UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

[Alex deLarge]

I've been a longtime lurker here and finally decided to join the discussions.

My situation is as follows: I started college at Cal Poly Pomona after high school with Political Science as my intended major. I only took general courses and then after one year at CPP, I decided to leave for PCC. After one year at PCC, I have finished all my general courses and have taken some pre-requisite courses for Philosophy.

I became interested in Philosophy at Cal Poly and decided to change to this. I was just admitted to UCLA on the 24th (quite a bittersweet day for me).

I have the three following questions for those of you out their experienced in academia:

1. I am going to change majors back to Political Science at UCLA in the fall. I decided that I don't have much interest anymore in Philosophy. Is there any trouble changing majors?

2. I plan on going to Law School after getting my BA. Would it be wise for me to take Political Science at UCLA or go back to Cal Poly Pomona and take it. The reason I ask this is because CPP is about 3k a year, while UCLA is around 15k I believe. Is it wise to spend the extra money even if I am not going to necessarily utilize the Political Science degree after graduating? What are my advantages/disadvantages?

3. Also, for those who say that humanities or social science majors are a waste of time and don't have much career path opportunity, what do you recommend? Other majors maybe?

4. If I were to choose not to go to Law School and use my Political Science degree for a career, what are my choices? I am into journalism and such, but I don't know if I could take years of being an unpaid intern and then not receiving too much after that either.

Lost college student in need of major assistance from fellow educated Armenian Americans.

ANY and ALL advice is welcome, please don't hold back if you're questioning responding due to the idea that you might influence my life too much and that it might not be any of your business. Please, make it your business (maybe with just one post).

Thank you all. Its great to finally sign up too.

[Sip]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

Alex, first of all, congrats! I spent a few years there at UCLA and it was definitley the best time of my life.

1. There is no problem with changing majors. However, there is usually all the required bull crap paper work and running around and this and that. Each department has different rules etc etc. Usually, when you transfer in with credits, those credits don't hurt you in terms of how many maximum credits you can have. But sometimes some departments require you to have taken certain courses or passed certain tests before they let you in. So check with the department you are trying to change into.

2. This is a tough question. But I don't think tuition at UCLA is 16K (if you are california resident -- sounds like you are). That figure probably contains the cost of living expences and other things like books. I think UCLA is about 7K a year now in just tuition but I could be wrong. I would say try to spend as much time on campus as possible. In the quarter system, things move VERY fast and you don't want to complicate your life by taking classes here and there and other places and make a mess Just stick to UCLA, do your major work as fast as you can while keeping your GPA up and finish up your degree and move on! The money difference is not going to be too big in this case (unless you have another 4 years to go?)

Of course the other schools will be cheaper but I don't think it's worth the hastle especially since you are already coming in with a bunch of transferred credits. But I am not sure.

3. I'll let our resident expert on majoring in law (aka anon) chime in with your major specific questions. If you have questions about electrical engineering and computer science, let me know!


As far as general advice, it's ok to be lost. Even if you are lost, just pick something and stick with it and get it over with. Have a general plan for the future but don't worry too much about the specifics of exactly what major you are in and exactly what classes you take. Just make sure at this point (now that you have been moving around), the classes that you take will satisfy some requirements towards a major.

Oh and since you are at UCLA, take advantage of the Armenian classes if you have any electives or even just for the heck of it. They have both eastern and western Armenian classes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students and you can even do a minor in it.

[Alex deLarge]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

^^ Thanks for the insight Sip.

I spoke to the school and they just said that I need to speak to the specific dept. regarding the switch, so I don't think it will be a problem. The 16k figure is actually wrong. I realized this after going back and checking my source to find out that it includes not only tuition but room and board, books, etc. That makes my decision a lot easier, probably because I only need to go for another 2 years.


I'm still kind of stumped on the major issue, especially in regards to law and the difference it would have on applying to a law school.


