Quality of UCI or other calfornia based physics programs

[Dracovich]

I asked a few months ago but didn't get a response so i'll try again :)

I'm considdering going to USA for one year as an exchange student, but i must admit that my motivation for it is less then academic. I'm picking it almost solely because i want to train in USA, and my coach there has a school on Orange County. So i was thinking about going to University of Calfornia, Irvine. But although my motivation and choosing of school isn't really because of the academics, i nontheless want to be going to a school that's horrible.

So i was hoping you guys could either tell me from experience, if UCI has a good reputation for their physics program, or perhaps point to some reputable ranking page. From my googling about this it seems that UCI is not considdered bad, but i haven't found anything concrete about their physics program, it's mostly general about the school.

P.S. While i AM mostly considdering UCI because of it's location, i am willing to considder other schools in south california since there are good gyms in pretty much all of socal, but not being close to Irvine would mean i'd have to train somewhere else and switch coaches which i'd rather not :/ But like i said, if you know of other schools there that have a really good rep then i would considder it. Caltech IS an option my school offers, but they only take exchange students for one semester.

 

[juvenal]

When you say physics program, what do you mean? It's not clear what your concerns are exactly.

I assume you're an undergrad. So - the amount and quality of the research you could potentially do is not very high no matter where you go, especially being a one-year exchange student.

Or are you worried that the courses aren't very good? How many physics classes will you end up taking each term? 2-4? The quality of the course will also depend on how good the prof is at teaching, and that can be bad even at a top-notch university like Harvard. UCI has a graduate physics program, so there should be courses pitched to whatever level you'd like. Your best bet is to look at the course catalog and see if they offer the courses you're interested in.

 

[Dracovich]

Yeah i was mostly considdering if the courses were well taught etc, i realize i won't be doing much of any research there. And yes i would be going in my third year (which is the last year of BS study here), but since i should be taking my bachelor project here at home, i will propably have to take a mix of undergrad and grad courses to fill an entire year, and then do my BS project once i get back home.

Looking at the course schedual is pretty much what I've been doing, and it looks ok actually :) But i was unsure of if the school perhaps had a bad rep or something since i know nothing about it aside from what their webpage says.

 

[juvenal]

I haven't heard anything bad about UCI, and UC schools tend to be pretty good, so I don't think anything disastrous is going to happen. And from their webpage, it does say:

The UC Irvine Department of Physics & Astronomy is ranked 10th among U.S. public research universities for scientific influence in physics (ISI). The department is the 11th largest producer of physics undergraduate degrees in the nation (NCES), and the School of Physical Sciences ranks 2nd nationally in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded to minority students (NCES). UC Irvine is ranked 12th among all public universities in the U.S. News & World Report annual college survey.

Sounds pretty good to me.

You might want to get in touch with one of the members of the staff (from this page http://www.physics.uci.edu/NEW/address.shtml , maybe Deborah Bozek or Kristen Lodgard) and see if they can hook you up with an email address or two of some students whom they might think would be useful to talk to.

 

[Dracovich]

Ok great :) thanks for your help