HI there, I’m a transfer student and I want to major in Civil Engineering undergraduate to later get a masters degree in architect. I came from Notre Dame de Namur University with a major in Biochemistry and did not complete it due a multitude of reasons I don’t feel like getting into. Now I’ve decided on Engineering since I have all the base classes. To fast forward, I am choosing between 3-4 Universities: UC Davis, UC Irvine, Sonoma State and Humboldt State.
I want to go to either Sonoma or Humboldt. They are next to the beach (and I’m a San francisco gal. I need that!), small teacher to student ratio, and a relaxing, loving atmosphere. I visited those universities and it felt right and good for me. Sadly, they don’t have an civil or general engineering major. The closest major is something off from it and I don’t want to chose something like mechanical engineering when it’s not related to my end goal which is architecture.
UC Davis and UC Irvine are prestigious nice universities that have my major. UC Davis is located in a desert and i hate that. Irvine is close to the ocean but the temperature is so hot there too (i think?). I am afraid of the quarter system because I went to East Bay State University and I simply could not keep up with my social life and hobbies AND school at the same time. I just remember feeling like I never had any time for anything (but that might’ve been because I was a double major). Anyways, the population of the schools are also large and that kinda scares me too because I’m a bit of an introvert who needs to find places to escape to.
My main questions are: Are there nice nature places around UC Davis and UC Irvine? Is the quarter system at the UC’s also horribly stressed? Are the class sizes huge and will that impact my learning especially because I’m an introvert? Can any Sonoma State or Humboldt State Major still lead me to Engineering/Architecture?
Thanks, any help is appreciated even if you can’t answer all the questions!
Normally, I would say not to choose a college solely on the basis of major - but you are a transfer student, you know exactly what you want to major in, and you want to go for engineering which I think is one of the majors you should choose a college for.
For what it’s worth, I did a little poking around and it looks like you can get a professional M.Arch with a bachelor’s degree in any area - engineering, physics, even art history if you wanted to. For example, Berkeley has an accelerated M.Arch if you have a professional or regular major in architecture, but every other major takes the same amount of time - civil engineering wouldn’t give you a leg up over mechanical. Cornell’s program takes the same amount of time regardless of what your undergrad major was. USC, MIT, and UCLA similarly don’t require any specific major and their programs take the same regardless of whether you majored in civil engineering or art history assuming you have the very minimal prerequisites.
However, I also looked up Sonoma State and Humboldt State, and they don’t really seem to have anything close to what you want. Sonoma State has a major in electrical engineering, but that’s it, and Humboldt State has no engineering majors at all; I guess you could major in physics. If you know that you want civil engineering and even mechanical is a concession to you, then I don’t think you’d be very happy there.
Other things to consider:
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I know you said you are somewhat afraid of the quarter system, but consider the idea that you potentially had unrealistic expectations for your social life and hobbies? Engineering majors are very demanding, and you will have less time for social life and hobbies than you would if you were a psychology or math major. That’s the trade-off of picking an engineering major. Plus, I’m assuming you were new to college then, so now that you’ve gotten more experience you’ll get better at balancing.
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Although I personally do not think that you should pick a college purely on the basis of reputation, it’s hard to ignore the fact that both UCs are far better known than the two CSUs you’re going to. I don’t think that means you should absolutely attend them but combined with the fact that the two CSUs don’t even have what you want to major in, I think it should be a factor.
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You’re going to be an upper-level major, which means by the time you transfer you’ll be taking smaller classes. There may still be a few large lectures, but you won’t necessarily be stuck in a bunch of 300-person lecture classes. (That may be less true if you are transferring as a sophomore, but still, it’d only be a year.)
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Irvine is pretty close to the beach, but wherever you go you’ll only be there for two or maybe three years. You can always live in a nice beach climate when you graduate!
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Large universities have lots of diverse kinds of students. And within that diversity means that you can usually find your niche. There are lots of introverted students at large universities who you can make friends with, and likely dozens of student organizations that you can fall in love with.
And maybe this is already obvious to you, but why not try to transfer to Cal Poly SLO? I guess it’s not that much smaller than Irvine, but being further north the climate is probably closer to what you want. SFSU and SJSU are also pretty big, but both of them seem to be in the area you want with the climate you want and they also both have civil engineering.
As usual @juillet has good info and good advice.
Just to address your beach and weather issue: remember that term time is Sept- May: it won’t be that hot during the winter. My brother works at UCI and lives in Newport Beach, and he typically bikes to work (about 35 minutes each way).
With avergae January lows in the 40s and average summer highs in the 80s and a relatively low humidity I think Irvine’s weather is pretty decent. It’s an hour and half to the beach on public transportation, but less than half an hour if you have a car.
As an architect you should realize that architecture school is no picnic. I have never worked so hard in my life or pulled so many all nighters. And there isn’t that big a payback in terms of career earnings either, though I like my work. Civil engineering would be a decent preparation and you’d probably be able to skip most of the structure sequence, but we had people who had majored in all sorts of things as undergrads. The thing I really wish I’d done more of was have experience in construction.
Ummm, why were CPSLO, SFSU, SDSU, and SJSU not on your list?