<p>Hello, ever since I was in high school I have been conflicted on what I wanted to do in college. When I was in high school I wanted to go into marine biology. When I got to college my interested shifted to film and photography. I was just accepted into UCSD with the visual arts: media major, which was my top choice back when I did my application, but as of recently I've wanted to get back into marine biology more and more. The problem is, I haven't done any of the prerequisites because I was looking at another major at the time.</p>
<p>My questions are: is it possible for someone in my position, and under the circumstances, to change my major to marine biology at UCSD? Can I complete the prerequisites there and still change my major? </p>
<p>Also is marine biology impacted at UCSD? Under their site it doesn't list it as one but all the biology majors are. I want to assume this is because they are different departments and only the majors under the life science department are impacted and not marine biology under Scripps.</p>
<p>Having been accepted there (and not having been when I was a freshman) I would like to go and not spend another year at community college, but would it be better to do my prerequisites at my cc. I'm not necessarily going to do the prerequisites and change my major but would like to know if it it feasible for me to do so when I finally decide.</p>
<p>The UC’s will not let you spend an extra year doing lower division courses that won’t progress you towards graduating at all (only upper div classes will). It doesn’t make sense to take those classes at UCSD when you could be taking them at CC for a fraction of the cost. It would take you a full year of physics, chem, math and biology to even petition to change you major, and that’s assuming you have completed all the prerequisite classes for calc 1. If you really want to switch majors I would go back to CC and reapply.</p>
<p>Would UC still accept me then though? I got in now, I feel I should take advantage of that and do everything there even if it is more expensive and makes no sense. Will they really not let me do it?</p>
<p>Special Advising Note:<br>
Transfer students are strongly advised to complete as many preparatory course
as soon as possible for their major before enrolling at UC San Diego. Preparing
well for the major helps students move efficiently toward graduation.</p>
<p>In theory, you could change your major at UCSD, since it doesn’t look like it’s impacted. I know that sometimes students apply to an impacted major and get in as “undeclared”, so they can choose whatever major they want, as long as it’s not impacted.
Honestly, I would do the same in your position. I would also prefer to go to UCSD and take all the lower division classes even though it costs more money. Give them a call and find out for sure if you can change your major or not, and do it as soon as possible. Maybe even take one or two of those classes in the summer? Good luck!</p>
<p>You need to talk with a counselor in the dept at Scripps, which runs the Marine Biology program. I’m not an expert here, let me state up front, but if you have taken none of the prereqs I’m going to guess you can’t change once enrolled at UCSD. For one thing, there is a cap on the number of units you can earn as an undergrad and you’d probably be well over that cap since with your plan you come in with xfer units that count against the cap but aren’t useful for satisfying the lower-division major requirements.</p>
<p>But like I said, I’m not an expert. Don’t rely on the advice here. Call, or set up a meeting, with an advisor at UCSD to find out your best plan of action.</p>
<p>You should realize that even if this option is possible, and money no object to you, you would be taking GE classes with 300+ students per class which are usually graded on a strict curve (ie. no more than 40% can get A’s and B’s) to weed students out.</p>
<p>I am not worried about how well I would do in the classes. I was accepted to UCI right out of high school as a biology major (I didn’t go for personal reasons). Science and math were always my strongest subjects. I had a change in interest when I got to cc.</p>
<p>I think your biggest limitation is probably going to be the graduation unit limit. Almost every UC has a unit limit that prevents you from staying at a UC for too long. For UCSD the limit is 200 quarter units. Once you reach 200 quarter units, unless you’re a double major, you won’t be allowed to further enroll in classes. As a transfer you’ll start with anywhere from 90 to 110 quarter units, which gives you an allowance of 90 to 110 units to complete all of your lower division and upper division requirements as well as your college specific GE courses. Whether that’s feasible or not depends on the specific courses you need and what you’ll have credit for as a transfer. Just my impression is that more than likely you’d go over that unit limit. Just looking at the requirements you’ll have about 50+ units of lower division courses and about 50 upper division units, plus whatever GE’s you’ll need to complete just to graduate. Coming in with a minimum of 90 units, you’ll likely accumulate more than 200 units before you meet all of your graduation requirements. </p>
<p>As far as the actual process of changing majors, it’s actually fairly easy. As long as it’s not impacted, Marine Biology isn’t because it’s not in the Biology department it’s a part of Scripps, you literally can switch majors with a few clicks online. However, it gets reviewed by your counselors / department advisors so I’m not sure what would happen if you try to transfer without any pre-reqs at all completed. In most cases, you just change your major online, it gets reviewed, and in 2-3 days the registrar has you officially switched into that major. However, they generally encourage you to have a decent number of pre-reqs completed before you switch. Also, you may want to re-evaluate your timeline. Just getting the lower division courses out of the way is likely going to take you over a year, likely extending your time at UCSD to 3.5-4 years assuming you take courses during summer. </p>
<p>Mikemac had a great post, I think pretty much everything he said was accurate. And you should definitely contact a UCSD advisor to get a definitive answer on whether or not it would be even possible. Just on the hoof, it looks unrealistic. But you should definitely go to the source for an answer.</p>