<p>What Major(s) do UCI students seem to rave most about in terms of the grades, the professors and the benefits for applying to grad school and/or jobs?</p>
<p>Just straight off Collegeboard statistics:</p>
<ul>
<li>Most Popular Majors for Bachelor’s Degrees
<ul>
<li>Social Sciences: 24%</li>
<li>Biology: 15%</li>
<li>Psychology: 12%</li>
<li>Engineering: 8%</li>
<li>Interdisciplinary Studies: 8%</li>
<li>Business/Marketing: 7%</li>
<li>Visual and Performing Arts: 7%</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>Seems pretty accurate.</p>
<p>Biological Sciences for sure…</p>
<p>@JGod93</p>
<p>I think those are for majors in general. I think OP is referring to UCI’s major.
It says on their website that entering freshmen will start UC Irvine as students majoring in:</p>
<p>Biological Sciences (23.5%)
Engineering (16.3%)
Undecided/Undeclared (16.1%)
Social Sciences (13.3%)
Physical Sciences (8.1%)
Humanities (6.2%)
Health Sciences (4.0%)
Social Ecology (3.9%)
Information and Computer Sciences (3.5%)
Arts (3.4%)
Business (1.7%)</p>
<p>[Profile</a> of Admitted Applicants](<a href=“http://www.admissions.uci.edu/admissions/profile_admitted.html]Profile”>http://www.admissions.uci.edu/admissions/profile_admitted.html)</p>
<p>Bio science is so overrated. I don’t get why so many freshmen choose to start with it.</p>
<p>Bio science majors have practically no exit options aside from medical school. If you DO want to attend medical school, why would you ever major in biology? The point is to make yourself stand apart from other applicants. Choosing the same major as 70% of medical school applicants doesn’t really accomplish that.</p>
<p>You’re way better off choosing CS or engineering and just doing the med school prereqs. That way you have something to fall back on if it doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>See but not everyone knows that… </p>
<p>Its the Asian parents… I’m telling you… :]</p>
<p>[Best</a> Undergrad College Degrees By Salary](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp]Best”>Common Jobs for Majors - College Salary Report)</p>
<p>Average starting salary for Chemical Engineering majors: $64,800
average salary for Biology majors: $38,400</p>
<p>HINT: both majors will have you take pretty much all the prereqs needed to get into medical school.</p>
<p>It’s kind of surprising to see people choose any major over engineering, considering the salary statistics. I guess people just really don’t like Math lol.</p>
<p>Bio and the social sciences are probably the most popular.</p>
<p>My hall’s like, 50 percent Bio, 40 percent Engineers, then the other category >.></p>
<p>Guarantee that like half of them will switch out of bio by winter quarter of next year.</p>
<p>Besides BIO -__-‘’, lots of my friends I know are in criminology, which I’ve heard its a good program in irvine.</p>
<p>@spooky
Med schools don’t really care which major your coming from as long as you finish your prereqs, so doing engineering over bio won’t give you an advantage in matriculating. However, people choose bio because, like other college students, they are genuinely interested in biology. It’s like asking why Art History majors choose it? It’s interesting to them, despite it’s poor potential in earnings.</p>
<p>@JGod
Again, I guess if salary is all you are looking for, engineering isn’t a bad choice. But know that there are very capable people that would excel academically in engineering but simply choose not to because it does not fall in their realm of interest. Even I think of these people (my friends who are ridiculously bright individuals) as wasted potential, but whatever makes them happy</p>
<p>I just find it hard to believe that every year about 30% of freshman are most interested in one out of the 80+ majors offered at UCI. Seems statistically improbable.</p>
<p>I hate to be cynical, but very few people are in college in order to satisfy some deep-seated intellectual curiosity. Let’s be honest: nearly everyone goes to college today in order to increase his or her earning potential. You may think that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s the reality. With that in mind, it does make me wonder why everyone isn’t clamoring to get into engineering. My only guess why is that it seems too hard to most people.</p>
<p>Alright Thanks Guys. It’s still hard knowing what I want to focus learning on when there are so many options.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A lot of people I met freshmen year in the bio major didn’t want to go to med school. They heard (I dont know where from… other clueless high school kids?) that UCI’s bio program is rigorous. They went with a “If I can do bio here at uci, I can do anything” type mentality. </p>
<p>
A lot of times, its economics. Some of my friends who left engr basically ran into this decision:
- work my butt off to be an engr and make 50k+ graduating.
- screw around as a biz econ major and make 40k+ graduating.</p>
<p>they didn’t think the extra work (both as an undergrad and during the job) was worth it. I don’t know if i agree with their numbers or analysis, but thats the logic i ran into. </p>
<p>
the problem with this number: where do you go to be a chemical engr? most chemEs work at the actual chemical factory. they place those factories where land is cheap and they can pollute. they don’t have any chemical factories in the middle of Westwood, for example.</p>
<p>What do you guys think of the Social Ecology program? In particular, the criminology, law, & society major? </p>
<p>Opinions? Experiences?</p>
<p>I feel cool being a CS major, it seems like a rather small program which will be nice :D</p>
<p>poly sci, then will do my dental pre-reqs :D</p>
<p>like others i was doing the traditional bio route, but CC has taught me to be more smart and the point is to be a well rounded student and have an actual story instead of telling the same story like others how i went through bio sci major and had labs and exams, etc.</p>
<p>Well… I know three people with criminology degrees (two graduated from UCI). Two of them work in a comic book store, and the other is in real estate. They all had a lot of fun with the major, but didn’t really have any career-related goals in mind.</p>