UCSC Engineering Not ABET Cert

honeybeedoors
Wed, 13 May 2020 14:37:25 +0000

@mari020509 There were several reasons, some which just apply to his situation.

1. He wants to run competitively in school and had discussed this with the UCSC coach. Since he was waitlisted, the coach couldn’t hold a spot for him (of the incoming freshman) and that the situation would be reevaluated if he got in off the waitlist. When my son checked back, the coach said there was no spot. At CPP (his current SIR), he knows he has to run a certain time at time trial (there is no time trial at UCSC) to make the cross country team. At UC Davis (recently admitted off waitlist) he could be happy on their club cross country and track team (which travels/competes in a lot of meets).

2. The vibe he got from the CS department was that you can be very successful if you make the most of your internship opportunities and tie that to your upper division courses. He was worried that course load by itself wasn’t necessarily rigorous enough and that you need to tailor your course load toward your first job. At CPP and UC Davis, the course work is more rigorous (look at lower division science, math and/or computer engineering classes).

3. During the orientation, it was clear that someone had been telling applying students to pick any major, get accepted and switch majors. About 1 in 10 questions were about why can’t I switch to computer science, followed by can I switch to computer engineering. Of course computer engineering (and TIM) are open. This brought to head the concern that you don’t declare your major until you finish the requirements for the first year…and if you can’t get some classes, you can be delayed. So can UCSC actually provide enough classes if 1 in 10 incoming students are trying to declare for computer engineering or TIM or trying to transfer into CS? We don’t know the answer to this question; however, a friend (old co-worker) mentioned that he is just hoping to get son to graduate from UCSC (not a CS or STEM major) and that son has switched majors to graduate just because he was having trouble getting his upper division classes for the other major.

4. Shortage of convenient housing is more of a concern at UCSC than at CPP or UC Davis. My son has a few relatives w/i 10 minutes of CPP should housing become difficult. At UC Davis, he is not concerned because biking to class is a realistic option.