How hard is it graduating in 4 years?

<p>I'm trying to decide between a private school and UCLA and because the publics in California are so impacted, I'm worried about having to go extra years just to get a Bachelor's. How hard is it to get classes if you are not in a sport or in the honors program?</p>

<p>Good question, hope you get some answers. Maybe it is major specific as well…so I would add to your question, is it the major classes or core classes that are so hard to get?</p>

<p>I’m also wondering about this. I was accepted for materials engineering, but I might switch to electrical or bioengineering. Anyone have information about the difficulty of getting classes?</p>

<p>I have the same questions as the above posters. I plan on going to grad school right after getting my undergrad degree and I’m wondering how can not being able to get your required classes affect getting into grad school?</p>

<p>It’s honestly not that big of a deal, the majority of people will graduate within 4 years (some actually graduate a little early). I’ve never really had a problem getting into the classes I wanted (although I did start off with a handful of AP credit). Except for the very popular/high demand courses, you should be able to get into the classes you need as a freshman, specifically the intro courses with large enrollment capacity, albeit not always with the professor or time you might prefer. If you can’t enroll, there are other options like taking a GE, as there are always random classes that are open, for certain courses you can ask the professor for a PTE number or wait until the first week of classes when some people drop, or wait until the next quarter to enroll. 3 classes is the norm, some people manage to take 4/5 a quarter but depends on how many units and how each person individually studies. Furthermore you can check the registrar every now and then and if you get lucky someone will have dropped and you can take their spot. Summer school is another option, especially to gain units so you can have higher standing. Either way, by the end of your 2nd year you should be close or already senior level (you’ll also learn soon enough about how the pass enrollment system works).</p>

<p>EDIT: I’m not an engineer, so I can’t speak for HSSEAS.</p>

<p>Very difficulty to graduate in 4 years as an engineering major with no summer school session.</p>

<p>I’m a B average student and graduated right on time but I took 5 classes over summer school over 2 years. If I didn’t take summer school. I would be looking at an extra fall or maybe fall+winter quarter.</p>

<p>If you are north campus major or even biz-econ. You can normally graduate in 3.5 years.</p>

<p>How flexible is UCLA about taking a few courses at another institution (like over the summer) if one cannot get those courses at UCLA?</p>

<p>@vesper39: Is “north campus” a synonym for liberal arts? LOL</p>

<p>Vesper, did you have ap credit/community college credit before starting freshman year? I had intended to use my summers for internships/research/jobs since they’re critical for a resume and applying to grad school. Would it be worth it to graduate in 4 1/2 or 5 in this case?</p>

<p>Sent from my SPH-L710 using CC</p>

<p>Can someone clarify this mystery for me…if you aren’t graduating in 4 years, I suppose that means you can’t get all the classes you need at the right time. So are there quarters where you register for less classes and carry less credits, or is that time filled with random (non major credit classes)??? I’m looking at the engineering side of things, but assume this applies to other majors where 4 years is unlikely.</p>

<p>For engineering, I know it’s normal to take 5 years (occasional repeats and class during summers). I know one guy that took 6.</p>

<p>So do people take less course load cause they can’t get classes? Cause what I see is you pay full tuition to take less classes, then spend another year of tuition (5th year) to get them done. Make a difference in financial eval of public v. private. Or do they just fill them with interesting or frivolous electives and graduate with more credits than needed?</p>

<p>I’ve been accepted as a PRE-Economics major not an Economics major. what does that mean? Does everyone get accepted as a pre-econ major?</p>

<p>CADREAMIN: There is a Writing I and Writing II requirement (classes denoted with a W after the number), quantitative reasoning requirement, and foreign language requirement. I managed to pass out of all of these except the Writing II, which AP credit or test scores cannot be used to fulfill. There are also a couple of GE categories to satisfy so one can plan it such that 1 GE/foreign language/writing class is taken per quarter and that can be something to take in case you can’t get into the core/major classes you need. Some GEs will overlap in fulfilling the other requirements so you are killing two birds with one stone in that sense. Additionally you could finish off all your GEs in 1 year as I did, but I’d rather have spread them out so I could have quarters where I took a lighter class along with 2 science courses. Again, I speak from the Letters and Science side, the engineering school works differently. </p>

<p>People also take classes for fun (for example in the film school or with professors like Jared Diamond), and you need 60 upper division units to graduate anyway, so most of what you take will count towards something. Your major probably won’t cover this requirement, so you need to go out and take extra courses (most upper division courses are not GEs).</p>

<p>Yes, everyone gets accepted as pre-something, once you finish the pre-requisites and meet the requirements you can apply for major standing.</p>