I hope this isn’t out of place in the midst of decision season! I haven’t applied to transfer or anything yet, I’m just trying to see what my options are. I’m currently in my 1st year 2nd semester at Berkeley as an undeclared L&S major. I realized early this semester that I wanted to do engineering, but after asking around, I’ve gathered that it’s almost impossible to switch into Berkeley’s College of Engineering from within. I’ve been really unhappy for the past few months with this hanging over my head, until finally I decided that I’d rather study engineering at another school than stay at Berkeley and be miserable, which is why I started thinking about transferring. I’d prefer to still attend another UC, so my question is: should I stay at Berkeley to finish my pre-reqs, or should I just drop out and finish them at a community college? What would the UC’s prefer? I know that they like CC transfers more, and I’m reasonably sure that I could get a good GPA at CC, but would it also be okay if I stayed at Berkeley and had a decent GPA? (I’m on my way to a 3.8-3.9 by the end of this semester. Not sure what it’s going to look like after another year of technical courses though…) Which school would want somebody like me? Would, let’s say, bioengineering at UCSD be too far of a reach?
Stay at Berkeley. Complete their gen ed and get a Letter of Reciprocity from Cal (the new UC will want it). Complete requirements for your major based on that new UC’s req. Go to assist.org and choose any CCC, the major and the UC, to see the list. You can easily go from UCB to another UC especially with your GPA. Just follow those two rules and you’re golden. Don’t listen to those who say you can’t transfer UC-UC. It happens all the time and UCLA gives almost equal priority to both CCC and UC transfers. Plus, you have a valid reason.
In the meantime by staying there you might find you can actually get in or something will turn around.
The ONLY potential problem: Engineering has a lot of req so you might be at Cal longer (more tuition) and it might be hard getting into the courses. So that might be the one issue.