<p>I want to go for exchange to USA in the future. UCLA is one of the possibilities so I want to know if you would recommend me this university. Also, I want to know how is the campus life and which semester is better to go for exchange there.</p>
<p>Good bye!</p>
<p>because ucla is on a quarter system, and what would be the equivalent of a spring semester for you, doing “spring” would consists of two quarters-winter and spring from the beginning of january to june. if you do fall, it will be from the end of sept to december.
what are your other options?</p>
<p>Thank you, so you are recommending me to go from january to june? and why?</p>
<p>Other options are UCB, UTexas and UCSB.</p>
<p>I think UCLA is the best choice out of these.</p>
<p>While Berkeley is more prestigious, I think going to a school for an “exchange” program has different objectives than earning your degree at the school. The purpose of these “exchange” programs is to expose you to different foreign lifestyles and cultures; and what better place for this than the heart of LA?</p>
<p>At UCLA, you will have an opportunity to experience American culture firsthand. Los Angeles is one of the most iconic cities in the United States. There is plenty of sightseeing. Not only is UCLA situated near Hollywood, it hosts one of the most prestigious film schools in the country. Film crews and tourists are often spotted around campus. There are two museums on campus and we are a short drive away from the world famous Getty Center. Not only that, there is a strong southern Cali vibe. Whether its our vicious rivalry with USC or our proximity to Santa Monica pier, UCLA embodies the energy and excitement of SoCal.</p>
<p>The lifestyle at UCLA is also exceptional. College guides often note the variety of choices provided by UCLA Dining. Study isn’t too tedious. This will give you time to do the things you want.</p>
<p>In contrast, Berkeley is a great place to experience the study-till-you-vomit prestigious American university mentality, which could be worth experiencing. You will spend hours isolated in your dorm room. The neighborhoods around the school are rather shady. While the school is close to San Francisco, its still a considerable drive away without easy transportation. The school has a relatively low lifestyle rating by college guides. However, if you search hard enough, you may be able to trade a few words with internationally renowned faculty.</p>
<p>UCSB is like UCLA with a lot less homework and a lot less convenience to the things you might want to see. You’d probably still be visiting the exact same places as you would at UCLA.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Texas but there’s not a lot to see there.</p>
<p>Here’s how I would prioritize the schools if I were you:</p>
<p>UCLA
UCSB
Berkeley
Texas</p>
<p>Thank you very much “sentimenGX4”! Your explanation was very helpful.</p>
<p>I also would like to know how is Business School there.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we do not offer an undergraduate Business major here at UCLA. UCSB doesn’t offer one either. </p>
<p>They do offer one at Berkeley but you should make sure that you can enroll in Business courses by checking the conditions of your “exchange” program before picking the school. Business classes are offered by Haas, which is in a separate college than the general one.</p>
<p>I do not know much about the University of Texas.</p>
<p>If you’re a part of some graduate Business “exchange” program, I’d say Anderson School of Management is a pretty competitive. It’s ranked #14 in the US. Berkeley’s Haas is #7. To compare, we’re ranked #24 best undergrad university in the US. UCLA has a better graduate reputation than we do undergraduate.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention, that I can’t really comment on UCLA’s campus life, as my life doesn’t revolve around campus, however LA in general is very much “not a native’s city”. By “not a native’s city” I mean that there are probably more people in LA living in LA who aren’t originally from LA. Because of the film, music, entertainment industry, many people come from around the states and the world to live in LA to try to make a career or to simply live in the sun. You’ll have a much easier time meeting people who aren’t originally from LA in the city, than you would finding a native born and raised LA person(at least in nightlife, assuming it’s your thing).
With that said, I imagine that if you’re life is going to be revolved primarily on campus while studying here in the states, your social life, I imagine, would be much more fulfilled at UCSB. I’ve never been or visited but have had friends who have attended and who say the social life definitely dominates there, even on the weekends.</p>
<p>I’d like to add despite LA’s residents being mostly nonnatives, an overwhelming majority of students at UCLA come from California. (Something like 90%.) Alot of these are from SoCal.</p>
<p>“While the school is close to San Francisco, its still a considerable drive away without easy transportation.”</p>
<p>Lies. There’s easy access to public transportation all around the UC campus, and once you pay your registration fees, you’ll get a class pass for AC transit – unlimited rides, including the F line to the Embarcadero area in SF.</p>
<p>With that said, if I were an international, I’d probably be more interested in LA. It seems like there’s more to explore, if you’re into an urban vibe.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>I know my exchange allows me to enroll in Undergraduate Business courses, so that isn’t a problem.</p>
<p>I would like to be in a university in which I can have an active social life and also have to study. Because I would like to know new people and live the experience of being in a university in USA, as well as learning about business and how different is to my own university. So it would be perfect if there is a university in which you can combine an active social life and also learn.</p>
<p>I think you should look into another exchange program then. There really isn’t a great university amongst these 4 that ideally fit your wants.</p>
<p>Berkeley is the only place that offers business but there’s less to do in San Francisco and the city isn’t perceived as “American”. Not to mention the university isn’t actually in San Francisco.</p>
<p>UCLA is in LA but we don’t offer a business major. UCSB suffers from a similar situation. Again, I don’t know why anyone would want to go to Texas. It’s not a “prestigious” university and there’s not much to do there.</p>
<p>If I were a foreigner in the business major, I’d look into an exchange program for NYU. The business school is top notch and the university is in New York City, as “American” as you can get.</p>
<p>I can go to NYU, but the exchange program doesn’t allow me to study business or something similar.</p>
<p>I would like UCLA, UCSB or UCB because my exchange program allows me to study business there or something similar to my career, and because California has a good weather, beaches and a lot of things to do.</p>
