<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p>First off, a little about myself. I am a fourth year Biochemistry major at UCSB and will be attending one of the top Dental schools in the nation next year. Therefore, my comments are mainly geared towards the science related professions. I want to clear up some misconceptions that I saw on these forums while I viewed them back when I was in high school. Recently, I decided to look through my previous posts from 4 years ago. My comments here were ridiculous in terms of the assumptions I made about schools. Over the past 4 years, I have matured and grown a lot. </p>
<p>1) The school you go to REALLY does not matter. I have a multitude of friends going to medical, pharmacy, optometry, and dental school next year (along with myself). We all realized that the admissions committees at each school do not care where you went for undergrad. I was fortunate enough to receive a multitude of interviews, and each one had present a diversity of students from schools around the country from low to high rankings. What mattered the MOST was DAT/GPA or MCAT/GPA or OAT/GPA or PCAT/GPA etc. They matter significantly more than your recommendation letters, Extra curricular, and so on. That being said, you should attend the school that you feel the most comfortable at, and will excel in. I’ll go over later on my opinion of UCSB.</p>
<p>2) Just because it is a UC does NOT mean that letters of recommendation will be difficult to obtain. Attending office hours is important, and most professors are very generous with the amount of time that they allocate to their students. In fact, a lot of professors will give you recommendation letters if you were to just get an A in the course. However, i would advise against that. I took the time to get to know my professors well. </p>
<p>3) All schools “party.” I have visited UCI, Chapman, UCLA, and other schools and realized that every school parties a lot. The difference between the schools is the location of where these parties are at, and their concentration. For example, UCSB has Isla Vista, which is a square mile in which a lot of parties take place. UCI has parties, but they are spread out all over the place so the school itself seems less impacted by the party scene. USC has the row where lots of greek life is, along with the surrounding apartments. Don’t make partying a deciding factor for any school.</p>
<p>My opinion on UCSB.
I came to college thinking that I was going to be all about studying. My freshman year was the exact opposite, and as a consequence, my GPA dropped to under a 3.0. As a pre-health major, this is pretty bad. Do I regret it? No. I learned a lot during that first year in terms of communication skills, and life lessons. I made mistakes, but I learned from them. I turned myself completely around during the last 3 years, and I feel like I have learned more at this school than I have in my entire life. </p>
<p>The good: The area is beautiful, and there are a lot of fun things to do. Some things to do include hiking, downtown Santa Barbara, shotgun shooting, sky diving, water sports, really nice bicycle routes, and more. You get to live on the beach for four years while having a great social and academic experience; I cant say the same thing for many other schools in the US. There are also a lot of nice people that are willing to help you out. Granted, it does get really competitive at times, but for the most part people are very friendly. </p>
<p>Now, if you are a science or engineering major; I HIGHLY recommend UCSB, and here is why. I have taken summer courses at UCI, and most of my friends from high school go there so I will use that school as a comparison. The breakdown of courses for biology majors in general at any school is: 1st year- General Chemistry + Lab Series, Math Series, GE’s. 2nd year- Organic Chemistry+ Lab Series, Physics+Lab series, Bio+lab Series. 3rd and Fourth year- Upper divisions including genetics, biochemistry, physiology, histology, immunology and so on.
The most IMPORTANT classes are going to be your intro classes because they set a foundation for all of the other courses that you will be taking. Most schools offer some sort of tutoring for them, UCI has the LARC program while UCSB has the CLAS program. CLAS was essential for getting good grades in the intro courses. They meet twice a week and have about 25 people in each section. I used it every quarter for Chem, Ochem, Bio, Physics, and genetics. CLAS is a FREE service, while LARC is a paid service (around $50-$80 per class I believe). Because it is a paid service, many students do not use it. It gets expensive when you start using it for every class per quarter (~$180/quarter x 3 quarters/year x 2 years). My friends that are biology majors at UCI always complain about this. CLAS on the other hand, like I said previously, is free. The majority of the students are enrolled in the program, and it is treated as another class. It helps tremendously and the tutors go through a vigorous process before being selected. However, this can also make things harder for the students. The professors know that 80%+ of the students are taking these tutoring services, so they expect more of you. In fact, they often collaborate with the CLAS tutors resulting in some information coming from the tutors and not from the in-class lectures. The fact that you get more information will in turn prepare you more for larger exams, and graduate schooling. My friends and I that took the MCAT/DAT only studied for a short while, a month or so , while I have heard others study for those exams for up to 6 months. UCI also has a free tutoring service, but it is not near the same level of quality as CLAS. CLAS and LARC make a much better comparison. The reason for me mentioning the tutoring system is because I feel like this significant difference between UCSB(where nearly all the students use the tutoring service leading to, in my opinion, a better education), and some other schools where tutoring is not used as excessively.
However, like I said earlier, the school that you go to doesnt matter. You are better off going to a school where its easier and you can get higher grades. There is a lot of competition amongst all the UCs. Only around 10-20% of each class are getting As, and you should be in that top 10-20% if you are thinking of going into a health profession. The competition at other lower tier schools is going to be easier. You will not be given the same opportunities in terms of research, but it will be easier overall, and you will have a near equal opportunity for admittance into a health program. </p>
<p>The Bad: </p>
<p>The ONLY thing about UCSB that I didn’t like is mainly revolving around the partying. As I said earlier, the parties are all concentrated in one area, so it gets pretty loud and annoying sometimes. The people can also be really ridiculous (not necessarily the UCSB students, but the out of towners that visit all the time, and SBCC students). I often am confronted with loud, obnoxious, and disrespectful people in Isla Vista. A lot of property can get vandalized around Isla Vista. The area itself is safe; I feel comfortable walking around at any time. </p>
<p>I apologize for my long post, but I hope this information will help someone out with his or her future endeavors. Please feel free to ask me questions about anything.</p>