Hi Everyone,
I’m a newly accepted UC Davis transfer from an out of state, 4-year college, and I’m having some confusion regarding transfer credit policies. I was happy to discover that Davis considers many of my courses ‘transferable,’ but I am very confused on what this actually means.
Are these transferable courses automatically considered equivalent to preexisting courses, or do the credits transfer directly into requirements for graduation? And if it’s the former, will these transferable courses fulfill prerequisites and allow me to take more advanced classes?
For example, I am a Design major, and the design major sequence starts with DES 1 (Introduction to Design). Davis is accepting a course of mine called “Creative Concept Design,” and when I talked to a representative of the department, they said the two courses sounded very similar. Does this mean Davis will let me use the Creative Concept Design course to skip out of Design I? And if this is the case for other courses, when will I learn of each of the Davis equivalents of my transferable credits?
If any transfers have gone through anything similar, or if anyone can have any input on the matter, it would be greatly appreciated.
Transferable courses will be counted for credit units because they are considered college level at UCs. Courses that are not transferable would include things like low level remedial math and such, or pre-professional courses in subjects not normally offered as bachelor’s degree programs (e.g. skilled trades).
But subject credit is an entirely different thing, since that needs departmental evaluation to see if your course is equivalent to the one at UC Davis. For transfers from California community colleges, this is already done and listed at http://www.assist.org , but transfers from other schools must have the courses individually evaluated.
If you want something to be granted equivalency to a pre-req or major requirement, they’ll need to evaluate them as such. A little googling will give you an idea of the policy and the prices to do it.
Transferable courses can be used to full pre-reqs for your major, general education requirements, etc., it just depends on what the classes are, what you have done, and what you need. Talking with a counselor and going over your transcripts is going to be your best bet, but you’ll want to get all the info of the classes you previously took, like the course description and syllabus if you can find it. They’ll need this to make a decision on any equivalency.
I see, thank you very much for your responses.
I’ve tried to do some searching, but I haven’t been able to find a course evaluation form for the College of Letters and Science, only the engineering school. It seems like the consensus is that I’ll have to meet with an adviser to get everything sorted out – does this mean they actually have the power to place you in certain courses (or allow credits to fulfill prerequisites) or is it up to the department?
I guess the only other question I can think of is when all of this takes place. I’d have to go in sometime during the summer, right? How else would I decide what I’ll be taking Fall Quarter?