<p>I have a question, when I applied for my UC schools, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I heard that applying undeclared could hurt my chances (not sure if that’s true or not, but I went along with it), so I talked it over with my parents, and they convinced me to put down Business (or something in the Business field) as my first major, since they are both involved in the Business field. But I’ve researched Business careers more thoroughly lately and came to the conclusion that this may not be for. My question is, if I attend a UC school, will I be able to switch majors after my first 2 years of general ed is finished? Or am I stuck with my business major? If I can switch majors, how easy is it to do so? Or will I be waitlisted or something, or will it just be a big pain in the butt.</p>
<p>Just curious…</p>
<p>Applying undeclared wouldn’t have changed your chances. That being said, changing majors is easy. You can do it whenever you want. What isn’t easy though is changing into an impacted major. I don’t know the list of impacted majors for each UC but I’m sure there’s a list somewhere. But yeah, once you’re enrolled as a student, just go to the school website and change majors. It should be as simple as a few clicks of a button and maybe an email.</p>
<p>It’s not THAT easy to switch majors. You have to get your ducks in a row, do your research, keep your GPA up. Figure out what major you want: find the course and GPA requisites and start knocking those down. You may be surprised to find that many majors have a “pre-major” with a lengthy list of courses and a fairly high minimum GPA. You generally can’t take any of your pre-major or major requisites P/NP, either, so watch that. </p>
<p>And finally, a bit of bad news, my own S had trouble registering for classes needed for his “pre-major” because he entered undeclared, and due to budget constraints, those classes were limited to students with declared majors only. You can usually get around this by taking that class the following quarter. For example: MathA is going to be more popular in the Fall, followed by MathB in Winter and MathC in Spring. So you just have to wait and do MathA in Winter, MathB in Spring. You might be well-advised to attend summer school, too, either at a CC or at your home campus and get back on-sequence. If you go the CC route, you’ll save $$ but be sure to check ASSIST first to make sure you’ll get credit.</p>
<p>^Definitely I’m talking from the experience of somebody who goes to UCSD so I guess I can’t say it’s the same at all the UCs though I’m assuming it’s similar to some extent. The point being, he wants to switch majors, this shouldn’t be hard to do if he hasn’t taken any classes yet. I’ve never heard of needing a minimum GPA to switch majors so I guess that’s at other UCs. I know here, all you pretty much have to do is go online and click a button to change majors and they give you a new list of classes to take, but yeah, getting the classes for your major may not always be easy, but actually changing your major shouldn’t be a problem.</p>
<p>It’s fairly easy to switch majors, especially since you are not in any specialized majors (engineering, for example). Make sure you talk over your concerns and make your wishes known to your academic advisor. You shouldn’t have any problems unless you are trying to switch INTO a very competitive major (engineering, for example).</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the Arts & Science “major sheets” at UC Santa Barbara. Most do specify a minimum GPA in the required courses to declare a major.
[College</a> of Letters & Science Major and Minor Sheets (2009-2010), Office of the Registrar](<a href=“http://www.registrar.ucsb.edu/majors-09-10.htm]College”>404 - Page Not Found)</p>
<p>UCSB has some nice advice about how to choose a major, too: [Letters</a> & Science Academic Advising :: Why Choose a Major?](<a href=“http://www.advising.ltsc.ucsb.edu/undeclared/]Letters”>http://www.advising.ltsc.ucsb.edu/undeclared/)</p>
<p>^That’s unfortunate that UCSB is that way. I know at UCSD it’s as easy as clicking a button.</p>
<p>Okay so, I applied undeclared, but I want to switch to engineering. Is that possible to do?</p>
<p>^I’ll take your case for UCSD. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering are both impacted majors so for those two, no it won’t be easy and certainly not possible at first. Any other engineering major though, it should be as easy as clicking a button to switch into. And this is just for UCSD. I don’t know about the other UCs.</p>
<p>@dxcdivad, anything is possible … but sometimes you need to put in a lot of hard work and things don’t always go your way.</p>