UCI or UCLA for Physics: Which is the Better Choice for a Transfer Student?

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In summary, the conversation revolves around a transfer student majoring in physics who is considering a double major in applied math or mechanical engineering. They are also discussing the options of attending either UCLA or UCI and the social atmosphere at each school. There is also a discussion about the reputation of party schools and how it may impact job opportunities.
  • #1
proton
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I just got accepted to both of them as a transfer student majoring in physics. However, I'm also considering doing a double major in either applied math or in mechanical engineering, but I still don't know. I'd rather do the applied math, but I'm also aware that there are few jobs out there for physics professors and researchers (which is what I want to do), so that's why I'm also considering mech engineering. Plus, I may enjoy it as well, so why not earn good money and do something you enjoy? But I don't know since I haven't taken any engineering classes. But for now I can say that I enjoy math and physics more than I do engineering. So what would be the best option? To do a double major in applied math and applied physics?

I suppose going to UCLA will be the better option since I'm unsure about my future (if has more prestige, so if I only get a B.S., I can find a job easier). But I don't want to live with a roommate. I'd much rather commute to UCI. What if I live in an apartment where the neighbors like to party a lot?
 
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  • #2
proton said:
I just got accepted to both of them as a transfer student majoring in physics. However, I'm also considering doing a double major in either applied math or in mechanical engineering, but I still don't know. I'd rather do the applied math, but I'm also aware that there are few jobs out there for physics professors and researchers (which is what I want to do), so that's why I'm also considering mech engineering. Plus, I may enjoy it as well, so why not earn good money and do something you enjoy? But I don't know since I haven't taken any engineering classes. But for now I can say that I enjoy math and physics more than I do engineering. So what would be the best option? To do a double major in applied math and applied physics?

I suppose going to UCLA will be the better option since I'm unsure about my future (if has more prestige, so if I only get a B.S., I can find a job easier). But I don't want to live with a roommate. I'd much rather commute to UCI. What if I live in an apartment where the neighbors like to party a lot?

I am not sure but my friends told me that UCI and UCSD are kind of party schools because the weather is kinda good so people want to hang out everyday.
UCLA is a famous school.
If you study mechanical engineering, then you don't have many chances to take maths classes. Some of my friends take double majors in Physics and Maths. There is a bunch of internship for both maths and physics. It depends on how well you are.
 
  • #3
Come to UCLA. Bruins rock, baby! ;-)
 
  • #4
I just got accepted to UCLA as a transfer for physics also! I'm still deciding between UCLA and UC Davis.
 
  • #5
If you want a social life, go to UCLA. If you want peace and quiet, go to UCI.
 
  • #6
Shadowz said:
I am not sure but my friends told me that UCI and UCSD are kind of party schools because the weather is kinda good so people want to hang out everyday.

Quaoar said:
If you want peace and quiet, go to UCI.

hmmmm...
 
  • #7
" If you want a social life, go to UCLA. If you want peace and quiet, go to UCI."

Social life as in partying or drinking? I don't want that. The only socializing I need are with the students and professors in my classes and maybe some student clubs
 
  • #8
Same here, Proton. That's the reason I decided against UCSB. Their physics program looked great, but it seemed like all there is to do on your free time is drink and party.

I've never been a huge partier. I am social, but in more of a comedy club, jazz club, sports bar, have a few people over the house sort of way. That's what appealed to me about LA because I felt it offered that since it's a big city.
 
  • #9
I'm utterly puzzled. A school has a "reputation", accurately or not, of being a "party school", and therefore you will AUTOMATICALLY either get influenced by it, or get distracted by people who do? HELLO? How impressionable ARE you at this age? If you are, then you need a few more years at home under the watchful eyes of your parents, because frankly, you are not responsible enough to be let out of the house!

If you are basing your decision on which school to go to on something as flimsy as this, then I hope you will eventually see what you missed.

Zz.
 
