University of California-Irvine Top Questions

The academics are really great here. They are all about trying to have each student succeed and be able to learn in a comfortable environment. Academics is very important here.

The academics are great and some are hard depending what your major is.

What is so great is that the professors here on our campus are currently doing research on their field of study. That means that when they teach classes, they will be incorporating recent findings that they are working on in their research. Mainly the lower division courses are the typical 200 to 400 students to 1 professor ratio. Many of the Upper division courses are very small, which allows you to create a relationship with the professor. In the bigger classes, it is a bit more difficult to create connection with the professor, but the great thing is that every professor is required to offer office hours, which allows students to go ask questions about the lecture or just even talk and get to know the professor. So either way, there is a way to get connect with professors. Many of the Students here are competitive. It all depends on the major you are in and the courses you take. One of the most favorite classes is Abnormal Behavior with Professor Jamner. It is such an amazing class. It is just mind blowing and the professor is super chill and funny. The one class that I just regret taking is History 21A, which was just world history. First of all, I'm not a fan of history and then the professor was not the best.

There are usually a large amount of students in the libraries either studying or doing classwork. Class participation really depends on your professor. However, in my experiences so far, it is rare for class participation to be part of your grade. Sometimes I do hear students having intellectual conversations outside of class. For the most part, the students are having these conversations with their professor, but sometimes students do have these conversations. Students are not really competitive, unless you have competitive events then they will be. I enrolled as an undeclared student. I am now a mathematics major and I want to go for a psychology minor. Mathematics majors have to take one year of physics or chemistry, and a lot of math. There is free tutoring for physics and math courses as well as chemistry. The School of Physical Sciences is extremely helpful. Before I even I was able to sit down and talk with one of the advisors and talk about my plans and ask any questions I had. The math department sends out weekly emails and there is a list of events and extremely helpful resources you can take advantage of. The school's academic requirements are doable in four years and the education is geared more towards learning then just getting a job.

General Education is just that: general. But upper division course are completely different! Professors here care about their students, every department has someone that students can count on! And one of the beautiful things about our school is that students MUST do research to graduate! While some students dread this, the majority of them are grateful, for this is one opportunity for students to venture out, to gain that experience while making those connections that will be necessary to make a living out of what students consider their dream jobs: that career that they can happily claim theirs until retirement.

I am in the nursing major at school and our class is only 45 students. This is nice because the professors try hard to learn our names and get to know us since we are such a small group, compared to the 400 student lecture halls. My favorite class was anthropology with Mr Murray. He is such an amazing professor. He is entertaining and young, yet you learn a lot in class at the same time. He makes it fun to attend lecture. My least favorite class was writing 39C. It was such a tedious class and there was so much work involved. I wouldn't have minded the work except it was on a subject that I was not interesting in writing about, the war in Iraq. Students are very competitive at my school. In the huge biology classes, many students will not answer a question that you ask simply because they don't want to give you an advantage of knowing more than them. That is one thing I enjoy about my nursing class, that no one competes and we all help and encourage one another. Our nursing professors are willing to spend time outside of class with us. I have met many of them for office hours. They are willing to help and want us to succeed. I feel that learning at this school is geared towards both getting a job and learning for its own sake. If you don't choose a major, then you are able to just learn for the sake of learning. If you have a purpose and a goal, you are able to learn for fun, but also take classes that will help you get a job in the future.

