<p>Alright, so I was admitted to UCSD with regeants and blah dee blah, but not admitted to berkeley. I had hoped for cal because of its high EE rank. But since i'm probably going to ucsd or ucla, I was wondering if it would be possible for me to change from EE to BioE at ucsd. The scripps center and other recourses for bio majors looks amazing over there, and I don't really have a preference between EE and BioE if I'm getting those kinds of oportunities. </p>
<p>Point being: I was just wondering how hard it would be and what I would have to do to switch now from EE to BioE at ucsd, bearing in mind that I'm regents (okay I don't know if that helps???).</p>
<p>Well the thing is that both EE and BioE are impacted, so I’m wondering if it would be an even trade. I tried calling the BioE department after school today, but it turns out they close early, so I’m going to ask tomorrow. Any information or ideas or suggestions?</p>
<p>hey im going to UCSD for bioe so i hope to see you there!! but from what i understand bioE is an impacted major meaning they kinda hand selected the people which also means they dont really want people moving around…however I am from Tx and on my tour of UCSD the guide had switched majors like 5 times so i think its pretty easy to move around once you are at the school. please dont take my word for it but that is my understanding</p>
<p>I’m currently a freshman at UCSD, and while BioE is impacted, I really wanted to major in it. I went to my academic adviser and she told me to take the BioE classes, so I took MAE9/Math 20 Series/Chem/Phys 2 Series, etc, in order to stay on track with the BioE classes. She also told me to try and maintain ~3.5 while taking these classes, as if I can attain a high GPA, I should be able to “prove” myself worthy of being an exception, and becoming a BioE major even though it is technically closed/impacted. </p>
<p>Consider all of this?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I do not have a success story to tell you–while I have maintained above a 3.5 in these classes, I decided to switch back to Biochemistry since she advised me not to change to BioE if I’m pre-med since the BioE curriculum is so rigorous.</p>
<p>Mmm, thanks cisfun and radiance. To rad, I can see where you’re coming from, but your story still gives me hope. I figure if your advisor advised you to try this early on, then it might have really been possible. Still, if I could change now rather than further down the line, that would really be great.</p>
<p>Need some advice here, can someone please help. My S has been accepted to UCSD (MAE Engineering in Jacobs School of Engineering) and a spring admit to CAL (in College of L&S). </p>
<p>MAE Eng. was his alternate major. What he really wants to major in is either BioE or MCB. Is it really hard for him to switch to his major in UCSD? If he has a tough time trying to switch his major, would it be better for him to go to CAL as a spring admit. I’ve heard that the Biology program in UCSD is very good. Does anyone know how is it compared to CAL?</p>
<p>He’s not too crazy about being admitted as a spring admit either. Does anyone know if it’s a positive experience to enroll as a spring admit and do the Freshman Program for Fall? Only thing I’m not thrilled about is the fact that housing is not guaranteed for Spring Admit. I’ve also heard that if there was housing for the Spring kids, they would probably give it to the kids that are OOS - is that true?</p>
<p>He is also accepted to UC Irvine and UC Davis where he’s able to get into his major - however he’s not too enthused about UCI and UCD either. </p>
<p>So I need help to help him decide. Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>^
There is no (official) way to transfer into bioengineering. As I understood it, a small number of students will be admitted to the biology majors dependant upon their grades in some screening courses (general chemistry, general biology, organic chemistry, physics), there are multiple threads on this here.
However, you need to realize that because your son is in the college of L&S at ucb, he would need to undergo a similar screening process to be transferred to the school of engineering (I suggest doing more research on this as well).
What I’m getting at here is you don’t seem to have enough information to make a decision yet. Does your son want engineering or biology? Does he want to go to graduate, medical, law school in the future? Where does he want to work in the future (i.e. Bay Area vs. San Diego). He needs to know the answers to all these questions before he makes a decision.
UCB > UCSD in engineering, I don’t know about biology. I’d say if your son wanted graduate school UCB would be the better choice (for engineering - I don’t know about biology).
For medical or law school, I’d say in general it is easier to get higher grades at UCSD.</p>
<p>Lastly, you need to realize 17-18 year olds are fickle, and any decisions that he makes will be changed multiple times, maybe even a few times his first quarter or semester. A UC Berekely degree will open many more doors than a UCSD degree (in general)… so that’s what I would choose if I had no idea what I wanted.</p>
<p>The Berkeley name may open doors in some areas but SD is more renowned in several fields, including biology and engineering so within those fields, SD may be a better choice. Also SD will offer a more supportive and pleasant experience for the next four years of his life. Lastly, being a Spring admit means that many social connections will already have formed during those first few months in the dorms when we are all sharing the away-from-home experience and a Spring admit will be “the new guy” which isn’t always a comfortable position. It has many of the disadvantages of being a transfer student and the Cal campus isn’t exactly known for being newbie friendly.</p>
<p>^ um, Berkeley beats SD at both bio and engineering along with many other fields lol. However, I would not say that an undergraduate degree at berkeley would open many more doors than an undergraduate degree at UCSD. Most employers mainly look at graduate schools and although starting salaries of berkeley students may be higher than SD students’, after a few years of work things should even out if the SD student works as hard as the Berkeley student. </p>
<p>However, I think it’s defiantly better to go to berkeley even in L&S. I’m surprised your son didn’t get bioengineering at UCSD since mech e is also impacted.</p>
<p>You are right that Berkeley beats SD in general university rankings but I’ll maintain that you will get a better undergraduate experience at SD because of increased opportunities for research and publication which is what counts when applying for jobs and grad school. The number of undergraduates named in publications for SD is muuch greater than for Cal which is strongly oriented to graduate school rahter than undergrads. If you wan tthe best of both worlds, do SD undergrad and save Cal for graduate work. By the time he’s old enough for grad school, he’ll be better able to navigate the logistics of “Berzerkeley” anyway.</p>
<p>Alright. Well, considering that I’m probably not going to be allowed to apply to change my major, I’m probably going to be going into Electrical Engineering. Which do you all think would be better for EE: UCSD w/ regents, or UCLA w/o regents. I’ve heard so many contradicting claims about each school that I’m really just not sure who to believe. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I did. Although the chair of the department wasn’t able to attend. It was alright… I’ve just found that I’m not too excited about either ucla or ucsd anymore. A friend of mine (who really deserves acceptance more than I do, even though his test scores aren’t up to par) thinks of ucsd as his dream school. He didn’t get accepted, but I did. At the end of the day, I don’t see why this school is so amazing, and he can’t really explain it either. His sister goes there, though, so maybe that’s it. I guess I just want to see it from their point of view. On the other side of the spectrum are friends who think that ucla is years ahead of ucsd. None of them really give me good reasons why, though. Bleh.</p>
<p>While I’m ranting, ucsd’s admit day was disappointing… Everyone spouted the same propaganda mill lines about the college system and how quickly the school has grown and about their damn surfing. Even worse, it seems like the jacob’s school sees the other departments as else as secondary to bioengineering. Can some one please tell me what’s so great about ucsd. Or what’s so much better about ucla, if that’s your opinion. I just don’t see it.</p>