  • #10
ZapperZ,

There is a school around where I live called IUP, its nothing but parties, the education itself is terrible as well, so by calling it a "partying" school its implying the education your going to get is going to suck in a big way.

But I wouldn't classify IUP against UCLA I thought UCLA was good, my girlfriend always wears UCLA cheerleading shorts but doesn't go so it must be a good education system.

But if employers also see UCLA as a "party" school the degree itself you get from that school isn't goign to mean much, a name of a school can help you or hurt you, depends on what the employer thinks.
 
  • #11
mr_coffee said:
ZapperZ,

There is a school around where I live called IUP, its nothing but parties, the education itself is terrible as well, so by calling it a "partying" school its implying the education your going to get is going to suck in a big way.

But I wouldn't classify IUP against UCLA I thought UCLA was good, my girlfriend always wears UCLA cheerleading shorts but doesn't go so it must be a good education system.

But if employers also see UCLA as a "party" school the degree itself you get from that school isn't goign to mean much, a name of a school can help you or hurt you, depends on what the employer thinks.

I disagree. I went to University of Wisconsin-Madision, which is very well-known as a party school (look up their Halloween celebration). During the first weeks of the semester, there's a block party almost every weekend.

Yet, the school still has an excellent reputation academically, and, from first hand experience, there's NOTHING there that compelled anyone to join in the drunken festivities. If you want to study, there's nothing that will stop you.

I could say the same thing about U. of Colorado - I have a couple of friends who went there. So I do not buy this type of excuses or justifications, certainly not for such prestigious institutions as what we have talked about here. If you graduated from Colorado, and worked under Carl Wieman, I would seriously doubt that ANY potential employer would be distracted by Colorado's reputation ahead of the fact that you worked for a Nobel Laureate!

Zz.
 
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  • #12
proton said:
" If you want a social life, go to UCLA. If you want peace and quiet, go to UCI."

Social life as in partying or drinking? I don't want that. The only socializing I need are with the students and professors in my classes and maybe some student clubs
I go to UCLA and I can tell you that while there maybe lots of people who drink and go to parties you do not have to be influenced by that. Also you can still find peace and quiet at UCLA. You can hang out at professor's offices or at the library. I say you should not take anything about social life into consideration in your decision. Try to look at what classes are offered and have been offered recently and you would like to take.

But then again, I commute to UCLA, so I do not live next to anyone who drinks and parties etc. But I do have classmates who live on campus and they are not affected at all by any of these social considerations.


AmyPie38 said:
Same here, Proton. That's the reason I decided against UCSB. Their physics program looked great, but it seemed like all there is to do on your free time is drink and party.

You can always spend your free time at the library studying physics of going to professors office hours or studying ahead, even exercise... there are so many things you can do besides drink and party if you want to.

You should not base your decision one whether most people drink and party.
 
  • #13
Zapper,

I surely hope this wasn't directed at me. :confused: Perhaps I didn't word myself right, but I didn't AUTOMATICALLY decide against any school because of the reputation. I decided on UCLA for plenty of reasons other than my social life.

I've visited UCSB pleny of times and quite frankly, I wouldn't want to live there for college. It's beautiful, yes, but a small beach town that's very much like the town I grew up in is not what I'm looking for. For me, personally, there just wasn't enough to do there. I'm looking for more than just education...I'm also looking for a whole new experience and a chance to grow as a person.

I agree with you that no one should base their decisions on a college's repuation, but I do feel making sure you'll enjoy the place you live the next few years is impoartant. :smile:
 
  • #14
Well that's a different case, if the school has an excellent reputation academically then of course college kids being college kids means nothing to an employer.
 
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  • #15
hrc969 said:
You can always spend your free time at the library studying physics of going to professors office hours or studying ahead, even exercise... there are so many things you can do besides drink and party if you want to.

You should not base your decision one whether most people drink and party.

