My son has applied for Civil engineering and got admitted into the below colleges. We are in state CA.
Georgia Tech (COA $54K)
UCLA (COA $48K)
UT Austin (COA $70K)
UCSD (COA $48K)
CMU (COA $90K)
He currently is having second thoughts on engineering and wants to keep his options open. He wants to explore social sciences prior to declaring a major (leaning towards psychology and/or teaching career in addition to engineering as of now). Given this would appreciate any insights on which college can give him the space to explore what he wants to do. Some of the items I am thinking of are
Flexibility of curriculum to try out courses
Ease of change into a different major
Specific question on Georgia tech and UT Austin – how are the social sciences programs being offered? – they seem more tech centric.
He says he doesn’t care much about size or location of the campus (except he says UCLA is smaller compared to UCSD – but not as a deal breaker). From a cost standpoint CMU is a little stretch but doable if that ends up being the right choice for his future and gives the flexibility/opportunity he needs while he is deciding his career choices – all other colleges are within our finances.
Would appreciate your inputs in helping him decide. Thank you in advance!
Keep in mind the possibility of a master’s degree at some point in the future. I am not sure whether a master’s in psychology is one year or two, but you might want to include it in the budget just in case when you are considering the out of state schools.
Your in-state options are very good. I do not know how difficult it would be to change major at either of them, but usually changing out of engineering is easier compared to changing into engineering.
If the costs were equal among those schools, based on what you said, I would likely choose UCLA. With that being the least expensive option, it seems like a slam dunk to me.
That might not be possible at all these schools, assuming he was accepted into the CE major. Engineering majors often don’t have enough space for a double major, and doubling could require an extra semester or two. Something to research at each school.
IMO, it might be easiest to achieve his goals at CMU and Tech.
If engineering doesn’t work out for him, also find out what the transfer process is to get into another major. That is relatively more difficult at UCLA (psych is highly competitive), UCSD, and UT.
Your S should go on each website and plan out four years of study and research steps to change majors….this info is out there. He can talk with admissions and/dept heads if he can’t get full info from the websites.
You’ve been given some good advice already, but one other factor he may want to consider is consortium access. Georgia Tech and CMU are both in consortia that allow students to cross-register at other nearby universities. So at Georgia Tech that includes Emory, Morehouse, and others, while at CMU that includes Pitt, Duquesne, and others. So that’s an additional option to expand the course offerings of the home institution.
So UCSD may be easier to follow the civil engineering curriculum while using general education requirements on psychology courses to test interest in the subject.