harrysmith138

I’m a nontraditional cc student looking to transfer to UC Berkeley or UCLA and I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge on the history programs on both schools. I am also curious about the media studies/mass communication major at UC Berkeley.

Pertaining to Media Studies
What exactly is the major about?
Reputation
Any first hand knowledge or experience

CalBear2009

Welcome harry... Both schools have excellent history programs. I'm a nontraditional student too (I'm in my final semester at Cal studying Modern British History). I chose Cal over UCLA because of greater resources for my area of study (we have the Center for British Studies here). But, in almost every other area they are both pretty equal (although UCLA has a good deal more professors in their department). I would suggest looking at the faculty pages of both schools and the course catalogues to see what interests you with each department.

Sorry, I don't have much experience with Media Studies (although it's called Mass Communications at other universities).

harrysmith138

Thanks for the information. Did you also transfer from a cc and do most transfers live on campus or off?

snooks86

UCSB is a good choice, too.

CalBear2009

Yes, I transferred from De Anza College (Cupertino, CA). I live on campus (although all accommodations are located outside of the campus grounds).

harrysmith138

I'm going to De Anza right now too. Did you have any difficulty transfering as a history major from De Anza to Cal?

CalBear2009

@harry: There was a slight adjustment when I got here. There is a lot more reading involved at the Upper-Division level (think about 1-200 pages per class/per week). The first précis I turned in on a weekly reading came back with a grade of 7/10. I had been used to getting all A's with very little work or thought... that changed quickly. I adapted to the new workload and now it's not bad at all.

Also, be prepared for a lot of writing as well. I'm finishing a 20-page paper for a seminar class which is due next Friday and I just turned in the draft of my senior honors thesis last week which was 54-pages. Not all classes require papers of this length, but you have to do at least one seminar class and every history major has to write an honors thesis to graduate here at Cal.

With that said... it's really not that scary, it just takes some getting used to when you come from the cc level. But it's absolutely doable.