<p>Could someone that currently attends UCI provide me with some info as to how difficult it is to obtain an A in an introductory science course for example...how competitive is the atmosphere? - I'm planning on majoring in Bio.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on how well-prepared you are from high school and how good your study habits are. A freshman bio course at UCI (or any public university) will be like nothing you've ever seen before. Big lecture hall, 400 students, and a professor that stands and the front and whizzes through powerpoint slides. They don't collect homework, so it's up to you to do the reading that is assigned. </p>
<p>They grade the bio courses on a curve, and I think they give about 14% A's or A-minuses. So you're competing with your classmates for grades. So if you're in a class full of people who are hardcore about studying, then you better keep up if you want a good grade.</p>
<p>i heard it so competitive they steal yourbooks so you do bad at irvine</p>
<p>I heard that William Wallace was 7 feet tall. Kills men by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.</p>
<p>Not everything you hear is true. I went to UCI, majored in Biology (the major where supposedly all of this "competition" takes place), and never experienced any of that, nor have any of my friends. It is competitive there, but not to the point of sabotage.</p>
<p>Megadethfan was using hyperbole :D</p>
<p>Are you sure? Because a lot of people have that concern. I just want to make sure that I dispel the myth that some 17 year old kid might have heard from some other kid. I went to school there, so I know that it's just a myth. Probably a few isolated incidents, but it happens everywhere. 99% of the students will not experience anything like that.</p>
<p>i heard that story from someone that went there, his books were stolen, and im not just some kid...im special, thats what my mom says</p>
<p>There is crime at all campuses...that doesn't have anything to do with competitiveness.</p>
<p>its 4th ranked UC, its gonna get there</p>
<p>I know hundreds of people there who DIDN'T have their books stolen. SCOREBOARD!!!!</p>
<p>Just kidding. At least about the scoreboard part. But books will get stolen, usually not by a student who is competing with you, but by some random shady character who will turn around and sell your books back to the bookstore for money. The same would happen with a laptop that is left unattended at the library. Doesn't mean they're being ultra-competitive. Just means that they're being a thief.</p>
<p>so, im in irvine. from my experience, people u need to watch out are those who dont behave like this person i know (who thinks himself is the sh1t, and knows everything, but once it comes to tests, he gets C's or below. yet he doesnt stop his bs and keep pretending that hes smart.) people who do well in irvine are those who does the opposite of this person. irvine is a school with severe grade deflation, since as soon as u move in, u'll find people around you are not motivated at all, and its easy for you to lose concentration. </p>
<p>anywayz, my personal opinion... biased, not really true... just for whoever's reference</p>
<p>We all know people like that but we also know people who are the complete opposite of that..and grade deflation..that refers to it becoming harder than it should be to get good grades which has to do with academics and administration not hanging around with lazy people. That's your fault if that happens. I have never experienced that anyway.</p>
<p>In sum, there are highly motivated people at UCI (I know a lot of them) and there are people who just made it through the cracks and don't try that hard.</p>
<p>yackityack or alicantekid,</p>
<p>Do you guys agree that UCI practices grade deflation?
I mean are the grading curves that bad?</p>
<p>See the thing about UCI is they probably accept the majority of the applicants, because they have a lot of room for biol majors. But the sad part is that only a few will graduate and go onto the grad school. They purposely make some of the classes hard so that only the top notch smart ones will stay in the program<<<so true. Three of my friends enter UCI as Biol majors, all of them felt it was a waste of time. Two of them changed majors at the last second, and the other graduate with a bio degree, and haven't done anything with the degree.</p>
<p>i dont understand how bio can get so hard at one place, i mean at the end of the day, what do you differenly in UCI classes than you wouldin any state school, you dont learn differnet concepts or anything like that? and why work so hard at UCI if you can go to say...santa cruz and get a MUCH better GPA, while its true it means alittle less, its only alittle or so i hear</p>
<p>they made the biol hard so they flush out the less competive students from the actual smart competive students...like i said not everyone can be a Doctor....the passion of biol starts at a very young age....in another words....u eat, sleep, and dream of biol...hehe...see the thing is if you're forcing yourself to study something that usually puts you to sleep...then it's best to change into another major where really captures your interest</p>
<p>ya but still, there not gonna teach you different things, i mean it cant be all that hard if its the same text book, i just dont understand who you make EXTREMELY difficult...i maybe crazy but bio was never hard, you just memorize stff</p>
<p>If being a doctor was easy then everyone would be one.</p>
<p>A lot of people start out pre-med because it seems glamourous to them and they think that it's the best way that they can make a lot of money. Then all of the "pretenders" realize that it's much harder than they thought it would be and that they're not prepared to put in the work necessary to make it to medical school. </p>
<p>MedRomanian - to answer your question about grade deflation, I would say that there isn't grade deflation, but there isn't grade inflation either. UCI uses a very fair curve where the top 15% get A's, the bottom 15% get F's, and the middle people get B's, C's, and D's. Not unlike a lot of other UC campuses. Grade inflation takes place when they give a really high percentage of people high grades. For example, my MBA program right now does grade inflation. The top 40% get A's, and only the bottom 10% get below a B. So this makes GPAs look high.</p>
<p>And usually the curves are there to help you, not hurt you. If everyone in the class earns an A on a straight scale, then the professor will give everyone an A. But of course, in the sciences, this never happens, and people getting in the 80s and 70s will often be the lucky recipients of an A thanks to the curve.</p>
<p>can someone please explain to me the nature of what ill be doing, like are the labs hard? if i wanna be a premed? is it really alot of work or alot of critical thinking? alot of busy work? and is it really hard, or hard compared to programs like business? im sorry its just so confusing</p>
<p>People who aren't in bio say that it's all memorization. But there is a lot of critical thinking involved. The earlier labs are pretty much busywork, but there are a lot of people who still struggle with that stuff. As you get to the UD labs, they're much more interesting and the experiements are pretty cool. But I think the best part of being premed is doing research. You get to choose your field of study and you get ownership of your own work. </p>
<p>It is hard. I don't know how to describe it to you. If you took AP bio, then the first quarter will be review but everything else for the rest of the four years should be new and challenging. It really gets hard during the winter quarter of the second year, when you have to take biochemistry and the second quarter of organic chem at the same time. That's when a lot of people start changing their major because they can't hack it.</p>