UCLA Engineering Q&A

<p>Anyone go to the technical breadth meeting on wednesday and thursday? I walked over there at 7:00 just for the free pizza. I just made some stuff up when the dean walked over to me asking how the info session was =)
What I did find interesting is that there is a higher percentage of transfer graduates than ones that came into UCLA as a freshmen.</p>

<p>I've looked at the AP credit site for HSSEAS but I'm still confused on a few things.</p>

<p>If I received a 4 on Calc BC, how much math, can/should I get out of? And with this, what role does the diagnostic math test at orientation have, what can I test into?</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Here's the real site for mathematics AP credit:
<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/apcredit.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/apcredit.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You get out of Math 31A, so you enroll in Math 31B.
The Mathematics Diagnostic Exam, which tests you into Math 31A, is useless in your case. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>That meeting sucked ass. All the slides came from the pdf file on seasoasa.ucla.edu. Oh well, many people got to take home one pizza box each because they overestimated the attendance!</p>

<p>Damn it! :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Thanks for clearing that up flopsy. So in other words I will not be taking the math diagnostic test at orientation, and I'll be placed in Math 31B when I decide to take it.</p>

<p>I'm glad I asked.</p>

<p>Sorry for the double post but I couldn't find an edit button, since you have proven to be the master of websites so far Flopsy. Is there a list of professors anywhere who teach math 31b, or at least who taught it last year?</p>

<p>


<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/courses/index.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.ucla.edu/courses/index.shtml&lt;/a> :rolleyes:</p>

<p>In case anyone wants to do undergraduate Electrical Engineering research, yes, you need a 3.50 GPA to qualify. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>
[quote]

In case anyone wants to do undergraduate Electrical Engineering research, yes, you need a 3.50 GPA to qualify.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Would you recommend any engineer who qualifies to do research? It seems like it's not as important than for people who plan on going to medical school.</p>

<p>
[quote]
In case anyone wants to do undergraduate Electrical Engineering research, yes, you need a 3.50 GPA to qualify.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Where do we go to find out about positions available?</p>

<p>Im a new transfer and on my provisional contract it says that i have to B or better in all my classes for spring. Will my admission be revoked if I get a C??</p>

<p>thank you very much !!</p>

<p>

3.50!! You sure that isn't just for those sponsored programs like CARE? I'm doing ME research this summer, so maybe the requirements are different by departments.</p>

<p>

There are different kinds of undergrad research. You can do the ENGR 199 or 94 (i forget whats the difference between the two), you need to sign a contract and find a professor that will sponsor you for this. It doesn't have to be on the schedule list, just ask a prof that you want to work with and he/she will open it up for you. In the end you have to do some presentation or give a report to the prof. I think this method gives you units, but i might be wrong.</p>

<p>The other way which i think is easier is to just to go up to the professor that is doing research that you are interested in and ask for a position. Make sure you research on what actually does before you ask him/her. If you;re interested for summer research, you better hurry and find one fast. In the ME dept, alot of the positions were already taken by 5th week from what I heard.</p>

<p>Research is pretty important if you're thinking about Grad school.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ugres.ee.ucla.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ugres.ee.ucla.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This is the official venue for EE research, although you can probably get a position with the right connections. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>
[quote]
1. Be a student of Electrical Engineering or a closely related field.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Be a student of Junior or Senior standing. Students who have received their BS degrees and are no longer enrolled as undergraduates are not eligible.</p></li>
<li><p>Have an overall GPA of at least 3.5.</p></li>
<li><p>Two letters of recommendation are required. At least one of them must be from an Electrical Engineering faculty member. The applicant needs to provide the names and e-mail contact information of the references. The Undergraduate Research Program will contact the references automatically via e-mail to obtain their letters.</p></li>
<li><p>A one page statement of purpose. Examples of information you may include in your statement of purpose are:
(a) Why you are interested in this program; general research interests; any prior research experience.
(b) Academic and career objectives; immediate plans after graduation (e.g., graduate study, industry); academic standing (e.g., junior or senior level), overall GPA, and upper division GPA.
(c) Any advanced math or science courses taken; any awards or recognitions.
(d) Membership in student organizations; any special circumstances; if you believe you can contribute to the diversity of the program.</p></li>
<li><p>A two-page resume:
(a) The first page should be a focused resume.
(b) The second page serves as an unofficial transcript. It should list all courses taken and respective grades. For each course, provide course number, title, and year and place the course was taken.</p></li>
<li><p>A brief bio of at most 5 lines. This should not be a personal statement but rather a focused short biography of yourself.</p></li>
<li><p>All application material, including the letters of recommendation, must be received by the program deadline.

[/quote]
</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Yea, that's what I thought it was. The ME dept has something very similar to that. You probably get better recognition with those sponsored programs. I didn't want to go through all that, mostly cause i missed the deadline, and didn't have 2 professors for recommendation. So I went though a different route by just asking professors that was doing research that interested me if they needed anyone.</p>

<p>Thanks for the link Flopsy. I'm EE and didn't even know about that program! Maybe next year...</p>

<p>flopsy, </p>

<p>I'm curious... since the average gpa is somewhere around 2.8, most EE students don't qualify to do research; is this correct? What do they do, then? Can they go the informal route that zerOc123 mentioned, or are they just not able to do research, period?</p>

<p>


Yes, this is correct. Few students qualify for such departmentally-sponsored EE research because of the high GPA cutoffs. Hence, many of my smart CS/CSE friends who have ineligible-but-respectable GPAs took the informal route to research by connecting with their favorite professors during office hours. I was able to get a CS research position (which I eventually had to give up) even though my GPA was well below 3.50 because I kept harassing the same grad student via e-mail last year. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>1.) Any point in waiting for AP test scores before orientation if all I took senior year was Calc AB?</p>

<p>2.) Also there seemed to be a conflict of what the score is worth. Online (Last modified: July, 2004) lists it as just credits while the booklet we received at the engineering day says a 5 may be used toward Math 31A. Can you say anything on this?</p>

<p>3.) General suggestions on what kinds of classes at orientation for CS major?</p>

<p>4.) Any particular suggestions on C++ intro books?</p>

<p>


[ol]
[<em>]Yes, but that depends on how long you have to wait to find out your score. Math 31A/31B doesn't fill up terribly fast, but I wouldn't wait past July for the score to arrive, and would rather enroll based on self-confidence.
[li]<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/apcredit.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/apcredit.shtml&lt;/a&gt;[/li]A score of 5 in AP Calculus AB will get you out of Math 31A. Period.
[</em>]CS 31, Math 31A/31B/32A, Chem 20A, and CS 1.
[*]The CS 31 textbook: Absolute C++ by Savitch. :rolleyes:[/ol]</p>