I agree with you completely and that's what most of my time goes to now anyway. :) I'm at a junior college and I have no time to socialize so I highly doubt I'll find any when I transfer! :wink:

Like I mentioned in the post above, it's not just the partying and drinking. I looked at what the town of Santa Barbara had to offer and what LA had to offer and saw that for me. LA was a better fit. In fact, New York is the best fit for me, but it was too difficult to attend college on the other side of the country.

However, this was just one small part of why I chose UCLA. I visited the UCLA campus, spoke to the counselers, asked the current students how they liked it, sat in on physics classes and fell in love!
 
  • #16
AmyPie38 said:
However, this was just one small part of why I chose UCLA. I visited the UCLA campus, spoke to the counselers, asked the current students how they liked it, sat in on physics classes and fell in love!

How was the physics class? I've just submitted my SIRs to UCLA and I was very iffy about my decision and I'd sort of like some insights on the school.
 
  • #17
" I'm utterly puzzled. A school has a "reputation", accurately or not, of being a "party school", and therefore you will AUTOMATICALLY either get influenced by it, or get distracted by people who do? HELLO? How impressionable ARE you at this age? If you are, then you need a few more years at home under the watchful eyes of your parents, because frankly, you are not responsible enough to be let out of the house!

If you are basing your decision on which school to go to on something as flimsy as this, then I hope you will eventually see what you missed."

Umm... I'm not automatically getting influenced by the partying. I just don't have many reasons for favoring one school over the other since I like both school's environment, etc. I just want to go to a school that will offer a decent education, good preparation for grad school, good research opportunities, and offer enough social activities/clubs.

hrc969, how are the research opportunities at UCLA (I'm assuming youre a physics major)?
 
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  • #18
Anyone who wants to live in a small quirky town, close to campus (i.e. 15 minutes biking max) should seriously consider UC Davis. The school is beautiful as is the rest of the area. It is a very isolated community, designed for bicycles, with a strange economy more or less insulated from large corporations. News here is that there really isn't much, so the newspapers are funky. People have parties, but it doesn't matter much!

The acedemics are top notch. The physics department is small but this makes for a good undergrad experience from what I can tell so far. Also, there are other general courses that are quite interesting: I took two somewhat unrelated math courses as well as a course on bulgarian folk music last quarter; this quarter I am finishing my lower division physics with modern physics, and finishing general ed with a course on everything (really landscape design, but we talk about everything about all kinds of poeple and where they live), global climate change and technology, and a food science class about myths and folklore surrounding food.

And I am a transfer student myself, and I found the transition from my community college to here to be quite easy from an academic perspective. Of course adjusting socially, to a new town- a small one at that, and living on my own with roommates took time. I think you will be pleasantly surprised that the workload will be comparable (perhaps even easier) than what you remember from your community college. Just manage time well and the transition will be seamless, especially if you are going from semesters to quarters (which I loved doing!). Anyway, I hope you enjoy yourself wherever you end up.

Colin
 
  • #19
proton said:
hrc969, how are the research opportunities at UCLA (I'm assuming youre a physics major)?
Well, actually I am a math major. But I did start out as a physics major, planning to add math as a double major. I already knew I liked theoretical physics more than experimental and after studying some of the more advanced math topics I decided I wanted to go with just doing math.

But anyways, I do happen to know that research opportunities are great here. I was actually part of and astrophysics research group as a first year (I'm a third year now). Had I stuck with physics I would probably still be working with the same group and had a lot of experience in that area. There are a lot of professors that love working with undergraduates (some that don't), but you have to try to figure out which are which. Talking to professors really helps. How I got into the reasearch group that I was in was that I went to my E&M professor's office hours and was talking to him and he mentioned that he was looking for some undergrads for his group. I was definitely interested so I asked for him to consider taking me. He ended up picking two sophmores but recommended me to another professor which worked on similar projects. I ended up working with that professor for about 2.5 quarters (then I decided I was going to do math and would not be taking any more advanced physics so I would not be able to advance in the type of things I did and wanted to focus on math more). In case you are interested, what I did for the group was related to data analysis (by choice, I had the option to be part of the experimental part of the group but felt that I needed a bit more experience before I went on to the) I had to look at the programs we used for the data analysis check for errors or if there was something wrong I would look for where in the process the had been an error, etc. so mainly programming things. Of course first I had to learn what we were doing, where we were getting data from and then what we did to it, etc. Overall it was a really fun experience.

