I’ve been accepted at UC Merced and UC Santa Barbara. I know I want to be involved in environmental work and I’m thinking about environmental engineering. Merced has an environmental engineering and environmental studies program, UCSB has only environmental studies. I like Merced and could even do a double major, but UCSB is well ranked …tho I’m not a beachy party person. Any advice or comments?
How hard is it to get into UCSB’s civil engineering program? Most jobs which are designed for environmental engineers will gladly take CE majors. Environmental science is fundamentally different than environmental engineering so if environmental engineering is a must have, I’d go to Merced. If it’s not and you’re only throwing out environmental engineering because it sounds passively interesting, I’d opt for UCSB. Frankly the ES opportunities at the school are far far better than those at Merced.
UCSB doesn’t have an a civil engineering program unfortunately.
Merced isn’t really considered one of the better UC schools…it isn’t a bad school it just isn’t really up there with the other UC schools. UCSB is a better school academically, though if you don’t like the beachy lifestyle that might be a problem. Also, if you find that you don’t want to be surronded by a party crowd then UCSB may not be the right choice for you.
I am not going to UC Merced (they do not have my major), but when I was a junior we did go and tour the campus… I was very surprised at what I found. I was expecting it to be some gross, crummy run down type of place because of the reputation everyone gives it, but it was actually very modern, beautiful, and peaceful. The setting is in a rural environment (right by Yosemite- they even have a special program where students can work in the park), although there is a medium size town 5 minutes away with grocery stores, restaurants, movies, etc. Everyone there was very nice, and they seemed to all know eachother- something you don’t typically find at larger UC campuses. I wish it had my major. It is the most like a small LAC out of any of the UCs, in the social aspect at least. Really liked it. Wish it had my major. I urge you to check it out!