I had a pretty positive experience with my professors overall. Of course it depends on what major/program you do. Do some research on what programs are good at UCI. I spent most of my time in the humanities school, where the teachers are quite excellent. It gets pretty good when you hit upper-division classes because that's when they get smaller and you can make connections with professors and other students easier. In regards to classmates, I don't want to sound like a jackass/smartass but I didn't find most of the students to be very smart or open-minded. Maybe it's just the bubbly environment of the OC. Overall, UCI students aren't what you would consider to be overachievers. The atmosphere of the school is quite laid-back and this is reflected in the students too. It's a different story for engineers, compsci, and bio majors, who you'll find probably studying at least twice as much as other students. The education at UCI, like the other UCs, is not very practical and is focused on research/learning. Well duh, they're all research schools. I just wished somebody made that more clear to me beforehand. Because of this, make sure you put the effort into getting internships. That is probably one of my biggest regrets. You'll have a tough time finding a job afterwards without practical work experience. If you want more practical job skills, go to the upper-tier Cal State schools (Poly, SDSU, SJSU, SFSU, Fullerton, Long Beach, Sonoma, to name a few).

UCI is an enormous school. There are so many people here that you'll have trouble meeting professors. I had easily 150-200 students in my intro seminars, in which the professors read off powerpoints for the duration of the class. I didn't even go to my Humanities Core lecture for the second half of the year because I could access all the notes online, and got an A on the final. The smaller classes are only upper division, which usually requires fulfillment of at least 3 lower divs...which means you'll be waiting until winter quarter of sophomore year before you'll get to have a discussion in class. Everything is standardized. Exams, the way students are treated by teachers, and the administration. This is a very hands-off approach to education, in which they try to squeeze in the maximum amount of students so they get more revenue. Students frequently complain about the lack of support from professors. More often than not you'll be taught by TAs, and incompetent TAs at that. Many are upperclassmen or grad students (yes, I had an upperclassman teach me in Lingustics) who don't particularly care about being there and are just looking to make some extra money. The administration makes it extremely hard to get anything accomplished. When I transferred out, there was nowhere to go to get help on my applications or paperwork. The academic advisors are nice but they don't know you--there are six per department and they serve thousands of students.

Professors can get to know your name if you want them to know your name. I actually kind of liked that since I had the tendency to fall asleep in the boring classes. For the professors that I really did enjoy, as long as I just made even just a slight effort they were quite helpful. Some of them I even considered to be my friends. As mentioned before, UCI students are pretty chill. We go to class in our pj's and flip flops on a regular basis. I was a polisci and international studies double major in the school of social sciences and I liked the scope of the classes. I got a lot of freedom to take a wide variety classes that interested me. Some of the more serious classes i liked were Law and the Drug Trade, Black Politics, Radical Traditions of the Philippines, History of Revolution in Cuba, and Economic Anthropology. My most favorite for fun classes were Biology and Chemistry of Cooking, Sociology & History of HipHop, Performance Art, and Latin Music Appreciation. I took all these classes three or more years ago and still remember a lot of what I learned in them so I consider it money well spent. I think the curriculum in the social science department prepares its students to go on to some kind of graduate school as opposed to getting a job. But I think thats the nature of most social sciences. Most people go on to get a Law degree, MBA, MPA or some other kind of Masters. I know of several people including myself who went Ivy League for grad school after UCI. Either that or they work for some company or organization doing something to pay the bills whatever that may be. A lot of us go into teaching.

My guess is 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the courses at UCI are tough. As an art major, I had mostly small classes of fewer than 14 students, and my professors all had high profile professional reputations. UCI students can be very intellectual AND athletic; competitiveness varies with majors. Most schools are highly selective; many majors are extremely theoretical, including Evolutionary Biology, Social Ecology and Critical Theory. Most students speak a foreign language as well as English. The campus is very tech-savvy, and most student have no problems finding a job after graduating or gaining admission to graduate and professional schools.

i see general apathy regarding politics and issues outside of classroom. I wish students have intellectual conversations outside of class. Students are not that competitive within the School of Humanities, and certainly not among History students. I spent time with professors outside of class. The education at UCI help students hone their skills from writing to critical thinking.My favorite classes were Humanities Core, Gender in 19th century America, and Introduction to Law (Sellgren). I enjoyed Humanities Honors classes tremendously. Again, I really like the interdisciplinary aspect of the classes. My least favorite has to be Calculus. I disagree with one of the academic requirements. Students, outside of School of Humanities ,do not have to study foreign languages. I believe that they SHOULD have some mandatory language requirements because we live in highly global society that requires constant communication and understanding about the world we live in. I did wish that School of Social Sciences had less school requirements so I could double major in Anthropology or Political Science.

