<p>You're welcome jen. I have a question for current Merced students. Which terrace would you recommend incoming freshmen to live in, valley or sierra? Can anyone give the pros and cons of each one, like location relative to classes, noise levels, or social feel?</p>
<p>Jinny:</p>
<p>I would STRONGLY recomend to live in the suites and NOT the freshmen dorms. The reason is, in the freshmen dorms here your stuck in a small room, w/o its own bathroom. In a suite you get your room, with its own bathroom, and a living room. The suites are shared with 3-5 other people, and you get to be VERY good friends with them all. In the freshmen dorms it might be slightly more cumbersome to get to know people, I get the feeling like Toulume, valley, and sierra, are all slightly unsocial here</p>
<p>Jennifer:</p>
<p>Yes it is, if you do the h/w and study a considerable amont :-P The "A's" wont fall into your lap here, you must put up some effort.</p>
<p>Hey, I'm new on these forums and lack any knowledge of how AP exam scores are translated so forgive my ignorance for the time being. :]</p>
<p>Anyways, I was wondering how UC Merced translates AP scores. I have heard some schools reward a C for a 3 score, a B for a 4 score, and an A for a 5 score. Of course this would depend on the test and what kind of score UC Merced takes but I have been told by many of my friends this is the general trend for all UCs.</p>
<p>I have checked the list of scores that UCM takes and I am "exempt" (Bio, Lang, APUSH) although I'm not sure exactly what that means. </p>
<p>Can anyone clarify this for me please? Obviously taking and passing AP exams are a good thing but I don't want it to hurt my cumulative GPA when I exit college and try to get admitted into grad school. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey can you elaborate because I'm confused about which terrace to apply for. Would you recommend incoming freshmen to live in, valley or sierra? And why? Oh yea and I went to Bobcat day and they said the suites don't have a study area which is a major turn off! The freshman dorms have a study area and they said we can use them at anytime. Is this true? Am I wrong about any of this?
-I will be attending UCM this fall.</p>
<p>WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE! hahahaha I currently go to UCM, and can answer some of these questions:</p>
<p>fusionall: LOL, seriously, AP/IB classes are the biggest joke. I came into UCM with roughly 50 Semester units completed. Wow right? Wrong. This did absolutly nothing for me. It will exemt you from a few classes, HOWEVER....ask yourself do you REALLY want to be exemt from classes you could get an A in, only to take a class you will get a C+ in your first semester? If the answer is yes, then AP scores will help alot. Personnally, I would just accept that AP classes prepaired me for my first year of college, nothing more and nothing less. (My first year was quite easy, b.c it was bascially all review) Good way to boost the GPA for medical school. =]</p>
<p>Leviathan08....WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. hahah I love that phrase. Anyways, ok. Everyone Ive talked to and have gotten to know on campus agrees with me on this, Suites >>>>freshmen dorms. So they dont have a "study area" in the suites...ok so? Go to the libaray, trust me, staying in the study area in the dorm buildings will not only be frustrating, but you will get distracted by the dozens of people who disregard your studying (this is sadly a fact...) Suites are immensely better than freshmen dorms, due to the fact that you get more bang for your buck' in a the suites (as in you get like 5 rooms as opposed to one room) more like a house, I mean wow sry I can go on and on about this, but trust me if you want o maxamize your experince, opt for the suites</p>
<p>Premed- about your AP scores... I am assuming you took the CALC ab exam? If so, what type of math course did you take your first year at Merced. Did you retake your first year of calculus again or take a class even lower than that? Does anybody look down upon you if you are taking lower classes just because they are 'easy A's?' (grad school for example). I kinda want to do this so I can transfer with a 4.0 :) </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>haha, I never took a calc AP test, AP stats FTW! hahah lol. Do grad schools look down on you for getting an A in intro Bio? No way. If anything they would rather you get an A in intro Bio then a B in BIS 100 rather than jumping into BIS 100 and getting a C. Everyone likes to think "LOL! no Im different I'll just study X2 as hard yeah!" This doesnt work. Enjoy the chance to take an easy math/science class when you have it.</p>
<p>I see you live in SD, ill be transfering to UCSD for Fall 08'...Ironic. :-P</p>
<p>Thanx for the info about the dorms, it's really helpful. But, why are you living UCM and going to UCSD? See this is what scares me about UCM. Everyone I talked to at UCM only go there for the easy grades and then transfer to a more "established" UC. Why is everyone doing this and why are you? Oh and is there a chance that I could get a room by myself due to the small amount of students at UCM?</p>
