Hi,
I am considering attending either University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) or University of British Columbia (UBC) (Canada) as a freshman in the fall of 2016 to study computer science. I would like to transfer to UC Berkeley for junior year. Could anyone please provide any insight as to which, if either, university would stand me in better stead to achieve this goal?
Many Thanks
UC generally tend to take most of their transfer students from community colleges.
However, for CS at UCB specifically, there may be very few other colleges (community colleges or four year schools) which have the exact equivalents of the frosh/soph CS courses. Those known to have some of them include Laney College and Diablo Valley College (see http://www.assist.org ).
Given the variation in frosh/soph level CS courses and curricula, if you attend a four year school, it is best to plan to graduate from there to minimize trouble with transfer credit. Also, pay attention to whether you are admitted to the major at the school; if not, check whether it is difficult to enter the major after enrolling (at some schools, it can be a very competitive admission process to get into the CS major).
Both UCSB and UBC are perfectly fine to study CS at. If one costs substantially less, that is a strong argument for choosing that school.