This all feels oddly complicated. Do you actually want an engineering major that isn’t offered at Northeastern or Santa Barbara? Or do you just feel that the engineering programs aren’t good enough at these schools?
I don’t generally think that attending one four-year institution with the intention to transfer to another is a great idea. If your assessment of what you want to study and where you want to study it has changed since you applied this year, it might be better to take a gap year (during which you could certainly build your programming skill-set as long as it’s not credit-bearing) and rework your application strategy.
If what you really want is a particular UC engineering program that isn’t available to you with your current acceptances, there are a number of California community colleges that actively recruit international students who want to pursue the transfer pathway; that would be another option.