Transfer Again or stay at CSUCI?

My college experience has been all over the place. I started off at CSUF out of high school as an undecided. After a year though I still wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in so I moved back to my hometown in NorCal to go to community college. I went there for 3 years while bouncing around lots of different major which lead me to unenthusiastically landing on computer science.

Anyways the year after I decided I wanted to move to SoCal again and was going to go to another community college for a year while going through the transfer application process. Not knowing much about the area I only applied to UCSB, UCI, and CSUCI for computer science. My heart was set on UCSB but unfortunately I was only accepted into CSUCI.

When I applied I thought I would be okay with going to CSUCI but I just don’t feel like I really am. I know it’s not a terrible school but I just don’t have my heart in it. After being at a community college for 4 years I would really like to be at a big campus again and feel like I’m at college. Whereas I feel like CSUCI is such a small campus it will feel more of the same. Also I feel like if I go to CSUCI it would only be to finish school and I would be missing out on a “college experience” of sport, campus events, greek life etc. I’m wondering if I might be better off going there for a year while going through the application process again to go to a school I would feel happier being at, and with a better computer science program.

If I were to transfer again, as of right now I have a 3.75 GPA, and was thinking of applying to CSUF, CSULB, CSUN, Pomona, and UCSB. Anyone with personal experiences with any of these schools especially their thoughts on the computer science programs? Also any thoughts on the computer programming department, or thoughts in general on CSUCI?

On one hand I want to finish up with college as soon as possible since I’ve already been in school for 5 years, but on the other hand it would mean a lot to me to be at a campus I feel proud to be at.

I’m just so confused. Any advice appreciated.

If you go there I assume that by now you’ve finished all lower level requirements and prerequisites for a degree and will be taking upper division classes. The reason this matters is that UC schools only admit students as juniors. If you spend a year at CSUCI you may earn enough units so that you’ll be considered a high-unit junior or a senior and not eligible for admission. Look into this for the UCs, and I think CSU has similar rules.

Time is short, but if your heart isn’t it in then you’ll have a lot of difficulty in applying the effort needed to pass these difficult classes, let alone earn a high enough gpa to be a competitive candidate for a job after graduation.

It’s hard to know what to tell you. It sounds like you’re 5 years out of HS, a time when many peers have finished college and are starting on careers. You still have at least 2 years of college left. The most important thing to you sounds like having a fun “college experience”. It’s your life and you decide how to steer it, but at this point maybe its worth concluding that the “college experience” isn’t in the cards for you and its time to focus on finding a career you want and getting into it. It isn’t like people live like monks after finishing college, they still attend sports and events and take better vacations since they have jobs that can pay for it. Ideally you would have been spending effort the past 5 years to find a major and career you really want or at least can tolerate. When you talk about ending up “unenthusiastically” in CS it sounds like maybe it isn’t a great fit.

If you still have access this summer to the counseling staff (career, psychological, etc) at your CC then you might want to meet with them. It’s worth considering another year at your CC while you figure out what you actually want to do in the future, or maybe you’ve gone as far as you can with it and CS is the result. I dunno.