<p>curious...which uc is best for studying astronomy/astrophysics?</p>
<p>replies, please and thank you</p>
<p>A google search shows that UC Santa Cruz is very strong in this area.</p>
<p>I don't really know specifically which UCs are strong in that area. Do you want to major in Astronomy/astrophysics? Your title suggests otherwise. If you want to major in it, well...you know, you might change majors. If you want to just take a course or two, I don't think you should decide which UC to attend based on one or two courses. What I'm trying to say is, the top UCs like Berkeley are strong across the board. Even if say, UC Riverside has an astrophysics program that is somewhat better than UC Berkeley's astrophysics program (doubt it), I don't think it's worth attend UCR for that, because you might switch majors, you will probably find good astrophysics professors at every UC, and the benefits of attending a better UC are numerous, including better facilities, better professors, better students, more prestige, better chance for grad school, etc. So I think, unless you're set on a major, it is to your advantage to just try for the best UC that you also think is a good fit for you.</p>
<p>yes...i'm set on da major...so any more comments?</p>
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<p>well, I hope California's future astrophysicists are able to spell "the" correctly.</p>
<p>Other than that, I think vicissitudes has it right.</p>
<p>lol sfgiants</p>
<p>UC Berkeley has one of the top astronomy/astrophysics departments in the world.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSC have excellent programs in astronomy/astrophysics, although Caltech would arguably be your best bet. </p>
<p>harvard<em>and</em>berkeley has a PhD in astrophysics; you might want to PM him for more information about Berkeley's program (if he's still around?).</p>
<p>I am of the opinion that the best undergrad UC is whichever one offers astronomy/astrophysics research opportunities most readily, and which has the most accessible professors. Many of the more famous UC's, such as Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, etc... are not so strong in their attention and focus to undergrads, so I would not immediately choose them. Of the UC's that you are interested in, figure out how much the professors care about undergrads, how much research you can get, how close the faculty contact is, etc...</p>