, I've decided to ditch the journalism major for now and focus on Environmental Science, and if at all possible, I'd love to transfer somewhere else after my freshman year here at BYU. </p>
<p>Does anyone have advice on transfer-friendly schools with good reputations for Environmental Science? UC Berkeley is consistently mentioned, but I'm afraid their admissions may be too competitive for me (same with all of the Ivies, etc.). A high-quality student paper is also a big consideration, since I'd like to keep doing a lot of work in journalism in preparation for j-school after I get my bachelor's. How competitive can I be as a transfer applicant to any university? Will that one awful semester affect my chances a lot, or does what I did in high school even matter that much? </p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the help. :) </p>