UC San Diego or UC Davis?

ruggedcrocodile
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:32:23 +0000

After researching the web for countless hours, I find myself unable to decide between going to San Diego or Davis. At the moment I am leaning towards Davis but my preference has been switching back and forth between the two colleges. I have been admitted into UCSD as a biochemistry and cell biology major and UCD as a biochemistry and molecular biology major. However, I am not certain that I want to keep this major and I might be interested in switching to an engineering major such as bioengineering, computer science, or computer engineering.

So far, I’ve checked the rankings of the two colleges and have compared them using many different websites. It appears that UCSD is slightly more prestigious and has a better engineering and bio program. However, I’ve learned that UCD students tend to be more generally happy, friendly, and the academics aren’t as cutthroat. UCD seems appealing to me because I’d receive an education that is almost as good as UCSD while also having a supposedly better college experience.

Another issue that I have with UCSD is that all of the engineering majors are impacted which makes it extremely difficult to ever switch into those majors if I ever decided that I wanted the change. However, UCSD has one of the best engineering programs in the nation and if I were able to switch into one of those majors, I would be receiving a top notch education and would possibly be exposed to more resources, internships, etc.

Lastly, UCSD is notorious for being “socially dead” and when I visited for Triton Day 2014, I did notice that my college (Warren) seemed pretty empty and dead. I feel that I would thrive more in an environment where everyone is friendly and out and about. I’ve also heard that students at UCSD are very competitive in sciences and engineering and they may try to sabotage each other.

With all this in mind, I’d like to get some advice and suggestions about the two colleges. Personal experiences would be extremely helpful. Also, I would appreciate any debunkings or confirmations of my knowledge of the two schools above. I understand that my information might be incorrect because most of my information comes from other students or people rather than actual data. Thank you for reading and taking the time to help me with my decision.