Hello Currently I am a business student at Rutgers University New Brunswick. I chose business because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I chose Rutgers because my parent really liked the school and it would offer me a big range of majors to explore before I choose the the right one for me. I’ve always been a stem person, and taking business classes I feel really bored. Now I realize that I want to study computer science and I’m really trying to transfer to NJIT during my Spring semester of freshmen year, simply because I don’t want to fall anymore behind then I already am. Additionally I live like 15 mins from Newark so I would be saving money by commuting to school. I looked into the transfer requirements for the Ying Wu College of Computing, and they said that I need to have at least 15 credits completed an english course and a math course. Additionally I need to have at least a 3.5 on my computer science classes. The problem is that I haven’t taken any computer science classes this semester because non of them were actually open and my schedule was made for me by my advisor because I’m a freshmen/first year student. Should still apply to get in during Spring Semester, even though I don’t have any computer science credit? Is it a big leap to go from business to computer science? Am I going to be miserable during the transition? Please Help, willing to try any advice.
If you are only in your first semester, then you are quite early in your university career. This implies that a change in majors is relatively less likely to have any impact on things like your time to graduation, and means that you have not had time to fall significantly behind in your new major. At this point a change in majors is really a very small leap or perhaps not a leap at all.
I would suggest that you apply for the transfer. Because you are applying during your first semester your high school grades and test scores will matter a lot. If you are not accepted then the fact that you tried will not hurt you at all when you try again a semester or two later.
However, I think that you should also try to change majors at Rutgers. I have worked (in high tech) and/or studied (as a graduate student) with several Rutgers graduates, and they have all been very strong. If you can get into the computer science major at Rutgers it will be a good place to spend four years and from which to graduate.
Most university students change majors at some point. Both of my daughters have changed majors. This is normal and as you said, Rutgers has a very wide range of majors available (as do most large universities).
@DadTwoGirls Thank You but I think my problem is with the cost of the university as well due to my decision to dorm. If I transfer early I think I can save a ton of money. I feel guilty that my parents are paying all this money for me and I don’t even like my major. This is the reason I want to change to a closer school more specifically NJIT bc I can commute and there will be less of a cost. As you might of heard that Rutgers doesn’t really offer a ton of financial aid if any. NJIT is pretty generous. Decisions give me a headache.
As DadTwoGirls said, go ahead and try to transfer to NJIT. You might talk to admission first, though, to see if they require you to have taken physics and a specific math before you can transfer into their CS major. That’s not clear from their website.
If you apply and don’t get in, then stay at Rutgers another term, take the first CS class, physics, and calc 1 for science majors, then try to transfer again.
I like the NJIT campus. It’s a cool part of Newark, and abuts Rutgers Newark.