Transferring to UCLA for Physics: Advice Needed

[Geno]

Hello everyone,
My major is Physics and I am a freshman at community college looking to transfer to UCLA after my two years at CC. Is there anything you guys can recommend. Is there any extra studying I should do or any extra things/ideas I can learn about Physics. I think Physics is perfect for me and I enjoy it, and I want to know as much as I can. What I am asking is what should I do to better prepare my self to get into UCLA for Physics even maybe get a scholarship. Also I live in California and I am relatively close to UCLA so that's basically my only option because I am going to be paying for college all my self and I work almost full-time and I really do not want to accumulate any debt will going through with this. So yeah thanks!

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Straight As and good letters of recommendation. Figure out how to get involved in research if you can.

 

[Student100]

Straight As and good letters of recommendation. Figure out how to get involved in research if you can.

Don't need any LoR when transferring to UC system from CCC, they won't even look at them. Straight A's aren't nessacary either, but a good GPA is.

To OP, schedule an appointment with counselors and create an education plan. Follow the plan. Do well in plan. That's about all it requires. Make sure your plan enables you to complete all pre-major work on assist.org, IGETC completion also helps.

Also be aware physics at CC is aimed at engineering majors, not physics majors. At a minimum, you should also purchase H&R physics 4th or 5th edition and work through that in lieu of whatever book they're actually using for the course. Ideally, you should finish K&K intro to mechanics and purcell E&M prior to transfer- although this isn't a hard and fast requirement, working through those problem sets will better prepare you for junior courses.

Instead of two years, I reccomend three. You could then load up on math + gen Ed's + gen science courses, and be able to delay E&M until after you've done calc 3 + line algebra. Best time to take it would be with gen diff equations. Don't take it with calc 3, even if that's the coreq, you'd be missing out on too much in my opinion.

 

[Geno]

Don't need any LoR when transferring to UC system from CCC, they won't even look at them. Straight A's aren't nessacary either, but a good GPA is.

To OP, schedule an appointment with counselors and create an education plan. Follow the plan. Do well in plan. That's about all it requires. Make sure your plan enables you to complete all pre-major work on assist.org, IGETC completion also helps.

Also be aware physics at CC is aimed at engineering majors, not physics majors. At a minimum, you should also purchase H&R physics 4th or 5th edition and work through that in lieu of whatever book they're actually using for the course. Ideally, you should finish K&K intro to mechanics and purcell E&M prior to transfer- although this isn't a hard and fast requirement, working through those problem sets will better prepare you for junior courses.

Instead of two years, I reccomend three. You could then load up on math + gen Ed's + gen science courses, and be able to delay E&M until after you've done calc 3 + line algebra. Best time to take it would be with gen diff equations. Don't take it with calc 3, even if that's the coreq, you'd be missing out on too much in my opinion.

Thank you so much for the help, should I take another act test, and should I try and get into research? I need to get into UCLA and I would love to try and get a scholarship. This is sort of my only option considering I am almost working full-time and I am paying for college all by my self so this is huge for me.

 

[Student100]

Thank you so much for the help, should I take another act test, and should I try and get into research? I need to get into UCLA and I would love to try and get a scholarship. This is sort of my only option considering I am almost working full-time and I am paying for college all by my self so this is huge for me.

Don't need ACT or SAT as transfer student, once you hit 60 transfer credits. Which as a physics major, you'll probabaly transfer with 70~80 by the time major prep is done.

You can attempt to do research, but it's hard at CC, and there's no true place to state it on the application anyway. Other than a few short responses at the end of the app.

Get good grades, and really try to learn and remember to self prepare.