Academics at UCI is completely dependent on your major. My experience as a Political Science major (and Accounting minor) has been positive, but would be very different than that of an engineering, biology, or dance major. My classes have generally been large and un-participatory. However, through office hours, honors programs, seminars, and campus resources students can choose to make their academic experiences more engaging and personal- students have to take initiative though to seek out these opportunities.

Academically, UCI has so many great resources available for its students. But many times it requires students to be proactive to really be able to take advantage of these resources. For example, class sizes may vary from very large (over a hundred) to an intimate setting (thirty or less). Despite these varying circumstances, it is possible to develop strong, meaningful relationships with professors. I for one became very good friends with several of my professors and keep in touch with them until this day. Not only were they my professors, they were my mentors. Though my stated major in this survey is "American Studies," my actual major was Asian American Studies. I was and still am very passionate about the field and found all of my major classes to be fascinating. Some of my favorite courses also included classes offered by the Film & Media Studies Department (as I was minoring in Film & Media Studies). I loved watching full-length films in class and then analyzing them. Who knew watching movies could consitute "studying"!

If you just blindly go through your classes, no professor is ever going to know your name. There are just too many people in the classes usually, especially the intro classes or required classes for science majors. There are some freshman seminars that have limited enrollment to encourage professor/student interaction, but there is usually little reason to have a bond after the class is over. However, I did get to know a few professors well through being the tutor for their class or through showing interest in their subject. Most students start out as bio majors, and by the end, most of them end up in other majors either because they couldn't cut it or because they weren't that interested in the subject. As a result, non-science majors get a lot of the science (and also some engineering) rejects. Students aren't usually too aggressive with the exception of the premed people, which constitute a large proportion of the school and of the bio majors. Although I never experienced having notes stolen or pages torn out of books as I've heard from other institutions, the premed people are pretty hard core about making the grade, establishing connections with professors for letters of recommendation, getting in the extracurriculars, etc. Many classes also grade on a curve, which can encourage competition, but I was always helped by the curve. Biology is a very popular major at UCI as the majority of the students start out wanting to be doctors. As the years go on, though, many realize they may not have the stamina to do so, but at the end, a lot of people do end up following through to medical school. If you don't have priority at registration, it can be hard to get the classes you want, but there are waiting lists. Academic advising can be hit and miss in the biology department. A few of the academic counselors have been very helpful to me, but everyone I've talked to has had some traumatic experience in the biology student affairs office. With the huge number of students they serve, I can kind of see how that could be, but they can be kind of harsh if you're not the best student. Most of the professors are very accessible with office hours and through email. On-campus housing also makes a conscious effort to get professors into the housing complexes to interact with students. However, most students probably have very little interaction with their professors outside of class time. On the other hand, if you engage in undergraduate research as I did, you'll probably develop a very strong relationship with that professor with whom you do research. I know I've been out to eat with my PI (principal investigator=head of research lab) several times and have kept contact with her even after graduation. UCI has a laundry list of breadth requirements, which are kind of a hassle, but I suppose they are a necessary evil. Probably the most well-known breadth class is Humanities Core Course, which is a year long class that involves reading lots of literary works and writing lots of papers but also fulfills a lot of requirements. The school builds it up to be a great thing, and I suppose if you're into the humanities, it is. If you don't really like all the reading, writing, and analysis, it's really not that great. I guess I strengthened my writing skills, but I wouldn't really recommend it to someone unless they did like the humanities.

Professor O'Connell is the BEST professor on campus.

