Hi. I am looking to go into the field of law and the major I am choosing is Psychology. Which University in the University of California system is the best for Psych majors and is oriented towards law and liberal arts? Please help! Any advice is appreciated!
All the UC’s offer excellent General Psychology programs. You need to look at each schools course curriculum to determine which offer electives and GE requirements where law and liberal arts courses are emphasized.
UCSD for example offers 2 Psych courses with an emphasis on law: Psychology of Law and Criminology.
https://psychology.ucsd.edu/undergraduate-program/courses/index.html
Here is a link to the UCLA Psychology course offerings:
https://www.registrar.ucla.edu/Academics/Course-Descriptions/Course-Details?SA=PSYCH&funsel=3
UCB’s course offerings: http://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/psych/
Liberal arts is a broad category so it will be up to you to research the courses available.
Best UC depends upon where you can get accepted.
What are your academic stats? EC’s?
They are all good. Without a better sense of your status, interests and qualifications it is impossible to give you meaningful advice.
This is all really helpful information, thank you so much. Academically, I am a 3.98 GPA student and have completed all of my general ed college courses along with my high school education as well. Right now, I a senior in high school and am going through the application process of applying to UC’s. For UCSD, I have chosen my major as: Psychology B.A./B.S.
I have another side question I hope you can answer- Is there any way I could speed up the process of getting my Bachelors? I have completed all of my general ed courses, but I have been told that regardless I will still have to do the normal amount of years. Regardless of that, however, is there any way to make the process faster?
What is the hurry? What is the normal amount of years you are quoting in your post? 4 years??
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Unless you took the GE’s at a UC, you would still be required to the UC specific writing courses at each UC campus. All your GE’s are UC transferable?
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Although you are not a transfer, you are given 2 years- 6 quarters at any school for your BA/BS so is this still too long for you? And the last 35 units need to be at your specific university. See below:
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- Depending what upper division major courses you still need to take to complete your degree, I would think that having any extra time to explore more liberal arts and law related classes of interest would be a benefit.
As a freshman applicant with a sub 4 GPA most of the UCs are going to be a stretch.
Apply to all of them but, know UCR and UCM are your best shot. I’d also apply to SDSU, CSULB, Sonoma and Fullerton. See where you get in and then figure out your next step.
Good luck.
I agree, what is the hurry? Is there a financial component? Law school is very expensive and it’s a saturated market.
Attending a UC, that is on the quarter system, will rush you through, but it’s tough. Also, my colleagues that did major in psychology, as undergrads, had a lot of required observation hours that they had to complete. The problem was finding those hours in the required settings and age groups.
It’s not just about the courses, it’s about completing the practicum and the observation hours. You can read all about cases but observing them, in real life, is something completely different.
As, for law school, make sure you already have a future job lead as an attorney. My sister’s law firm had hundreds of applicants for one clerking position. She indicated that it is who you personally know, within the firm with and top tier status, to get a foot in the door.
Psych is a popular major at nearly every college, including the UC’s. So, they’ll all offer plenty of Psych courses that meet your interests. Choose a campus where you would like to live for 3-4 years (assuming COVID gets beat).
That said, Law School is nearly all about GPA+LSAT. Major is barely even noticed by LS Adcoms (unless its something difficult like Engineering).