<p>Hi
This is a thread for new admits with questions about Eleanor Roosevelt College or UCSD in general. Feel free to ask and I will do my best to provide satisfactory answers :)</p>
<p>What do you like most and least about ERC? and UCSD in general too!</p>
<p>Is it possible to transfer colleges at all? Also, please compare the GE courses with high school courses. I know there is an obvious difference between the workload and such, but I’m really curious as to how prepared you felt when you took the courses. (Sorry if that sentence was a bit confusing) Did you feel that the courses you took in high school prepared you?</p>
<p>^You could only possibly transfer after you’ve completed MMW and if you can prove switching will allow you to graduate in for years. It also has to be a 1 to 1 switch. So pretty much, it’s unlikely.</p>
<p>^Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>I’m confused on the GEs. When you take the courses, are they all located at ERC? Would there be any reason to visit the other colleges besides to hang out with other people?</p>
<p>^Your classes will be scattered around everywhere so you’ll be going to all different colleges on any given day. You can also eat at whatever dining hall you want. It’s really no different than any other university. Most universities don’t have their residence communities all in the same spot. UCSD just decided to draw imaginary lines and call them colleges.</p>
<p>That makes so much more sense. Thank you!</p>
<p>My favorite parts of ERC:
-nice dorms
-close proximity to both Pangea and Hopkins covered parking structures
-close to the new Village Market (like a on-campus grocery store)
-it’s quiet. Unlike most of the other colleges, we don’t have very many buildings with classrooms so there are never crowds of people coming in and out
-layout of dorms in the college. The freshman dorms are in a row right across from the second year apartments. I think this really promotes social interaction.
-that it is further away from everything. I might be alone in this, but I really like walking. First quarter I had my first class in Revelle. That walk alone is about a mile.</p>
<p>My least favorite parts of ERC:
-the MMW sequence. I actually do like history but I feel that the program chooses to gloss over a huge time frame instead of giving a more in depth view of history topics.
-thin walls. Once, I was standing in the furthest corner of my common room and I heard my phone vibrate through the closed door of my room.
-Cafe Ventanas, our dining hall is very pretty but not good at all
-Right next to construction. They are building a new wing to the business school so sometimes we wake up to construction</p>
<p>Actually, you only have to complete the “writing intensive” portions of MMW (2&3) before you transfer because the sequence is so long. If you want to petition a transfer you need to write an education plan that shows that you can graduate two quarters earlier in a different college. I know people who have done it successfully, so it is accomplishable.</p>
<p>^Oh ok. Shows what I know. But the important part is that the switch can’t be right away. You’ll be better informed on what you want to do after a year.</p>
<p>If you value quality of life more than achievement in the research/academic realm, then ERC should be good for you. For people who focus more on interaction with the rest of UCSD, convenience/proximity to important places (ie. lecture halls and libraries) then ERC may be a serious misfit. ERC provides comfort, beautiful and new living spaces and La Jollan glamour with a suburban, quiet laidback vibe. But if you want to be at the nucleus of campus, in the hub of activity, ERC is so isolated and distant from everything else that you’ll feel at a disadvantage when it comes to getting involved.