<p>New York is a great city but is similar to my city, with a lot of buildings, not always good weather and no beaches. So I prefer something different to what I always have.</p>
<p>But when I should go? from January to June or September to December?</p>
<p>Like the above poster wrote, there isn’t a business program at ucla or ucsb, so even if you say your program allows you to take business classes(for undergraduate) you really won’t have “business classes” to choose from at ucla, they would be under the business econ major which i’ve heard is mainly all econ with a couple of management/accounting classes.</p>
<p>if you don’t have to be back for the summer at your school/country, then I would think doing spring would benefit you if you wanted to stay in la during the summer after spring is done. you’d probably have to rent a place off campus unless you decide to extend spring into summer and also take classes during the summer.</p>
<p>More recommendations?</p>
<p>Like LH said, don’t knock Berkeley that much. All the schools of the list are very good. Berkeley’s a cool place to be at and transportation to SF isn’t that much of an issue. For the weather, you cannot beat UCLA and UCSB. Austin is a nice city, one of the premier conferences is held there annually (SXSW). There aren’t business classes persay at UCLA, but there’s plenty offered in economic theory and you can sit in on the MBA level classes as well (UCLA Anderson School of Business alongside Haas at Berkeley and UT-Austin’s school are all pretty top notch). In addition, student groups help to fill that niche - I’m involved in Bruin Consulting which you can find at [Bruin</a> Consulting](<a href=“http://www.bruinco.com%5DBruin”>http://www.bruinco.com).</p>
<p>It comes down to your living preferences really… I came from the SF Bay Area and after graduating UCLA, I’ll most likely be heading back there after I graduate. To rep LA a bit, I’ve hosted many couch surfers (mostly foreigners) and they’ve all loved LA. There’s beaches, there’s clubs, there are the theme parks and for me, most importantly… the food! Which is not to say you can’t get any in any of the aforementioned places, but it works for me.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>For me, an exchange is situation in which I won’t study the same as I study in my own University. The idea is to experience the lifestyle in an “American University” by having time to study and feel the different style of teaching, etc… but also to experience the parties and how american people have fun, etc…</p>
<p>Well, to let you know, I had been in San Francisco and also Los Angeles in July of 2009. My concerns about each city are:</p>
<p>I really like very much SF because the style of the city, the style of the people, etc… but my concerns are that the university could be very stressing to the regular students and that isn’t the purpose of having an exchange. Instead I would like to know new people, so if the students are always stressed, there isn’t be time to go to parties, etc.
I know more about SF than LA, because LA is larger so I couldn’t visit “all”.</p>
<p>In the other hand, LA I see it as a typical american city, so that is kind of attracting.
And because of your opinions I think UCLA could have a better lifestyle in campus for a foreign student. Also a positive thing is the weather. But my concerns are that as LA is a larger city, I probably won’t have the opportunity to experience the life outside campus, which I think in SF I could.</p>
<p>Please try to understand what I wrote, because I don’t know if my english is ok.</p>
<p>And also I would like to know if you recommend me to go to USA from January to June, because that is date I will probably go for exchange.</p>
<p>Your english is great, don’t worry (where ae you coming from?). As far as the university where you’ll have an easier time academically, UCSB may be your best bet there. At UCLA, we still have a very good number of exams and it’s still quite stressful for some people. Depending on what classes you take though, you can really create different workloads.</p>
<p>Thank you, I’m from Chile. About my workload, I will try to combine 1 or 2 career subjects with 2 more “optional sujects” (I don’t know how you call them), like sports, etc… So I don’t want to be stressed for my exchange, but the purpose is learn about my career there, and also combine it with non career subjects so the workload wouldn’t be so stressing.</p>
<p>By asking if the people in both UCB and UCLA are usually stressed, I was trying to figure the possibilites to share with the classmates, and not only studying. Of course for me is important to study and know how is studying in a different place as California and different university, but the idea is also to enjoy the attractions of the city. So for me is necessary to have time to study but also to enjoy campus life and to visit attractions off campus.</p>
<p>
The “optional” subjects you speak of are called General Education courses, or GEs, over here in the United States. We do not offer non-academic subjects such as “sports”. Those are extracurricular activities that you can choose to partake in during your free time but they are not worth college credit. Also, you will be forced to resort to intramural sports, because, in the United States, college sports is a big source of revenue for universities and the people who get to play seriously at universities such as UCLA (especially UCLA) are handpicked players drafted from high school.</p>
<p>A GE course at a UC can be stressful or unstressful. I’ve had some with almost no work and an automatic “A” and I’ve had others with workloads equal to or more than my major classes and curved to a B-. It depends completely on your professor. If you take a GE at a UC (I presume you know what that means: Berkeley, UCLA, UCSB), stay away from Writing II courses! Those are torture!!! Science courses are, as usual, more difficult but there are also Humanities courses to watch out for. For example, in my GEOG 3 course, the professor expects you to read 2-3 “academic” articles a week and to memorize the name of the authors and their arguments!!! For the final, we are writing two essays. Ugh…</p>
<p>The school with the least work among your choices is UCSB. It has been frequently cited by many college guides as a “party school” and is one of the schools where the most students report that they “never study”. Despite this, the university maintains a solid national rank in the 40s. UCSB is nationally renowned for its college of Creative Studies which offers unorthodox majors such as “Creative Physics”. Mind I add that the campus and the Santa Barbara are just beautiful. UCSB was going to be my second choice university if I was rejected from UCLA/UCB. (I hadn’t sorted out which one I would go to if accepted into both. I’m really indifferent towards this stuff and all I see is rank 21 and 24.)</p>
<p>EDIT: BTW, which university to you attend in Chile? I presume its something prestigious to be able to maintain an exchange program with so many decent schools.</p>