Another question: Does UCLA and UC Berkeley allow one quarter/One semester to be dropped (not the first quarter/first semester but a subsequent one because I know dropping first quarter/semester is a deferral and requires special approval)? Is it a simple process or does it involve approval from admissions/dean and does it require student to be re-admitted?
Hi everyone! I am a transfer student who has completed engineering physics, the calc, chem, bio and ochem series. I was accepted into the College of Letters and Sciences and I applied as biochem ba. Can somebody let me know if the biochem ba degree from Berkeley is equivalent to (for example) a b.s in biochem from UCLA. I am not really interested in the chemical biology b.s as much as it focuses too much on the chemistry aspect which I don’t enjoy. I am not pre-med but am looking to go into regulatory or pharmaceutical companies but don’t have a specific job in mind.
My D has a similar question. From the analysis she did so far, it seems these two programs are at par. But it will be good to hear responses from others.
@happyParent2024
You can withdraw from classes for a semester. Sort of forget what that entailed.
You can have an incomplete which is where you take the finals and stuff the next semester, if you have a good reason like a sick family.
You can take a semester off (I’ve known 3 people who did that). One went to community college for a semester before coming back.
https://ls.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/advexpectedgraduationtermchangerequest.pdf
You can do one late change in your time at Berkeley. You can do a late drop or a late add or a late pass no pass.
I guess define dropped.It’s generally for cases where you have a family emergency or get an illness, not just because you forgot to study that semester.
@anji22
https://mcb.berkeley.edu/undergrad/bmb
It’s part of MCB. So technically it’s a bio major with an emphasis.
You better like chemistry and physics.
C100A Biophysical Chemistry is known to be painful, so good luck starting with that as a transfer student. Maybe try to put that off.
100B says it’s biochemistry. 102 is biochemistry where you memorize things. 100B is think also involves more chemistry.
I have no idea about Chemical Biology or anything in the chemistry department, but 110, 140, 130, C148 I wouldn’t mind taking. Don’t sound too boring. 140 is genetics and 104 genetics is easy, but apparently 140 genetics is weird and less fun.
Labs are always fun.
Yeah, just skip the 100s for the first semester and it should be fine. Take 110, 140, maybe 110L or the MCB elective your first semester. Figure out the first 3 classes later, and those first semster classes transfer well between different bio degrees. Maybe retake the 12 series since it’s OChem for Chemistry majors and they might make you retake it anyways.
You should be able to get out in a year and a half.
Here’s UCLA biochemistry. Go post on the UCLA page for their take. I know nothing about UCLA
https://www.chemistry.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/undergraduate/Biochemistry_Major_2019-2020.pdf
@Walter924 Can you share any insight into these?
- You mentioned that you will be graduating in 3 years and a summer. We heard it takes little over 4 years to graduate. How long does it take for bio majors like MCB?
3.5 years is double majoring. It takes 2.5 years for MCB including breadths but not too many extra classes, taking 16 units a semester. It takes about 3.5 years taking 13 units a semester and 4 years if you take 13 units and take a few more classes. 13 units is the minimum. 20.5 is the maximum without special permission. So 4 years is a conservative single major estimate.
- Is 3.9 doable in other bio MCB majors?
I don’t know about the Biochem emphasis. Every other bio or bio adjacent major is fine if you keep up on the work. I got a B+ in Physics 8A and Chem1A. As in everything else. Most upper divisions are fine because you’re a bio major, and bio (memorizing) is what you’re good at, which is why you’re majoring in it. If you were good at AP Bio and AP History, Bio is a good major for you.
- I keep reading on the forums that MCB and other bio/chem majors have heavy grade curving in the lower level classes and students are more competitive. Due to the competition, there is no collaborative env and do not study in groups. You are not in this major but wanted to know your comments about this competitive env.
I’m an individual studier because I feel that groups are pretty unproductive most of the time. If you are a person who studies with people, dorms have a ton of study rooms. There’s academic tutors in an academic study area in each of the 5 dorms, for free tutoring in most intro subjects from 8-11 pm Sun-Thurs. No one ever goes in to talk to them, so they’re bored and you can have them read a whole essay or whatever you want. They also hold review sessions before tests in those classes. If you don’t want to do that, the SLC has tutors in the afternoons, informal studying together in the mornings, and you can sign up to join study groups. If you take a writing class, you can have a one-on-one English tutor every week for a semester. If you’re in a math class, intro math courses have adjunct 1-2 unit classes that you can take that extra go over the material every week. And then big intro classes have a ton of gsis who have office hours totaling up to most of the day all week. And then departments hire extra tutors to tutor people too that people generally don’t know about, but you can find out about them on department websites. And then there’s 2 hours of professor office hours each week. If you want help, there is a ton of help at all hours, within a 10 minute walk of wherever you are. Now I’m going to join my IB professor’s zoom office hours because I’m considering asking him for a letter of rec. He’s sort of monotone, but his medical ethnobotany, evolutionary medicine, and reproductive medicine classes go over really interesting things. Women not on birth control prefer the sweaty shirts of men more genetically different from them, but women on birth control prefer the smells of men similar to them genetically (MHCs to be specific).
