I’m looking to transfer from UC Santa Barbara to somewhere with a comparably good environmental studies program, and ideally a good writing program too.
My senior year of high school I got a bunch of concussions and the application process was really rough, I was out of school most of the year and barely even graduated. I wasn’t thrilled with the colleges I got in to but ended up going to UCSB. I went there for about a year and a half and had a really awful experience. I still live with post concussion syndrome and it affects my school work, I was tired of unaccommodating professors at a big school, and because of my injury I am light sensitive and sunny SoCal was a bad place for me. I had terrible experiences with roommates/friendships too, I just feel like SB was out to get me.
I’ve since taken a gap year and gotten a little bit better injury wise and explored the country a bit more. I lived in Albany and Pittsburgh and loved both, and the cloudy weather is good for my concussions.
What colleges outside of sunny places should I look into for environmental studies? I know this is what I want to major in, but I love writing and would also like the option of a writing double major or a good arts program as I am an art minor (I wasn’t very excited about UCSB’s English department).
The issue is my EFC is 23k and I really am unwilling to pay more than 30k ish, which is how much I was paying in SB. I want to go out of state but tuition costs make this difficult. Is my best bet a well-endowed private school?
I loved Carleton college, Lewis and Clark, Carnegie Mellon, and UMass Amherst. My grades in SB were around a 3.9 until my last quarter there when I was suffering a lot mentally. I was pretty actively in ECs too, so I think I would have a decent shot at a lot of colleges except for some reaches (like Carleton or CMU). The most important thing to me is a good envi sci program in conjunction with decent arts/writing.