I used to go to Mkhitarian and ASA private schools as a kid. Although being from a family of Eastern Armenian speaking parents (even though most of the elders have a sort of Western Armenian accent in my family, due to originally from that region), I learned Western Armenian. But since leaving its deteriorated quite a bit, so taking those classes you mentioned would be a great idea.

[Siggie]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

Congrats on getting in! My cousin got word Tuesday that she got in as well.
I don't recall if she applied as poli sci and wants to switch to something else or if she's switching to poli sci, but she wants to go on to law school too. *scratches head* I do remember her saying that it's generally not a problem to switch majors once you are in.

What you select as your undergraduate major might best be informed by what sort of law you intend to go into. For example, if you wanted to do accounting or tax law, accounting major might be a good idea.

I don't know what sort of preference law schools have for various majors. Anonymouse might have more insight about this. I believe he either majored or minored in philosophy too.

In my opinion, psychology is a possibility as well. There is a lot of potential for application of social science in law and especially psychology. Of course, I'm a little biased since that's what I do. There are lots of different things so I'm just going to throw them out here in no particular order.

Eyewitnesses (EW) accuracy. Factors that affect EW accuracy (e.g. delay, lighting, arousal & stress, presence of a weapon, exposure time, use of a disguise, personal biases, etc). Is EW confidence indicative of accuracy? What do jurors consider in deciding whether an EW is accurate? Can EW memory be enhanced through hypnosis or different methods of questioning (e.g. cognitive interview)? Malleability of memory. Can EW memory be influenced by suggestive questioning? Can lineup administrators bias lineups? How? Are showups more inherently biased than lineups? How should fillers in lineups be selected? What lineup instructions should be given to a witness?
Are people biased in their ability to recognize persons of other races/ethnicities? Is it possible to identify a stranger/perpetrator by their voice?

How do jurors make decisions? Are death-qualified jurors more conviction prone or pro-prosecution? How do jurors award damages that are not easily quantifiable (e.g. pain and suffering or punitive damages)? Are juries out of control and awarding huge amounts in damages (e.g. BMW v. Gore, State Farm v. Campbell, Liebeck v. McDonalds)? Would judges be more consistent than juries with awards? Do any of the tort reforms passed or suggested actually work?
Are jurors able to understand instructions and apply them (do legal professions even understand them? harhar)? Does allowing note taking help jurors? Are smaller juries (<12) less fair and therefore a violation of 6th amendment and 14th's due process rights? How do jurors or people in general decide what bahavior constitutes sexual harrassment?
Are jurors influenced by extralegal factors like race, socioeconomic status, profession, celebrity status? Can jurors disregard testimony when instructed to do so?
Is it possible to predict the liklihood of recidivism? What about violent recidivism? Will a physician who apologizes be more or less likely to be sued for malpractice?
Do children have the cognitive ability to appreciate the consequences of their actions and to form the type of intent necessary to be tried as adults and eligible for death penalty? Is it possible for those accused of sexually abusing children to get a fair trial or does the charge itself trigger a bias?
What are the best formats for opening and closing arguments?

Wow, I'm actually impressed with how much I came up with, but I'm going to stop in case you're not intested.

[Alex deLarge]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

Thanks for the post Siggie. It's interesting that your mentioned psychology right off the bat because I inquired about switching to psychology today and was told that all I need to do was talk to someone in that dept. Basically its between Poli Sci and Psych for me, with Philosophy as a possible minor.

Wow, its amazing what you came up with there. I do think knowing how to read people during a trial or trying to figure out motive and such things could be a area in which psychology could be applied.

[Artsakh]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

Definately go to UCLA. If you plan on going to law school, your undergraduate institution is a MAJOR factor in the admissions decision. and UCLA is a top notch school. Don't waste your time with the other bullsxxxx shool.

[Alex deLarge]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

Definately go to UCLA. If you plan on going to law school, your undergraduate institution is a MAJOR factor in the admissions decision. and UCLA is a top notch school. Don't waste your time with the other bullsxxxx shool.

