> My point is this: Even if you don't get into your "dream college," don't fret about it too much. If you decide to go for a master's, no one will really care where you took your BA (or BS, should you so choose). And if you don't go for a master's, well, reread Stephen's post.

Even if you don't get your master's, I think where you got your degree only helps in certain fields or if someone is biased toward a school. Now that I'm working directly with hiring people for jobs, I've learned that the most important thing is that you have the degree, not where you got it.

>
> There is one thing that I heard about the UC's when I was looking into them. I don't know if it's true or not, so take it with a grain of salt. I was told that because their faculty are so involved with research, they have less time for teaching. As a result, a lot of classes are supposedly taught by TA's instead of the actual professors. I was also told that schools like Fresno State are, in some ways, just as good as UC's, because their professors are of a similar caliber and actually teach the classes. I don't know what's true or not in that.

Yes and no. The UCs are more research oriented, for sure. However, most of my classes were taught by professors. The classes that weren't taught by professors were usually classes with a high volume of students that were in high demand, particularly in math and science. The basic English courses that everyone needs were also this way. Because of this, and to keep class sizes smaller, they had to use TAs (PhD students) to teach lower division Calculus or English 1A. What was more common for high volume classes was a large lecture, taught by the professor, with smaller labs and discussion sections led by TAs. And the large lecture varied in size from 30-450 students depending on the class. This was most common in the first two years of a major during lower division work before you start specializing. I had plenty of classes at UC that were less than 30 students, too.

In addition, take advantage of a professors office hours, especially in those larger classes. This is not only a good time to go over things from class but to learn about what else they do at the university. A great way to learn about projects you can help them with and to find out what you might want to study long term.

Ferrick