Some UCLA Questions

Colleges & Universities University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>Hi CollegeConfidential!</p>

<p>I’ve been accepted to UCLA and Imperial College London, and I am currently contemplating which of the 2 should I attend next year. (Doing Chemical Engineering)</p>

<p>In my school in the UK, we’ve done A-Levels, but there are no mention of credit transfers for this type of examination, only APs and IBs. Therefore I was wondering whether there were any fellow ex UK students on this forum who had to face similar issues to me.</p>

<p>Another question I have is that I’ve read from this section that classes are often full so you can’t attend some courses, even if it is required for your degree and often you have to take summer courses to catch up. Can someone verify this and update me onto how serious this actually is.</p>

<p>Finally, I have a question about the US college system. In the UK, we basically choose one course for university, and only learn that course for 3 years. I know that in the US, you can basically pick other subjects other than your main degree courses, but like what is the actual percentage of other courses you can take? And are there any compulsory courses other than that specified in the main degree courses?</p>

<p>Thank you very much!</p>

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<p>Oh and last question. I’ve heard that for some first year courses, some classes have like 500 people attending. Can someone verify this too please?</p>

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<p>Another question I have is that I’ve read from this section that classes are often full… Can someone verify this and update me onto how serious this actually is.</p>

<p>Popular classes get full quickly, but I’ve not had any problems in the past three years getting wanted I wanted/needed. Oftentimes people will drop classes, opening a seat for you, or the professor/department may allow enrollment after the classes are supposedly full. Summer classes are optional if you want to get ahead or take a class you couldn’t take earlier. Not everyone takes summer classes, and I don’t have any knowledge what percentage of people take classes during the summer. But I’ll just say that it’s common to take summer classes, but it’s also common to do other things during the summer. It’s not a serious problem to be worried about. It’s become increasingly understood that some people take 5 years to graduate, but it’s not a particular problem that I’ve seen. There are statistics somewhere on how many people graduate within four years, and it was pretty high the last time I checked. If you’re absolutely mortified that some people may take more than four years to graduate, then maybe a U.S. school isn’t the best for you, because from what I understand, it’s common and not frowned upon at all (anymore?).</p>

<p>I know that in the US, you can basically pick other subjects other than your main degree courses… are there any compulsory courses other than that specified in the main degree courses?</p>

<p>At UCLA, and from what I understand all U.S. undergraduate programs, there are (a) degree requirements and there are (b) college/graduation requirements. Degree requirements are the classes you need specific to your intended program of study/major. The college/graduation requirements are things that are intended to make you a more well-rounded scholar, such as foreign language and humanities and science general education (GE) courses. I’m pretty sure all schools in the US have GE requirements. That means even if you study Chemistry for 4 years, you need to fulfill GE requirements that teach you humanities and social sciences. You pick and choose the courses you want in generally any order (bar classes in a sequence). There’s no set track for any one student. At UCLA, you generally have a foreign language requirement to fulfill as well, meaning you take one year of a foreign language or take an examination to prove proficiency in another language. Foreign language requirements depend on what degree you pursue. Some programs, such as engineering, do not have this foreign language requirement.</p>

<p>Perhaps it’s an international thing, but I am under the impression that it’s past deadlines for deciding which school to attend. In the US, the deadline to submit intents to register at a school were back sometime around May. Do you have a different deadline?</p>

<p>I’ve heard that for some first year courses, some classes have like 500 people attending…</p>

<p>No course to my knowledge would ever have 500 people attending. Only the most popular introductory/lower division classes have enrollments up to 385 (Chemistry 14A and 20A). Most other lower division in my experience are around 100-200. My upper division classes are around 30-80 students. Some classes I’ve had are as low as 14.</p>

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<p>In the U.S. there is a much greater degree of freedom as to your class selection. Majors require something like 15 classes (Political Science for example is 14). Then you have 10 General Education Classes spread out among different disciplines. These can sometimes overlap with some classes for your major. If you take 4 classes per quarter, that would be 48 total. 15 out of those 48 would be your major classes and 10 would be GEs. So the remaining 23 classes would be free to do whatever else you want to do. I hope this clears something up for you!</p>

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<p>Ah thank you very much for that info.
Just a last few questions.
How are the exams in the university organized? Eg. are they biweekly, monthly, yearly etc? And could you quickly explain GPA? I know the highest you can get is 4, but does that mean you have to get 100% each exam to get a full GPA?</p>

<p>How do the 48 courses you take affect your GPA? Are they equally measured, or do the Major classes affect it more?</p>

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<p>@ericzt i am from singapore so i am very familiar with the alevel system. for us, as long as we can get a minimum C for subjects such as H2 econ, math etc, we will be exempted for a few units.</p>

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<p>Grades
[UCLA</a> General Catalog 2012-13: Grades](<a href=“http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/catalog/catalog12-13-35.htm]UCLA”>http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/catalog/catalog12-13-35.htm)</p>

<p>Exams are given as the instructors please. There are final examinations the week after the last day of instruction (“Finals Week”). Final examinations usually count for a larger percentage of the grade earned in the class, as determined by the instructor.</p>

<p>A full GPA is getting A/A+ in every class. Each class receives a grade. Classes with more units/credits are worth more in calculating the GPA. Each class is graded differently. The instructor sets guidelines for grades and what earns an A. You don’t have to receive 100% on each exam; you just have to fall within the grading guidelines set by the instructor.</p>

<p>Courses affect your GPA by the weight they have, depending on how many units they are worth. A class worth 4 units will affect your GPA twice as much as a class worth 2 units. You may have a class worth 2 units within your program of study, while you may have a class worth 5 units to fulfill a General Education requirement. In that case, the GE class is worth 2.5 times more. Look at the general catalog for details.</p>

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<p>I need to refer to this page more often than I’d like to admit:
[Chemical</a> Engineering Curriculum ? UCLA Engineering - Office of Academic and Student Affairs](<a href=“http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/undergraduates/che-department-curricular-updates/chemical-engineering-curriculum]Chemical”>http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/undergraduates/che-department-curricular-updates/chemical-engineering-curriculum)</p>

<p>I think it comes out to only 44 courses required to get a degree (not including AP credit). </p>

<p>As for exams, there are usually 1-2 midterms per quarter (10 weeks) as well as a final. Often, the midterms will make up about 20% of the final grade while the final will be worth around 50%. Some classes have smaller assignments such as homework as well.</p>