So even though I did not continue in physics I do think the research opportunities are great and recommend that you not be shy about talking to professors. If you know what particular area you are interested in you can look at what professor do that type of reasearch. But if you don't (I did not at that time) you can just talk to professors and ask if they know anyone who would let you work with them. Even if you don't end up doing research in that area you still get experience.
 
  • #20
"Try to look at what classes are offered and have been offered recently and you would like to take."
I noticed that UCLA's physics department offers slightly more electives than UCI. I've also heard that UCI's math department is weak. But I want to take upper-div classical mechanics my first quarter, UCLA doesn't offer it but UCI does. Is taking mechanics right away really important?

"Well, actually I am a math major."
How's the math department there? Do the professors have thick accents or lecture too fast?
Those are some of the complaints I've heard about UCI's math professors
 
  • #21
proton said:
I noticed that UCLA's physics department offers slightly more electives than UCI. I've also heard that UCI's math department is weak. But I want to take upper-div classical mechanics my first quarter, UCLA doesn't offer it but UCI does. Is taking mechanics right away really important?
I guess it depends on what you plan to do. Are you planning to go to grad school or just want to get a physics degree as fast as possible. But in either case I think that its not that important to take mechanics your first quarter. Its more important to have a strong math background. UCLA offers a Mathematical Methods for Physicists that you can take in the fall if you decide to go there and need that math. I think waiting one quarter for mechanics should not be such a big deal.


How's the math department there? Do the professors have thick accents or lecture too fast?
Those are some of the complaints I've heard about UCI's math professors
Well, it varies. There are some professors with thick accents and there are those who have no accent (from what I've seen there are more of the latter than the former). There are also professor that lecture fast because that's their strategy. One particular professor which I have had for 3 classes now lectures extremely fast and says that the point of you going to class is to get notes and then study them at home. He says that if you could understand everything he did while he lectures then you should not be taking the class. He is really nice about helping out after class or in office hours though. Then there are professor who get through very little material (in comparison with other professors) because they slow down to try to get students to understand everything well. Then there are all the rest in between. From what I have seen there are far more professors that I would categorize in the in between section. But that's me. Other students might have different opinions.

But personally, I don't really care who is teaching a class. If I want to take a class I take it regardless of who is teaching it. Sure that makes it hard to get an A sometimes but that's not really the point. For example, I took (undergraduate) complex analysis my first quarter of my second year. I was really looking forward to taking complex analysis because I thought it was far more interesting than functions of real variables. I ended up taking it with a guy who is famous for not being a good "teacher", failing most of the class, going to fast and expecting a lot from student. I took it anyways and had to work really hard but learned complex analysis well. He explained this very precisely in class (even though he went fast) and he was helpful in office hours.
 
  • #22
all right thanks for the advice!
 
  • #23
I'm at UCI right now, only as a foreign exchange student for one year. Since i don't really know a whole lot about other schools, especially American ones, i can't really say a whole lot about it, but I've been happy here. There's a lot of research going on and the professors seem very helpful to undergrads (my professor first quarter urged me to do some research at his lab).

But like i said, i can't really compare the schools so i'll just comment on UCI as a whole:

UCI has basically been a backup school for the past few years, but it's changing pretty rapidly and it's turning into a first choice school from everything I'm hearing. The campus is very nice, but it IS Irvine, so expect cops that have nothing to do and be eager to be picky about smaller infractions. This also means that the entire campus and everything within a 30 mile radius is controlled by the Irvine Company, so you won't find a whole lot of social life around here, but honestly, it is what you make of it. I've never been in the position of wanting to party and not being able to find anything (then again i joined a fraternity my second day in the country lol).