Here’s berkeleytime with all the statistics you could ever want to know about classes: when they fill up, what percent of the class gets what grades with what teachers, etc. https://www.berkeleytime.com/grades. 25-30% of most classes get As. In a few classes, 50% get As.
No I don’t think it’s competitive. You meet a lot of people through labs. Almost all lab stuff is with partners or groups. I can’t remember the last experiment that was individual, maybe a few in OchemBL.
- How big are the class sizes for bio/chem lower division classes?
500 people. For two years, basically all of my classes were in Pimentel. And I wish they’d be bigger. GSI discussion sections are still 17 people. Also wish they’d be bigger. The teachers are great. They’re experts in their fields. On page 131 I think I wrote a bunch of stuff about Bio classes. The people who want to ask questions sit in the front and ask questions. The professors spend like 10-20 minutes of each class answering questions. Lab classes are a bit
- As UCB does not have a med school, where do one go for volunteer experience?
Blood Pressure Project apparently counts more as a clinical experience than volunteering in a hospital, because they take the blood pressures of disadvantaged people in the community. They accept everyone and also have medical field speakers every week on Wednesday night.
Suitcase clinic has a smaller window to join and is a bigger time clinic, but they help take care of homeless people at the free clinic and provide other services for the homeless. That’s a good club
Alta Bates lets students volunteer starting sophomore year, and is a great place to volunteer. The volunteer department is a first 100 hours position that discharges patients, does lab runs, and makes packets. The second 100 hours I’m doing Same Day surgery where I get people from the waiting room changed and into their beds and I make gurneys, packets, discharge people, and do some other small things. After 200 hours they have a physician shadowing program. Josephine Real is in charge of the volunteers and she is super peppy and talk a lot. She’s nice. It’s a 15-20 minute walk from campus. There’s 2 bus lines that go pretty close by too from campus.
There’s also the Children’s Hospital in Oakland, but that’s a pretty long commute.
There’s also some doctor offices around but I haven’t looked into trying to get into those.
I know someone whose a scribe in an emergency department. Scribes are a popular premed job since they don’t require very much training to get into a medical office.
- What opportunities are available for lab research to publish a paper etc.? Heard some research at UCSF. Is this option available for every one? If not, what other options available?
UCSF is a long commute too. I haven’t looked into that. I do research with Professor Fulton through URAP since I took his class on Health Economics. Pretty sure professors get paid for having URAP kids. There’s also SURF over the summer which is paid research. People recommend cold emailing because there’s a lot of professors who don’t have positions on URAP, but if you express and interest in the research they’ve done, skim the papers, they’ll give you something to do. If you get financial aid, there’s some research work-study. And then honors programs involve choosing an advisor and doing your own research. I’m assuming they let you work in their lab on your project and help you get supplies. Don’t know how publishing works for that. Basically, I have no idea. I’m premed because I don’t want to be a researcher writing grants.
- Is there a separate premed advisor/s? Are they helpful and easy to find appointments with them?
Yep, there’s at least one maybe as many as 3 premed advisors located in the career center. You meet by setting up an appointment. They have okay availability. They have application review events and presentations on things throughout the year. They send out an email every week with some opportunities for research and work and presentations every week. I met with an advisor last semester. She said I need more clinicals and to read Atul Gadawande (butchered that. Checklist dude) and other doctor books by doctors to learn more about what being a doctor is like. She also recommended getting the 28$ MSAR for a year before applying to learn about schools. There’s some application reviews going on this month, but I haven’t really really written my application or personal statement, so I haven’t gone. There’s also SPAN which is another club, where students answer a pre-health advising email for pre-med questions and also hold a series of presentations in Fall and Spring about the premed process, MCAT recommendations, classes to take and with who, etc. They’re a nice group, but I’m not sure really how much they know about actually applying to medical school because most of them are the same grade as I am and a lot of premed people take a gap year before applying these days.
- What kind of support is provided for MCAT preparation?
I mean there’s not an MCAT class at Berkeley, or at any college. There’s a Princeton or Kaplan Review or something right across the street. MCAT prep courses are like 3000$. By junior year, you’ve probably made friends who are also planning on taking the MCAT to study with. AMSA or AWMSA (I don’t know, American Medical Student Association, and then one for women) are normally auctioning off a discounted Kaplan prep program. I just used the MCAT prep book at the library and then bought the 3 35$ official practice tests from the AAMC.
