Help with this major (and my transfer chances?)

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

<p>Hi everyone, I'd love to get some help with this. I'm very interested in UCLA's linguistic with computer science major, but....I'm missing prerequisites. Here are the courses needed for transfer according to UCLA's site (I've found nothing about it on assist)</p>

<p>*one course in introduction to linguistics (which I’ve been told must be fulfilled at UCLA)
*two years of a foreign language
*one year of calculus
*one symbolic logic course
*four computer programming courses
*strongly recommended: one course in discrete structures</p>

<p>I’ve read on here that it’s quite a bad thing to be missing even 1 major prep course for an impacted major, but I’m not sure what to think of mine. On UCLA’s transfer admission profile stats, I’ve seen very low numbers apply to it (I don’t think I saw more than 30 in any particular year), so I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. </p>

<p>Here’s a little about me:
As for major prep:</p>

<p>-I took a symbolic logic course at Pierce College (no idea if it’s equivalent, but it’s transferable, so I thought I might as well take it).
-I took 3 programming courses at East Los Angeles College (Intro to Java, Intro to C++, Beginning Visual Basic) and 2 programming courses at Los Angeles Valley College (Object Oriented C++ and Data Structures).
…and that’s really it.</p>

<p>I’ve met the writing transfer requirement (I took English 101 and 103 at ELAC), Pre-calculus at ELAC for the math requirement, and I should receive partial IGETC certification by the end of spring (I’m going to be missing a biological science course and an art course). A slight positive is that I’ve maintained a perfect GPA, but as you can see, I have at the most, just 5 major prep courses completed, so I’m wondering if my 4.0 even matters.</p>

<p>On a different note, I took Spanish I in high school (the linguistics transfer page mentions that 1 year of high school foreign language can satisfy the language prep), but I dropped out in the 10th grade—so I have no clue if UCLA would be willing to count that. I’ve taken another course in Spanish at ELAC, but it says that 2 semesters are needed—I’m just really confused about that part.</p>

<p>Anyway, sorry for this being so long and for any help. I’ll be glad to provide additional information if you need it.</p>

2

<p>I know that UCLA can be really strict about prereqs for some majors (CS on its own) but can be relatively relaxed with other majors. I looked on assist and didn’t see an articulation with Pierce (it isn’t even listed) or East LA. I’m guessing they would be fairly relaxed about the prereqs considering there are not any listed on Assist. But you could possibly figure out the CS transfer classes through this:
[ASSIST</a> Report: LAEC 13-14 UCLA Articulation Agreement by Major](<a href=“http://web1.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=LAEC&ria=UCLA&ia=LAEC&oia=UCLA&aay=13-14&ay=13-14&dora=COMP+SCI]ASSIST”>http://web1.assist.org/web-assist/report.do?agreement=aa&reportPath=REPORT_2&reportScript=Rep2.pl&event=19&dir=1&sia=LAEC&ria=UCLA&ia=LAEC&oia=UCLA&aay=13-14&ay=13-14&dora=COMP+SCI)</p>

<p>If you took Spanish I + another semester at ELAC I think you would be good. Was Spanish I in HS before you dropped out or at a CC?</p>

<p>There is someone else on here applying for that major, maybe they can chime in.</p>

3

<p>Ah, the whole name of Pierce is Los Angeles Pierce College, so maybe that’s why you couldn’t find it on assist. Any linguistic major that I’ve checked with the community colleges in the LACCD distrcit that I’ve attended don’t have anything show up for some reason on assist. </p>

<p>The two programming courses that I took at LAVC apparently match up with UCLA Computer Science 31 and 32, but going by the wording “four programming courses” I have no clue if they all have to match up or if they just have to be UC transferable.</p>

<p>I took Spanish I in high school before dropping out and I took a course called Spanish 35 at ELAC; it was a Spanish for Spanish Speakers course.</p>

4

<p>I think you are OK with the CS classes. It doesn’t seem like there are even 4 courses articulated that you can take. </p>

<p>For the Spanish I think that could equate to two years of a foreign language. Because a semester class at CC counts as a year of HS spanish which is how they judge the credit. You might want to confirm with UCLA though.</p>

5

<p>[Transfer</a> Major Prep - Linguistics - UCLA Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/lsmajors/ling.htm]Transfer”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/lsmajors/ling.htm)</p>

<p>^I’m mainly going by this. It says two semesters/three quarters is equivalent to a year, but I’m just really clueless if they’d count my Spanish 1 from HS and my Spanish 35 as the one year minimum requirement for the major (Spanish 35 was somewhat of an accelerated Spanish 1 that assumed some Spanish familiarity; ELAC didn’t let me take Spanish 2 despite a challenge I made).</p>

6

<p>It seems like you would benefit from sticking around CC another year and finishing up IGETC as well as your math classes. You might also want to look into taking CS 516 at Pierce College which is equivalent to UCLA’s CS 33. If you took Philosophy 9 at Pierce, then it does satisfy the symbolic logic course at UCLA (Philosophy 31). You can verify this by looking at the Philosophy major on assist.org. </p>

<p>As far as the language goes, I think you are misinterpreting it. If you are referring to this:</p>

<p>“Completion of at least one year of high school in which the primary language of instruction was the selected language may be substituted for lower division language preparation.”</p>

<p>This would only apply if you attended a school in which everything was taught in another language, like say if you attended high school in Mexico for a year and were taught completely in Spanish. That’s why on the UC application there is a section when you put in what high schools you attended that asks for the “primary language of instruction”. I’ve read elsewhere that this basically tells the schools that you are fluent in that language and therefore satisfy the equivalent of the final language classes (which is usually the 6th course at UCLA).</p>

<p>This page states the language requirements more clearly.
[B.A&lt;/a&gt;. in Linguistics and Computer Science](<a href=“http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/prospective/undergraduate/168-ba-in-linguistics-and-computer-science.html]B.A”>Prospective Students - Department of Linguistics - UCLA)</p>

<p>“completion of the sixth term in one foreign language or the third term in each of two foreign languages”</p>

<p>So it seems that you would have to take more Spanish courses to fulfill that requirement. However, the Spanish course you already took probably satisfies the IGETC language requirement. So you might only need to take like 2 more Spanish courses and 3 more in another language, or just 5 more Spanish courses. This particular major doesn’t have the limitation that other Linguistics majors have when it comes to language courses you can take. Others don’t allow you to take the full series of either a Romance, Slavic or Germanic language to satisfy this requirement.</p>

<p>Anyway, you already applied so good luck on getting in. I applied for the same major so feel free to ask more about it since I’ve probably spent months researching this stuff.</p>

7

<p>Gosh, I definitely was reading it wrong. I basically took it to mean that a year of high school Spanish would meet the minimum of 1 year of a foreign language. Thanks for the info about philosophy 9 - I had no idea if it was equivalent. I know that LAVC has an assembly language course as well that’s equivalent according to ASSIST, but I’m not sure that I’d be able to take it in spring; I loaded up on a lot of IGETC/GE courses to try and get partial certification. </p>

<p>I don’t really have any specific questions, but I’d be happy to know anything that you can tell me about the major that you’ve learned/read about.</p>