locknload

Congrats New Bruins! I'm glad you decided to come to UCLA. I'm just bored not wanting to study for finals so I decided to come on here, I stopped coming here but I remember when I did last summer before I first got here - asking tons of questions and finding more info.

UCLA is a fun but challenging road. You guys will love it here I'm sure. If you have any questions you want to ask just post here and I'll try to answer them, or message me on here or on facebook.

Definitely go on Orientation if you're wavering on whether or not to go. Best of luck.

gooduniforme

Hi locknload. Well, here's my main concern: I know that all colleges these days are cut-throat. But how competitive, exactly, would you say UCLA is? First off, it's incredibly difficult to get in (ok, maybe i exaggerated a bit), on top of the fact that it's an intellectual place. You know how a lot of highschools are known to be harder/difficult than others in the same neighborhood? Well, do you think UCLA is one of those universities where the grading/teachers/curves do more harm to the student than good? Are there a good number of "easy" teachers, or are easy teachers just a HS thing that we'll never find again at the college level? Basically, i don't want to make the same mistakes as I did in H.S. : that is, taking hard classes w/ hard teachers and then wrecking my GPA. (I'm up for a challenge of course, but not if that means getting crappy grades all over the place)... Please, just describe in general your experiences with easy/hard courses and teachers and what effects they have on your GPA. Thanks so much.

benfino

It is not as competitive as most people make it out to be. For the most part it will depend on what you major in but speaking as a chem major it isn't hard to score 35-40% above the mean on exams and thus set the curve - for example, in the 30 series (organic chemistry) - with a modest amount of studying. I guess there isn't much competition at the top

Of course there are professors who make their courses unnecessarily difficult, like Biskup, but they are somewhat rare. You will probably find more 'easy' or slacking professors than difficult ones here, I'd say. One thing though - it's not the material that makes a course hard, it's the professor who makes it hard (i.e. GPA killer). But these professors do have a reputation for their difficulty, and you most often will know this in advance when signing up for classes if you look for it...

As long as you are aware of this (i.e. try not to take classes with needlessly hard professors - e.g. Biskup - though this will sometimes be unavoidable) and know your strengths (study when you should), you'll do fine. Try to understand the material and immerse yourself in it as well as you can, and I guarantee you you will beat the curve, no matter the subject. In this respect a lot of the students here aren't really very good at this at all - they aim for a superficial understanding of the material and it catches up with them in the end.

gooduniforme

benfino, thanks for that! I appreciate your insight. Do you think that the mentors/student counselors will be helpful and informative as to who are the "slacking"/difficult professors when we schedule classes during summer orientation ?

BoelterHall

You are better off listening to yourself/parents than the counselors. They are just conservative because they are somewhat responsible if your courses get uncontrollable.

They are informative, but their advice is not so great sometimes.

Biskup is getting a bit easier; those who still complain about his difficulty is not pushing hard enough, and using the difficulty as an excuse still. Biskup is not the only difficult professor (ex. Corbin). The more difficult, the more you learn.

locknload

I'd say in general UCLA is a more academically-orientated school than most. Depends on your major however. What do you plan on studying? It depends how hard you want to work while here really.

gooduniforme

Well, I'm thinking somewhere in the area of Bus. Econ/Intl. Area Studies...I think I'd be more interested in that rather than simply majoring in Bus. Econ. Btw, do you know anything about these majors? In addition, I hear double majoring is very ... stressful and difficult. true?

locknload

It's can be stressful if you're trying to do it in 4 yrs. But with Bus Econ double majoring is a cinch. Know that Bus-Econ is a Pre-Major, which means you have to do well to be officially enrolled in it. Bus-Econ is more Econ orientated - UCLA lacks anything close to a "business" degree at the undergraduate level.

gooduniforme

locknload, since UCLA lacks anything resembling an undergraduate business degree ... do you recommend Economics/International Relations instead of simply Business Economics? I really like cultures, languages, and would like to work overseas some day ... Would Econ/Intl Studies suit me better than plain ol' Business Economics ?

locknload

I'm about 3 months too late since I didn't see this update, but I would recommend the Econ/IR rout instead of just simply biz econ - - - but Business Econ is very math focused (more so than people realize) but it does have more a business feel than simply econ - but if your passion is culture and languages I think you can more out of E/IR