Should I stay or should I transfer?

sherbet
Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:43:59 +0000

@Kulakai
Thank you for your advice, I never thought that you could apply both for an internal transfer and also for an external one. I thought that once you decide to transfer into another college, it has to be a definite decision, and that USC (or the college you wanted to part from) won’t allow you to come back unless you apply to it next year. This pretty much solves my dilemma.

As for the fact that I should aim for a prestigious econ program for graduate or doctorate studies only after my undergraduate studies, I believe that a very nice undergrad preparation in economics is one, if not one of the most important, of the keys to schools that offer prestigious graduate and doctorate studies in economics. What I am saying here is that I am looking for a very solid foundation in my field of study from my undergraduate studies in college. A good foundation will make it easier whereas a bad foundation will make it harder for me to fully understand the more complex concepts in graduate school.

@vinceh
I never thought of college as a simple place where you can get something by simply asking for it. I think of it as a place where in order to obtain something, you need to take action, you need to look for it and gain it; things don’t simply come at you when you wish for them. As a matter of fact, I am not waiting for my years to pass by and hope by chance that I can become an Econ guru just by staying where I am right now. I am hoping to attain as much as I can in my undergraduate studies, so that I can access the brightest professors and fellow students. Even if I can access them, I would just be a sore thumb if I am not academically prepared myself.

As you said, I am not someone who has a really clear idea of what s/he wants from college. I never had any first hand experience with college before I came to USC; none of my friends nor relatives have ever attended college in order to tell me what I should be looking forward to. I myself thought that college would be just a place that prepares you for your job hunt (that’s what it’s like in my country at least), and that by just graduating with a piece of paper I would immediately find a nice job and start to earn money. Now have enough first hand experience to say that what I want from college is a competitive environment where I can assess my limits and where I can grow intellectually. I didn’t find USC’s Econ department that competitive, but as you said in your first post, it is still a little too early to judge it; that’s why I am not considering an external transfer until I finish my sophomore year.

I am not majoring in Business and CS because I don’t find the EE and Math courses that interesting. I have considered a minor in CS, but then I also considered the fact that I can learn programming languages by myself to a certain extent. I ended up choosing to major in Econ because it was one of my most versatile options; I could have pursued law, business, finance, or other disciplines after I graduate with a degree in Econ. I am also majoring in Econ because I am interested in it.

Right now I am already looking into what I can reap from USC and as well as what advantages other schools would have over USC. I was also interested in the progressive degree in Econ at USC, but that would deny me the possibility of interacting with other graduate school.

@Eagle69
Yes, I am still looking forward to USC’s econ department for another year or so as I don’t want to base my transferring decision only on a couple of courses that I have taken.

@madbean
Yes, I was not admitted to Berkeley (I haven’t applied to the other schools I mentioned), but I am not trying to cheat the system. I didn’t even think about attending university until my sophomore year in high school, much less a university in another continent, but I eventually chose to come to the U.S. for a variety of reasons. By looking back at what I have done in high school, I feel like that I could have achieved more: I only focused on grades, and gave little attention to EC and other things American universities were looking for. As a matter of fact, I am very surprised that I even was able to come to USC. But as soon as I realized that the econ classes that I have taken were not so competitive I decided that maybe USC is still not enough for me. I have always wondered where I could have ended up if I did things differently in high school. That’s why I am thinking of giving myself a second chance, and see if I can prove myself to be top-notch university material by transferring to them. And if I can’t transfer, I am still satisfied by USC as it never let me down except for the not-so-great econ department.

Before coming to USC I thought that Econ was in the business school. I didn’t even know that I had to make an internal transfer to switch in between different schools.

Before I applied to college, I didn’t even know the difference between undergrads and graduate students or the fact that a university has many different schools in it. When I applied to USC, I noticed that film music majors (if I remember correctly) had to submit extra stuff; knowing that these majors required extra documentation, I thought that these were the only majors requiring extra documentation if I wanted to change my major.

Thank you for your final advice. Actually I only discovered this fact by roaming around CC these days. I would love to follow my interests, but I highly doubt that my parents would pay for my college tuition then.