I am a transfer student coming from a california community college. I am not pre-med, I am hoping to make a career out of research, or drug synthesis. So far i am thinking UCSD may be the best bet for me but I would like to know if anyone has any experiences at any of these schools. I’ve visited both universities and I have read through the programs/classes, and I really like the classes at UCSD compared to ucd (sd has medicinal chemistry and a drug synthesis class) while i did not see any electives particularly interesting like this at davis. At the same time, I feel like ucd would have a better college experience as I hear in general it is easier to make friends and “find your place” there than ucsd, but then again I am mostly at college for my education. UCSD is 6 hours from my home while davis is about an 1.5 hours away. I feel like the coursework at ucd may be a bit easier than ucsd but I could be wrong , its just an intuition I have. (Ive already done very well in lower division courses although it took me 3 years to complete it). I also want to be involved in research and I hear ucsd gets more funding. Im leaning towards ucsd more at this point but I would just like to hear anyones experiences in this major at either of the colleges regarding class content (did it interest you? Did it challenge you? Was it memorizing or were you learning things you could apply) professors (are they more focused on teaching or research) and whether you got involved in research projects, and how was that.
Thank you.