Undeclared Major

College Majors
1
  1. Can anybody give a rough idea of how an undeclared-major freshman will later discover his or her major preference at UCSD?(How does it work?)
  2. And what if I want to get into a capped major later on?

Thank you so much!!

2
  1. All majors have GE requirements and your GE requirements are based on the College you have been placed into. I would start there and try to select GE's that would of interest. Do you have any idea of what type of major you would be interested in pursuing? STEM/Psych/Art/Anthropology/Sociology/Politics? Many of your GE's (depending upon your college) could cover a wide variety of these subjects.
  2. If you want to get into a capped major, you need to fulfill the pre-req courses and meet the GPA requirements listed for that particular major. For CS/CSE, even if you get the minimum 3.3 GPA in pre-req courses, you will be placed into a lottery with all the other qualified students so definitely not a good guarantee. If you are interested pursing a capped major, the sooner you start on the pre-req's the better. Each year, UCSD increases the # of capped majors, so the longer you wait to declare a major, the more difficult it might be to change into it.

You must declare a major before you complete 90 units. Warning: If you don’t declare a major by the time you complete 90 units, you won’t be allowed to enroll in additional classes.

3

Thank you very much for the detailed reply:)

So among all the GEs, when can I select the courses related to my preferred major to enroll in? Anytime after I discover which major I want to study?

4

Your GE requirements will be dictated by your College. So which college did you get accepted into at UCSD?
Once you know which GE’s are needed for your college, you can select those courses that interest you and hopefully along the way discover a subject you want to major in. Once you have that figured out, you can declare your major and continue on with your major courses toward the completion of your degree.

All this information will be available to you during Freshman orientation and when you meet with an advisor, they can help map our your classes.

5

I got into the John Muir College. I want to give it a head start in some of the courses that can be studied online, so I wish to know what courses there are.