I think I've decided to stick to UCLA. If you don't mind me asking, how do you know that an undergraduate institution is a major factor in the admissions decision for post graduate? I mean I had heard that UCLA even likes to get people outside of their system. I don't know why or how that would be true, but its something I heard. Maybe its too get more people to be part of their schools in general.

[Sip]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

That's a myth. If you are a good student at UCLA, they will love to keep you! Actually in most engineering majors (that I know of), if you have an above 3.5GPA at UCLA, you are automatically admitted to the graduate school!!!! The medical school at UCLA is very good so it might seem like they are taking other students from outside UCLA. But they are basically just taking the top students from top schools first.

Also Artsakh is very right that the place you get your degree makes a huge difference (at least for engineering). For example, take a computer science student from Cal State Northridge vs. UCLA. Even though the Northridge student probably had better professors, learned more (northridge is a great school), worked harder, etc, the UCLA student will have a much easier time getting into a top notch graduate level program than the northridge student just by the sheer fact that Northridge is probably a tier 3 school and not even considered in the same league as UCLA (they don't have a Ph.D. program). It's a sad fact but it is very real.

But on the same level, the school doesn't make that much difference. For example, in CA, Berkeley, Stanford, and Cal Tech are usually considered top followed by UCLA and San Diego and perhaps USC depending on the major. UC Irvine, Davis, Riverside etc follow after that. Then you have the Cal Poly and Cal State schools and some private ones followed by the smaller schools. There are some small private schools with very good reputations (like Harvey Mud) so those are special cases.

[Gunner14]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

I've been a longtime lurker here and finally decided to join the discussions.

My situation is as follows: I started college at Cal Poly Pomona after high school with Political Science as my intended major. I only took general courses and then after one year at CPP, I decided to leave for PCC. After one year at PCC, I have finished all my general courses and have taken some pre-requisite courses for Philosophy.

I became interested in Philosophy at Cal Poly and decided to change to this. I was just admitted to UCLA on the 24th (quite a bittersweet day for me).

I have the three following questions for those of you out their experienced in academia:

1. I am going to change majors back to Political Science at UCLA in the fall. I decided that I don't have much interest anymore in Philosophy. Is there any trouble changing majors?

2. I plan on going to Law School after getting my BA. Would it be wise for me to take Political Science at UCLA or go back to Cal Poly Pomona and take it. The reason I ask this is because CPP is about 3k a year, while UCLA is around 15k I believe. Is it wise to spend the extra money even if I am not going to necessarily utilize the Political Science degree after graduating? What are my advantages/disadvantages?

3. Also, for those who say that humanities or social science majors are a waste of time and don't have much career path opportunity, what do you recommend? Other majors maybe?

4. If I were to choose not to go to Law School and use my Political Science degree for a career, what are my choices? I am into journalism and such, but I don't know if I could take years of being an unpaid intern and then not receiving too much after that either.

Lost college student in need of major assistance from fellow educated Armenian Americans.

ANY and ALL advice is welcome, please don't hold back if you're questioning responding due to the idea that you might influence my life too much and that it might not be any of your business. Please, make it your business (maybe with just one post).

Thank you all. Its great to finally sign up too.

Horrorshow...for you and UCLA....

Sorry, i don't have advice i Just loved the boock Clockwork Orange...

[Artsakh]

Re: UCLA- Just Admitted, Need Advice

But on the same level, the school doesn't make that much difference. For example, in CA, Berkeley, Stanford, and Cal Tech are usually considered top followed by UCLA and San Diego and perhaps USC depending on the major. UC Irvine, Davis, Riverside etc follow after that.

USC and UCLA are currently tied at 27th place in the US new and world report rankings. Looking back, UCLA has gone down in the rankings year after year, while the opposite is true for USC. I think USC will outrank UCLA this year; the new rankings come out in August.