UCI has some of the best professors and unique classes. I was an Asian American Studies and Studio Art major. Since both majors are small, it wasn't too hard to stand out. If you do your work well, the teachers will notice you. I took Chinese and my teacher was so fun and fresh, she invited us to her house to have dumplings to celebrate a Chinese skit performance. I feel that all my teachers really cared for my education. They went out of their way to write recommendation letters for us and meet us after class. There are several professors I feel comfortable visiting outside of school for lunch or just to talk. There are several core classes like Humanities Core and Studio Art 1ABC that is well designed but many freshmen can't appreciate it. I have to say I was one of them, and in retrospect, I could have a stronger scholar if I took in everything as seriously as they wanted me to.

A lot of my classes were really big so it was hard to develop a relationship with a professor. If a student went out of their way to introduce themselves and go to office hours and ask questions then the professors would have more of a chance to get to know them, but I wasn't that kind of student. In some smaller classes it's easier to get to know the professors, but on the whole most professors won't know who you are. I really enjoyed the criminology classes that I took, especially those with Professor Dombrink, it was a nice break from bio stuff. Biology is a really competative major, but with crim people are more interested in hearing how someone else would interpret something rather than the "right" and "wrong" of things. I feel like the academic requirements at UCI are pretty high. The point of college is to teach you to test yourself and to perform to the best of your abilities. If you weren't challenged I think it would be a waste, you might as well start at a junior college. Instruction is fast-paced, but if you are having difficulty, there are ways for you to get help which is comforting. Chances are you won't be the only one struggling.

Academically I was very challenged at UC Irvine. I was very undecided about what I was going to majoring in while in school. Over the course of year and through various classes I found my niche and passion which was anthropology. Classes such as Humanities Core challenged me to become a better reader and writer, skills necessary to do well in any class. Most of my classes for the first two years had large lectures (200 people) with smaller (20 person) discussions and are fundamental to your existence as a student. As I began to take classes smaller and more specific in nature my love for going to class began. Not to be a dork but I loved the intellectual stimulation that I was gaining. Many of my classes had large amounts of reading and papers that allowed me to explore the field of anthropology from many perspectives. As an individual naturally inclined to ask a lot of questions I did not find it hard to get to know my professors. I went to their office hours to talk about my papers, ideas and concepts, and the possibilities of going to grad school. I feel like if you show your interest in pursuing and understanding the material you will be able to do well in any class. In terms of studying many students are concerned about doing well. Many classes I was able to take with friends which was even more enjoyable. A lot of people study of campus, Gateway commons, Langston Library, even outside. I feel that the people I surrounded myself with did study a lot, but just as in any other schools there are people who just mess around and are just there for the social part of college.

Professors vary from class to class. Some professors like to get students involved, and others just like to talk. The really good place to have conversations is in discussion section. There you can talk to the other students, and the grad-student T.A. about the material. Also, all Professors have office hours, and usually, they really enjoy talking to students who attend them. The Economics Department is pretty good, they aren't anything special, but they teach pretty well. Some professors have heavy accents, but that is to be expected at a University that recruits internationally. UCI is a great University to have on your resume. Many companies recruit from UCI and the career center actively attempts to pair students with jobs. I already have a job lined up for after I graduate, and it is only the beginning of the year. As for how hard the school is academically, I am told that people struggle in the Bio department, but in Economics, the classes are ridiculously easy. I would wager to say that I am of above average intelligence, but if you do the readings and go to class, you are sure to get at least a B.

After I completed my general ed. and finally started taking the classes in the subject I was interested in, school became a lot more interesting. I started getting more involved and introduced myself to faculty whom I enjoyed. By my third year I got the courage to walk up to a professor and talk to him about his research lab. Since then I have been doing research with him and was able to quit my job and get paid for being a research assistant. Through this I was more connected with my peers, found out what my interests were, and made the decision to go to graduate school. I have found the Psychology and Social Behavior major very informative and I feel I have learned a lot.