If you're worried about people partying or being loud, then you need not worry, partying on campus is hard, and if they're loud it'll get called on pretty quickly. Loud parties are busted up very quickly so i don't think you need to worry about being annoyed by loud party noises (and if you are you can just call it in and it'll be over quickly).

Personally, i like UCI, but it would be nice to have a bit more culture. Irvine is a bit monotone, being a controlled environment by the Irvine company. All the houses look very similar and all have the same beige/brown color scheme, the area definitely lacks character IMO, but it is what you make of it.
 
  • #24
The high school where i go to is just a few minutes from UCI. Huge campus. I'd say its nearly twice the size of UCLA.

if you like computers and progamming, go UCI
 
  • #25
My main concern right now in deciding between UCLA and UC Davis is GPA.

From what professors and students have shared with me, I'm getting the feeling that earning an impressive GPA at Davis will be easier to attain than at UCLA. I'm concerned about this since law school admittance depends on your GPA so much.

I'm not looking for an easy way out by any means. If getting a high GPA at UCLA just means more hard work, then so be it, I'm up for the challenge. You always hear horror stories though about these prestigious schools about how you work your butt off to get only a C, either due to a curve or the ridiculous difficulty of the course.

Is there any truth to this? Is this something I should be concerned about? Is there a big enough difference between the difficulties of the programs to where I should decide UC Davis? My first pick is obviously UCLA, but if going to Davis means getting into a better grad school, then that would be the smart choice.

Thanks to anyone that can offer some advice. :smile:
 
  • #26
I already submitted my register of intent for UCLA. I went on the campus tour a few days ago and was really impressed by the campus, its buildings, the social activites they offer, the dorms and the food. I know both schools have decent physics programs and research opportunites. I also liked that possiblity of living independently from my parents. I'll be living in the dorms my first year, then apartments my final 2 years

To amypie, from what I've heard it may be a little harder to get good grades at UCLA than Davis. But for grad school and law school, they consider prestige slightly.

"You always hear horror stories though about these prestigious schools about how you work your butt off to get only a C, either due to a curve or the ridiculous difficulty of the course."
I heard someone got like a 30% in a upper-div math class at UCLA on a midterm, but it was curved, so he got an A. Other than that, I don't know much. Plus, Davis probably has the same curves and low scores since I've heard Irvine does as well. And yes, you'll have to work much harder at UCLA or Davis and you're still not guaranteed A's or B's.
 

1. What are the main differences between UCI and UCLA for a Physics program?

Both UCI and UCLA have highly ranked Physics programs and offer a strong foundation in the field. However, UCI tends to have a more research-oriented focus, while UCLA has a more traditional approach with a strong emphasis on theoretical physics.

2. Which university has a better reputation for Physics among employers and graduate schools?

Both UCI and UCLA have excellent reputations in the field of Physics, and it ultimately depends on the individual's academic performance and research experience. Both universities have produced numerous successful graduates who have gone on to work in top research institutes and graduate schools.

3. Are there any notable differences in the faculty and resources at UCI and UCLA for Physics?

Both universities have highly qualified and experienced faculty members in the Physics department. However, UCI has a smaller faculty-to-student ratio, meaning students may have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with professors. In terms of resources, both universities have state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for students to conduct research.

4. Which university has a better location for Physics research opportunities?

Both UCI and UCLA are located in Southern California and have access to top research institutions, such as Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. However, UCI's location in Orange County allows for collaborations with nearby research centers and companies, while UCLA's location in Los Angeles offers opportunities for partnerships with research centers and institutes in the city.

5. How do the tuition and financial aid options compare between UCI and UCLA for a Physics program?

Both universities have similar tuition costs for in-state and out-of-state students. However, UCLA may have more financial aid options available, as it is a larger university with a larger endowment. It is recommended to research and compare the financial aid options at each university to determine the best choice for the individual's financial situation.

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