<p>UCSD has 6 colleges. Can you reccomend the
college that is strong in Neuroscience and BioChemistry?</p>
<p>Revelle College</p>
<p>John Muir College</p>
<p>Thurgood Marshall College</p>
<p>Earl Warren College</p>
<p>Eleanor Roosevelt College</p>
<p>Sixth College</p>
<p>THese are primarily residential colleges. I went a long time ago when there were only four. The only differences are in the GE requirements (and where you live, etc). I don’t think the colleges really have anything to do with the major. </p>
<p>If you’re worried, Revelle is always a good choice. OTOH, I went to Muir and had no trouble majoring in anything I wanted (I was a BioPhysics major).</p>
<p>A friend of my D’s graduated 2 years ago from UCSD and was in Sixth College. She had a double science major (don’t know what two sciences) and is now in vet school.</p>
<p>I live very close to UCSD and H and I take walks through the campus frequently. It is a great school if you are a CA resident and can get into it.</p>
<p>
We are CA residents, and my D is going to apply. Were hoping for the best as it is competitive Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD- with SD very good in the sciences</p>
<p>MIDDLESCHOOL MOM - Good luck to your D. My D (hs class 2010) has many friends at Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD. Our highly ranked public high school sends a lot of kids each year to these CA schools.</p>
<p>The ‘college’ doesn’t matter as far as the major goes - any major can be had at any of the 6 colleges. As bovertine said, the difference is in the GEs with most people agreeing that Muir and Warren have the most flexible on GEs which is good for some majors loaded with required courses like engineering/CS. The main point of the different colleges besides the GEs is to help make the campus feel somewhat smaller since the Muir people live in one section, the Revelle people in another, etc. Each college also has its own dining hall but any student can eat at any of the dining halls. The Mexican restaurant in Muir (assuming it’s still there) has really good tortilla chips!</p>
<p>My D was at Muir and was a CS major/Chem minor. The classes can actually be all over campus regardless of the college one’s in - i.e. my Muir D had classes at Muir, Warren, Revelle, etc. After the first 2 years when one moves off campus (assuming one lived on campus the first 2 years), it doesn’t matter much anyway and the focus will be more the fellow students in the major or other common interest areas.</p>
<p>btw - My D audited a course (for the fun of it) given by Dr. Ramachandran, the author of ‘Phantoms of the Brain’. We had seen some specials he’s done on PBS. He’s a very interesting and engaging neuroscientist and I read his book I just mentioned (I recommend it for your D). [Vilayanur</a> S. Ramachandran MD, PhD](<a href=“http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html]Vilayanur”>http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html)</p>
<p>PM me if there’s other info on UCSD you think I might know that you’d be interested in.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that some colleges have a language requirement and some do not. Something to consider…</p>
<p>I would be interested to know if this whole college within a college thing really works for UCSD. It is supposed to break up a big college into smaller groups, but I don’t see it bringing about an esprit de corps among college members.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There are two universities in the UC system with the college system - UCSC and UCSD. I can’t speak directly for UCSD, but I attended UCSC and the college system definitely fostered an espirit de corps. I will always be a Cowell College alum first, and UCSC alum second.</p>
<p>In both universities, the colleges have central themes. These add another dimension to the university experience.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…such that students tend to self-select colleges. The Engineering types tend towards one college to avoid the lit/hume GE’s. When I inquired a year ago, approximately ‘half’ of one college was engineers or physical science majors. (So much for UC diversity!)</p>
<p>The SD college system was a big turn-off for my D who wanted to dorm with kids from all types of majors.</p>
<p>Glad to know that it works for UCSC. I live in SD and know a lot of kids who go to UCSD and I haven’t really seen it have the same effect for the kids I know. But then it could be the small slice of kids I know (sampling error).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First of all, I don’t know if you can generalize UCSD to the rest of the UC system. But true, I think UCSD is well known for around 50% of the students majoring in engineering or some sort of science. I think biology is the most popoular major there - I bet around 20% of the students start out majoring in that. </p>
<p>As far as the physical sciences, I bet it totals out around 20%, and engineering also around 20%. So “approximately half” of the students majoirng in engineering or physical sciences doesn’t indicate a huge self selection of college. It is pretty much a representative slice of the campus population as a whole. But you are correct, I bet social science students probably congregate in one college or another. In fact, when I went there, Thurgood Marchall was known as “Third College”, and it was primarily where most of the minority students enrolled. By happenstance, they ran out of dorm rooms at Tioga and Tenaya (the Muir dorms) and I ended up rooming at Third my freshman year. I made lifetime friends. I’m assuming (and hopefully) this sort of self segregation has changed, but I don’t know.</p>
<p>All that said, if you are looking for some super residential dorm experience, I’m not sure UCSD is for you. THe surrounding areas are beautiful, and most kids move off campus after the first or second year. At least they did when I attended there. It may be too expensive now.</p>
<p>bovertine:</p>
<p>you make a good point that I had not recognized: According to IPEDS, the SD campus is physical science-oriented, with close to half each year’s graduating class in such disciplines (which is 2x the proportion than attend UCSC). Add in the fact that the engineering types tend to shy away from those Colleges that stress humanities, the College system creates an even larger lack of integrated community. The hume types lean towards certain colleges while the physical science types lean elsewhere, creating academic dorm-silos. </p>
<p>Unfortunate, IMO.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Even worse…</p>
<p>My D is a Muir College Bio major and loves it. UCSD is known for its hard sciences and so many if not most of the students major in a science. It’s ranking as a school for biology is higher than UCLA. </p>
<p>The college system is a way to have a more personal experience in a large university. The colleges have their own activities and some of the GE classes are kept within the college.</p>
<p>
Just anecdotal I know - my D, who attended the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering as a CS major was in Muir and out of a total of 6 or so roommates over the time she was on campus she was the only one who was engineering. I think Warren is known more for the engineering ‘self-selection’ but then I guess that what some of them want. However, Muir also has flexible GEs so is good for engineering/hard science majors even though it has plenty of people from the humanities and all majors as well, and really there’s a mix at all of them to some extent. On top of all this, one doesn’t always get assigned to their first choice and I think the housing app requests one enter a first and second (and maybe third) choce for the college so even if they self-selected to one they may end up in another. I think each of her roomies was in a different major from each other if I recall. </p>
<p>If your D wanted to room with people from different majors it’d be very easy to do and odds are that she would end up that way anyway. Discounting UCSD because of a concern about rooming with people of the same major doesn’t make much sense to me since it’s so unlikely to happen and probably no more so than most colleges.</p>
<p>In the day, I was a math/computer science major at Cowell College (the humanities focused college at UCSC). Sure, I was just one of a few science majors at Cowell, but in part, that was the point. I was interested in film, literature, and mathematics. IMO, this is one of those choices where it pays to go with your gut - if Muir or Revelle speaks to you, then that is the college to attend. </p>
<p>Of course, I chose Cowell as my brother’s firend who was attending when I went to visit said ‘you MUST go to Cowell’</p>