Should I transfer from UCI?

Hi, so this may be a lot of information so I’ll try to cut it down as much as possible. I’m a community college transfer student who is about to begin my first quarter at UCI. Unfortunately, my experience with the college so far has been an absolute nightmare. The financial aid department has been sending me multiple different verification tasks since June, and is still requesting more information from me. They haven’t been helpful with the process at all, and it’s looking like I might have to pay my first tuition payment out of pocket to prevent myself from being dropped from my classes because they haven’t been able to complete my file on time for the deadline. They also moved one of my classes from on campus to online and didn’t even send me and email or any sort of notification telling me. This is a huge pain, because I am a commuter, and now I only have one on campus class which means I will be driving 45+ minutes to take a single 50 minute class. Also, I’ve decided to change my major to communications, but the only communications major that the college offers seems to be communications and journalism, which is not what I wanted. (Sidenote: why would such a huge college not offer one of the most basic majors?) In addition to all of this, I’m stuck with a schedule full of classes that I’m not content with, but it’s too late for me to pick anything else. Because of all this, I’m genuinely not even looking forward to attending UCI anymore.

At this point I’m infuriated with the school and regretting my choice. Assuming the financial aid situation gets cleared out, which is still up in the air, I’m still stuck because they don’t seem to offer a major that I want anymore, plus after the entire financial aid fiasco I’ve lost all respect for the college. But should I transfer? My idea was to transfer somewhere else in the spring but all the deadlines have ended. So should I stick with the college for this year then transfer somewhere else? I’ve been hearing it’s hard to transfer anywhere once you’ve gotten accepted into a UC, which worries me. To be clear, I don’t care if it’s a UC or a CSU that I potentially transfer to, I just don’t want to go to this college anymore. What should I do?

Have you spoken to your UCI transfer counselor? Usually, there is a counselor who has been assigned to you, at your UC when your CC counselors work with you, on your transfer apps.

If you really don’t like your current experience you could take a gap year? Ask your UCI counselor.
If you are a California resident, the majority of your financial aid would come from the State’s Cal Grants or University Grants. The Cal Grants could take a while because things have been up in the air during Covid. You can contact the Cal Grant office yourself. https://www.csac.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/understanding_my_cal_grant_-_updated_11.21.17.pdf

Hey @aunt_bea thanks for responding. I actually haven’t spoken to a transfer counselor. I may do that. As for taking a gap year, I wish I could, but my father is heavily against the idea and I still live with him, so it would cause a lot of conflict so I’m trying to avoid that as much as possible.

What is your local CSU?
Do you have an AA-T, and if so in what subject?

I can’t really assess whether you should stick it out at Irvine.
But it would be helpful to know what your alternative(s) would be.
If you could do a spring transfer into your desired major, and end up with a less onerous commute that you’re facing now at UCI, maybe pulling the plug would make sense. You certainly sound like you want to bail out.

Also, how many transferable credits do you have? (You might still be able to take some communications classes at a quarter-system CC this fall.)

I’m not advocating for you to give up on UCI - just trying to assess what that plan would look like.

I would say that if UCI does not offer the major you want to pursue, then it may be not worth staying but I would try to see as suggested by @aquapt if there are some communication classes at UCI that would be within the scope of the degree you want to pursue.

However if you stay for either a few quarters or a year, be careful with the number of transferable units you accumulate since the UC’s especially have maximum unit limits. Since you transferred in from a CC, any UC units you take will be added to the CC units you transferred in with to UCI.

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/quick-reference.pdf#page=34

If you transfer, do you plan to still live at home? If so, they will limit your school options depending upon where you currently reside. Only UC Merced, Riverside or Santa Cruz accept Winter/Spring transfers.

For the Cal states, you have more options for Spring 2022, but most have deadlines on 9/30/2021 so you need to make a decision now.

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