- You mentioned you have a good GPA and applying to med school without any gap years. Per the med school applicant data published on UCB site (should commend UCB for publishing these details for each year), it seems to show that around 20 are able to skip gap years. Majority is taking 1,2, or even 3 gap years and some even 4 years. One gap year is becoming a norm any where but wondering why so many UCB graduates are taking 2 or 3 or 4 gap years?
a) Are they going for PG or something to improve the GPAs or
b) do they need that time to beef up the resume with more ECs as they do not find many opportunities for ECs while at Berkeley or they do not find time for ECs while in Berkeley as are busy keeping up with the GPA? Just trying to understand what we are getting into.
I’d guess it’s mostly people getting a job before medical school. Medical schools like to see that you’re serious about the medical field and you know what you’re getting into, and you’d really rather be a doctor that a nurse or psychologist or physician assistant. I don’t know though. Someone at those office hours I just went to said she was graduating and planning to get a phD or masters before she applied to medical school. It’s a lot of debt to take on for 8 years in a row. People are probably trying to pay off some of their Berkeley debt before they take on 250,000$ more in debt. Medical schools cost 30,000-60,000 in tuition, not including living expenses.
- Is Cal or other UC like UCSD better for premed keeping all those points asked above in mind?
All the UCs are the same. We all know that there the same. That’s why everyone has such a hard time choosing between Berkeley and UCLA. I had to choose between a full ride at Oklahoma versus Berkeley. I thought the name recognition of Berkeley would be a good back up plan for trying to get a job if I didn’t go to medical school. Plus I thought the interesting and successful people of Berkeley would be similar to me and would be good for networking. It’s been good. People talking about black holes over dinner, learning about how many of our vegetable are secretly variants of wild cabbage (google Brassica oleracea), professors always being like “this was discovered at Berkeley (such as half the periodic table), this was actually a paper by a Berkeley graduate, this guy used to teach at Berkeley”, and then podcasts mentioning Berkeley a lot of the time when they mention a college. Such as, https://thememorypalace.us/2019/06/nature-naturally/ and a bunch of other podcasts. Apparently I had to split this up.
What are some good classes to take (that hopefully fulfill some requirements) for a freshman MCB major taking math 10a, chem 1a and chem 1al?
@sunnyca
Honestly, Organic Chemistry 3A and 3AL. Robak is fine, better than Vollhart dude, not as good as Marsden, so might as well. Also, Ochem is nothing like Chemistry. If Chemistry is a prereq for Ochem, that’s like having physics be a prereq for Chemistry. Same realm, but you don’t really need to know most of one to know the other at that moment.
Since people generally don’t actually take my smoosh everything together advice, I took History of Celebrity, Drama in American Cultures, and Peace and Conflict Studies to cover Art/Literature, History, Philosophy, and AC. Those included the only 2 classes I did so bad in, I had to pass/no pass. Still covers requirement even as a pass, so it’s okay, but there’s a reason I’m a biology major and not a theater major. Which is why, if you’re going for a confident first semester, I voted for Ochem.
Philosophy and (even more so) International are the hardest breadths to cover because they have the fewest classes that cover them.
There’s classes in the fall called Ethics in Science and Engineering, or Health, Medicine, Society, and Environment that cover philosophy. Those might be good. Or you could take peace and conflict like I did. Same teacher. Interesting class with interesting readings (all of which I read), but on demand essays for midterm and final for 3 hours straight, which I got Cs on.
I don’t know. Find a class that sounds interesting for breadths and take it. If you google the class name, you can usually find a syllabus, which should help you make a decision. But if you’re taking breadths, realize it’s out of your comfort zone (not your major/favorite test type) and you might P/NP, and that most interesting breadths are upper-division.
Don’t forget to ignore pre-requisites for everything other than Bio 1A.
Back to watching my lecture.
Hi, Got admitted to UCLA engineering CS major, is UCB CS(BA) worth considering?
Ranking wise UCB CS is #2
Are career opportunities better with Berkeley stamp compared to UCLA?
I was admitted to the engineering Dept I applied to but now prefer a different major (mechanical). Before deciding whether to enroll at Berkeley I would like to know my chances of changing majors from one engineering major into mechanical. Is there a minimum gpa? The school website just says to apply after at least one semester and an advisor can tell you the minimum gpa requirement. I would like to know before deciding whether to enroll. Anyone know? Thanks in advance.
yes definitely worth considering. BA vs BS from UCB does not matter if we’re talking about job placements, its just a difference in a few classes. and afaik Berkeley CS is regarded as much better than UCLA cs, and also since its closer to silicon valley