transfer from college to university?

Question

hello. i am an international student in USA and very confused with the system here.
this spring is my second semester. i wanna transfer to university asap, maybe UC...
there are requirements for my major, and another general education requirements for transferring. after i counted all of the units, it exceeds the maximum units (70 units)for transferring. is it okay? can anybody give me any links for application schedule? thanks

can i just skip the GE?

Answer 1

Hey there, I am a transfer student myself so I know what you are going through.

To answer your questions straigh up: It is most likely not ok that you exceed your maximum amount because you will be considered too close to having a bachelors degree. When you transfer you must have at least 90 quarter units (60 Semester units) but you need to be careful not to go way beyond that.

The first thing you need to figure out is your prospective major. It is critical you choose your major now, because when you end up transferring you will almost immedietly begin your upper divisional courses for that particular major. If you have already chosen this than you are all set to go pretty much.

Secondly, (this is after you have decided on a prospective major) you need to figure out how you plan to fill requirements of the many schools available for transfer students.

In California, and particuarily with the UC campuses there is a thing called the IGETC. This is essentially a list of basic general educational courses that will allow, upon completion or near completion, you to apply with some confidence. This is generally the path most transfer students use if they are non engineering/bio/science majors. If you are majoring in something like economics or sociology, you will most likely have to complete the IGETC in order to transfer.

This college course plan can be found at your counsler's office, or online if you search for it.

If you decide, however, to be an engineer or bio chem major (essentially some major that has a lot of math sciences) then your process will change greatly. For instance, my major is in engineering and over 80 of my quarter units (53 semester units) will be coming from Math, Chem, Physics, and English alone. I have no time to take all the IGETC recommended courses or I will overshoot the maximum transferable units allowed by far. If you are an engineering or science major you should plan to take as much math and science courses as you can. Make sure to take classes that have course numbers lower than 49 if you plan to transfer to a UC. For instance MATH 1A, CHEM 1B, or Physics 10 are all transferable to UC's. However, EWRT 100 or ENGR 74 are not because the course numbers are above 49, the cutoff. Generally the lower numbered courses are more difficult, but this is not always true.

A great website to use to plan your transfer is :

www.assist.org

If you can find your college that you are currently attending, it can set you up for any major at the UCs and California State Schools.

In Addition I highly recommend seeing your counsler and letting them know of your academic plan, or major and where you want to go. They will have more material and experience to show you the way.

From a student standpoint I can also say, you need to work hard if you want to make it where you want to go. But at the same time make sure you are doing something you want to do and want to learn so you can have some fun along the way.

I hope I have answered your question a little, you'll find out tons more about this process as you progress in school.

By the way-
Filing periods for transfer for the fall semester/quarter are over mostly (except for some privates). Generally they say it takes 2 years to transfer, but this is hard to do unless you take about 3 classes a quarter minimum (about 15-20 units a quarter or 10-13 semester units) and take some classes over one summer. Make sure to do background checks on the schools you are interested in before hand so you can fulfill some specific requirements they have. For instance the California state schools request a speech class of some sort to fill a mandatory requirement. This information, again, is probably something your counsler will have.

Good luck!

Answer 2

It is okay as long as you meet all required classes (that the university wants) before you transfer to the university of your choice.


Some universities/majors require more classes than one or another.
Most universities in my state requires around 60 credits or more, depending on majors.