I currently just finished my first year at UCI and I honestly and genuinely never thought I would end up here. I really wanted to go to a better school, but my high school GPA just wasn’t good enough. During my freshmen year, I tried to enjoy myself but it just didn’t happen. Never liked the culture, lifestyle, and the people, especially the dead weekends where UCI really shines as a commuter school. I’ve always wanted to go somewhere in the East Coast or at least attend UCLA or Berkeley but I got rejected everywhere my senior year of HS. First of all, I had a hardcore mindset of entering investment banking as a career field but going to UCI, this doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. I’m a business economics major with a 3.975 and I’ll be planning to apply to change majors to business administration next quarter since I got rejected when I first applied to UCI. I also applied to Berkeley/UCLA for Fall 2019 but unfortunately I was waitlisted at both. Berkeley over-enrolled and didn’t even look at the waitlist which was total BS, while UCLA still hasn’t given me a response, which is probably a rejection. I’m wondering should I just try to still focus on breaking into banking at UCI, since I’ll probably be allowed to transfer into bus admin? Or should I still try to transfer into UCLA, Berkeley, or even other privates like USC or east coast? FYI, I entered UCI with sophomore standing since I have a lot of AP credits and I’m currently junior standing as a second year. I finished all my GE’s.
How much time have you spent at the career center at UCI finding out about internship and job placement for your specific career? Do that before you worry about transferring.
If you’re already junior standing you have to be careful about going over the unit limit for the UCs. They usually only accept freshmen/juniors and have limits on how many upper division courses you can take.
Hello everyone, and if you have time please read this Quora post. https://qr.ae/TWh095. If UCI actually gave me all the opportunities to enter my dream career I would love to stay here, but the fact is that banks don’t even look at UCI and that my career center doesn’t provide any sort of opportunities either since it’s literally impossible to break in.
you need to also look at the comments though from that post. Yes, it’s possible, maybe even probable that for jobs right out of school, a UCI degree might be looked upon as not as good as a Berkeley or UCLA degree in a side-by-side comparison, but once you gain the experience (assuming you do get good experience), 5+ years later it won’t matter at all.
My niece just finished her freshman year at UCI as an EE major and she was able to get an ok internship here in Silicon Valley for the summer (it helped that she’s from here). A lot of times when it comes to job hunting, it’s more about being in the right place at the right time and being diligent in pursuit. Also, having internships and/or relevant job experience accumulated while in school helps a great deal as well.
@ProfessorPlum168 Sometimes I just feel like resigning myself to staying at UCI for 2 more years since my dad’s always like “looks like I’ll be going to your graduation in 2 more years!” But then again I always just get that feeling what if I tried a little bit harder in high school? I got rejected from UCLA, Berkeley, UCSD, and UCSB since my cumulative GPA was low even though I had a 4.0 freshmen, 4.3 sophomore, 4.5 junior, and 4.8 senior. I’ve talked to professionals and upperclassmen on how to break into banking from UCI and it’s literally impossible. I wanna transfer out since it’s kind of a pride thing too, that I want to prove to myself that I’m good enough to goto more higher caliber schools. I’m not sure if my dislike for UCI comes from that or I truly don’t like the atmosphere here. What just sucks is even when I’m searching for internships in Irvine they literally say we’re competing against UCLA and USC kids too… I did an internship at a small wealth management firm and my mentor wants us to go into banking but even he knows it’s virtually impossible coming from UCI. I have no banking relationships, and I don’t qualify for the minority/female leadership programs. Pretty much everyone I know went to those programs and got in that way, and unfortunately even those who got in admit that it was because those programs.
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@student298 You said that you only finished your first year at UCI. I suggest you go apply as a transfer for other schools like UCLA, USC, and Berkeley if you aren’t satisfied with Irvine. There’s no harm in just applying and seeing if you get in. I wasn’t satisfied with my school either which is why I applied as a transfer to USC and I ended up getting in. If you are thinking about transferring, make sure to check the transfer requirements for the school you want to transfer to.