<p>Thanks premed. I like that you went to UCM (an unranked college) and made the best of it, studying hard and transferring to a highly regarded school. Thats basically what I want to do (Besides the UCSD and medical part...thinking more UCLA).</p>
<p>I live in San Diego and am going up to Santa Cruz, not Merced. hehe. No way did I want to stay in San Diego - going to UCSD or SDSU (gotta get out of this place). </p>
<p>Regarding my question: for the classes you were exempt from or skipped ahead of through placement testing/ap exams, did you just take the easiest classes and repeated courses anyways or did you move on to the next level?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Thanks Premed. I didn't really think about it in that context. Quite strategic. ;]</p>
<p>Anyways, how are the political science courses at Merced? I'm thinking about going into pre-law and try to transfer over to another UC from Merced like you. Know anyone in the political science program that can elaborate on this for me?</p>
<p>About what percentage do tests factor in to your grade? I know it probably varies from class to class and from professor to professor but a general estimation would be nice. I'm only asking because tests are the only things I am relatively decent at.</p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>Ive taken quite a few classes here, and I can tell you for 95% of your classes you will have one or two midterms and aa final that will compose all of your grade. The exceptions to this is of course, courses in English and a stupid req. called CORE (man, I hated that class...still got an A, but still)</p>
<p>College is just a game, and grades are just apart of it. The better players will have better grades. haha :-P</p>
<p>I took the classes even if my AP scores exempted me from them, and I would do it agian haha =]]</p>
<p>Cool.. I am considering doing that as well. I'd like the easy A's :)</p>
<p>Should I buy a mac or a PC for my college years at UCM? Which one is more likely to be used at UCM? What do the teachers use? What do the students use?</p>
<p>Street racing?</p>
<p>I <3 Apple!!! That's why i am getting a Macbook pro, a mac is the best of both worlds... because if you own a Mac, you can use bootcamp (software that comes when u buy your mac). When u start ur Mac u can choose whether to have Mac or PC. To find out more about bootcamp click</a> here </p>
<p>The only bad thing about apple is that they are expensive, and if u want to use bootcamp, u must buy Windows xp or vista os</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Should I buy a mac or a PC for my college years at UCM? Which one is more likely to be used at UCM? What do the teachers use? What do the students use?
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Depends. If you want to lose all your information because your unit crashed, go for a PC. Macs aren't just for video production or music production, although they excel in those fields. </p>
<p>I have a Macbook and a PC laptop and I can tell you now that I am way more productive on my Mac. No, it's not because it looks fancy or its made by Apple. It is because everything is intuitive and the learning curve is practically nonexistent.</p>
<p>On my Mac, everything is laid out easily. I never have to install drivers for new hardware (I make music in my spare time and not having to go through different drivers from different instruments is great). I never have to install anti-virus software. I never have to worry about spyware, malware, or adware. </p>
<p>Now, Macbooks cost more than their PC counterparts at similiar specs but think about it this way. You will be using that laptop for 4+ years, saving precious data on it. Would you rather have a laptop on which the hardware was designed by a different company that made the software or would you rather have unity and functionality?</p>
<p>To Arian19: Way to go! Macs are the best of both worlds. However, if you aren't going into processor intensive applications, a Macbook Pro wouldn't be needed for regular college activity (email, word processing, surfing the web). </p>
<p>Unless you have the extra $1000 laying around, I'd personally go with the mid-range Macbook. It's designed to be a desktop replacement and has enough power to hold its own. :]</p>
<p>Just a thought.</p>
<p>Can we not get into the whole Mac vs PC debate? There are perks for each brand, I for one lean towards PC's. You can actually get an extremely well equipped PC on Newegg.com</a> - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! for the same price as a "lower" mac.
If moneys a problem but your also into playing some PC games I suggest you get a PC. If PC's are too hard for you to use then get a Mac...</p>
<p>Also, your argument on losing data on the PC...I never really had a problem with that. I am currently using the same PC I had since 7th grade, I just upgraded it (total cost >$400) and its pretty much up to date. If you can spend a minute loading your stuff onto a flashdrive then backing up files shouldn't be a problem.</p>