The closest, most important things we have are RIMAC gym and the social sciences building. The main libraries and all the lecture halls are located at least a 8-9 minute walk away. This might not sound like much, but I do think ERC has adversely impacted my ability to get involved at UCSD just because it’s so physically isolated from everything/everyone else. There is not a single lecture hall in ERC that the average undergrad would ever go to. Everything is so far away that you get sick of living here. I know I do. When you consider that a student living in ERC has to leave at least 5 minutes before someone from Muir does just to get to class, that’s a lot of extra time and energy spent on the ERC student’s part just to get the same result as the Muir student (get to class). And that 5+ minutes x 3 times a day, every weekday over several months adds up. Living that far away makes you not as likely to be involved with the rest of campus, lest you are super motivated and not easily hindered from being active in school. I unfortunately am not the most motivated, aggressive person so I find ERC’s isolation to be a pretty significant hinderance. Certainly if you put in the effort, you can get involved, and this is true for anyone, anywhere; it’s just significantly harder at ERC for those of us who are not exceptionally extroverted and active. so that is my warning to all of you who may not have the most outgoing personality.</p>
<p>That being said, ERC is not a bad place to be at all, especially for those of us who appreciate a nice living environment. I just think it’s important to note what I find to be a serious flaw of ERC: its isolation. I feel like I’m missing out on the complete UCSD experience just by being so distant from the heart of campus. I guess all colleges can say that to some extent; I just think ERC and Sixth have that isolation problem the worst by far.</p>
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<p>This is seriously the lamest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. “Hey, do you want to hang out?” “No, I might have to walk for 5 minutes to get to you.” “Hey do you want to go to the beach?” “Is it more than a 5 minute walk? Count me out.”</p>
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<p>Uh oh, I hope I don’t accidentally get a tiny bit of exercise. Please tell me this post was a joke.</p>
<p>I agree. The farthest point on campus that you would MAYBE need to get to as an undergrad is the Stein Clinical Research building (if you have a lab position there) and that is a twenty minute walk at most. Everything is within very reasonable walking distance. However, if the strain of placing one foot after another in a repeated motion is too much then you can always take the campus shuttle.</p>
<p>I’m in cognitive science major (pre-med possibly), do you think I’m in the wrong college? I am good at history/have a good work ethic but writing can screw me over a lot.</p>
<p>Not at all. In terms of workload, ERC does have more GEs than most of the other colleges and the pre-med track does have a lot of requirements but the difficulty of the MMW sequence is totally manageable. The first quarter doesn’t even have a writing component. In MMW 2 you are required to write 3 6-8 page papers but you have a mandatory small discussion section (about 15 people) twice a week where your TA walks you through the writing process. The TAs are usually very good about making themselves available outside of class for writing feedback. If you are good at history I think you will actually enjoy MMW. If you took AP World/European/American History in high school you will notice that a lot of the material is review. My one big suggestion is to not take Professor Jordan for MMW 1. His class is so notoriously difficult because of tests and the sheer volume of reading that it requires a curve. Either way, you are stuck in ERC for the next year at least so I encourage you to try it out and see what you think. If you feel the GEs are getting in the way of your major you can petition to transfer in a year.</p>
<p>operaticmimosa
quick question about ERC</p>
<p>what ways are there to avoid the language GE’s??</p>
<p>i got a 620 on my SAT II Spanish and went up to Spanish 5 [the teacher made me sick and i didn’t want to take AP]</p>
<p>You can take Language Proficiency Exam for Spanish or take the Language Placement test and take the equivalent of 4 quarters from whatever class you where placed into.</p>
<p>Here is a more detailed explanation of the ERC language requirement and how to get it waived:
[url=<a href=“http://roosevelt.ucsd.edu/academics/gen-ed/language.html]Language[/url”>http://roosevelt.ucsd.edu/academics/gen-ed/language.html]Language[/url</a>]</p>
<p>For AP scores, would a 3 on any of the exams earn any credit?</p>
<p>My d is finishing her third year at erc, she will graduate in dec. 3.3 years with a major and 2 minors. Great experience for her, she is in I- house now. She started with 24 credits out of h.s. there is an ap conversion chart on the website. Each college at UCSD has it’s own ge requirement and everyone complains, oh well.</p>
<p>i ended up on this site:
<a href=“https://lang.ucsd.edu/llp/placement/index.html[/url]”>https://lang.ucsd.edu/llp/placement/index.html</a>
to take hte placement exam… now is this for everyone as “practice” to see where you should go… or is this like a one time thingy…</p>
<p>and they dont have “Spanish” for the proficiency exam!!! hmm i might have to brush up on the hindi then…</p>