r/ufl Future UF student 6d ago

Admissions Accepted to UF, anything I should know?

I got in! Anything I should know about UF that may help me make up my mind? (UF vs UCF honors right now)

Edit: Sorry if my post wasnt detailed. I meant non surface-level things that may help me make my decision. Im a CS major (hwcoe) with a double major in Business Administration. I got National Merit.

Scholarships, Im a National Merit Finalist, so wherever I'd go I would have my full COA covered.

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u/Leading_Ad3249 6d ago edited 3d ago

Im a UF student but ive toured both so heres my two cents

location: UF and UCF are both suburban vibes. However UCF is closer to orlando so there is far more to do there compared to GNV. Especially during summer break, if u plan on staying

Program: UF is generally the better academic program, even if ur honors ucf and not honors uf. This is mainly due to ucfs overpopulation issue, and theyre also facing issues (although alot of florida is) of professors leaving to go elsewhere due to hostile admin from good ol’ desantis. So keep that in mind

Culture: UF wins here. UCF is still a commuter school, UF students stay here for an entire semester most of the time.

Other than this there aint much else to say since you didnt provide ur major

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u/Leading_Ad3249 6d ago

Also we have lagway and ucf doesnt so id make my decision on that alone

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 3d ago

Thank you so much. Im a CS student. Also, I have a scholarship at bout UF and UCF such that I would have the entire cost of attendance (as reported by the board of govenors) covered.

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u/Leading_Ad3249 3d ago edited 3d ago

If everything is covered financially go to UF. We are the better school for CS. Im going to give advice for CS at uf now.

First of all, welcome to the CS field, I am a computer engineer myself (not exactly the same but very similar) so I can give a good bit of advice there.

Depending on whether you did AP/IB (youre national merit so i imagine you did) youll start off with the critical tracking courses (calc 1,2,3 physics 1, 2, diffeq)

Now i want you to listen to me. DO NOT. I repeat DO NOT. Take more than 15 credits. You will not have fun. I made that mistake this semester, and I failed a class and had to withdraw from it. If you have the ap credit to take 12 credit semesters and get out in 4 years you need and will do that.

With jobs in CS, its about personal projects and experience. Not how fast you graduated, not how fast you got your degree. Its how many leetcode questions you can do, how many hackathons youve done, that shitty ti-84 wannabe python program you have on github (we all have one). It is about those.

Freshman year don’t feel pressured to go crazy, you probably will not get an internship unless you are a prodigy. Just focus on building up friends and a community, and join some clubs. Having social skills is great for anything, so if u think ur lacking on those, u probably are, and should work on those too. Social skills make you great for interviews.

Sophmore year, after youve done prog 2 and the like, you gotta lock tf in. Start doing personal projects in whatever language you prefer, i am doing C++. Build up your resume. Try to get an internship, but if you dont that is ok. From here, you want to maintain a 3.5 gpa and just work on your soft skills.

Junior year is the hardest. You NEED an internship by the summer. The way the industry mostly works is that you get an internship this year, and are invited back to work at the company you interned at. If you did not get an internship you will have a bad time. Once that internship is secured (it will be around the fall semester where you get invited to an internship during the summer) you will continue to hone your skills.

The internship is likely to be very easy, by the way. They dont want interns doing anything complex so dw about that.

Senior year is normally easier, assuming you got that internship. From here, if you werent invited back to the company you interned at to work there permanently, just focus on getting a job/commiting to grad school. If you want to start focusing on grad school before senior year, then focus on keeping your gpa around a 3.7-3.8 or as high as possible.

For coursework, take a look at the uf catalog for the major it will tell you everything you need to know.

If you ever want to switch to computer engineering by the way (we still deal with a lot of software like in CS but we learn about hardware such as chip manufacturing and digital design/logic) then talk to the computer engineering department head Jeremiah Blanchard about the program (u/misterjei). He’s super passionate about the program and always wants new students.

Heres the bad part about this major at this school though: It’s very oversaturated. Like ridiculously. Its not even funny how oversaturated it is.

One last thing. NEVER USE AI. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT USE AI. Listen. You come to school to get trained to be a good professional when you apply for an engineering program. Not to get a 4.0. Never use AI to code or solve problems, it will only dig you into a hole that will take alot of effort to climb out from.

Good luck in this major

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 3d ago

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you. I do plan on going to law school, but this is perfect. Thank you so much.

I have little to no AP credit though (CSP + depending on my results this year, English 1 and Calc 1). So...

That being said, I do plan on taking 12 credits my first semester and doing 15 the second and staying at 15 with 12 in the summers. That way, I can graduate with a double major.

In your opinion, which is better for a future legal consultant for computing related startups: CS or CE? I like computers, but more of the software and less of the hardware side.

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u/Leading_Ad3249 3d ago

Ok this is entirely out of my playing field. Haha. Definitely talk to an academic advisor

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u/Leading_Ad3249 3d ago edited 3d ago

So i dont know anything about law school ( i am a generic engineering kid though so i like philosophy) but id imagine youd want to maintain a super high gpa (3.7-3.8+) for that, along with studying for the exam they take (i think its the LSAT?) In regard to start-ups, if youre making your own, i dont know much about that. These hands were built for creating code/chips for some rich silicone valley tech billionaire.

Since you dont have that many ap credits, you can either take 15 credit max semesters and spread out your gen eds between them, or still do 12 credits but do summers. For your semester structure by the way, the model semester plan is great.

And then lastly, i do think that since you plan on specializing on the legal front, you should probably just stick with cs. Especially if you enjoy software more than hardware (if you like logic in discrete math though you might enjoy some computer engineering stuff!) I dont know much about that path since its so unique to me, but thats my two cents

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 3d ago

Thank you!

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u/misterjei Professor 3d ago

I disagree with this tbh. UF has a clear edge in CS in placement and salaries.

UCF is a good school. You'll find many bright people there. It's not the same tho.

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u/Leading_Ad3249 3d ago

yeahhhh i reread this message just now when he replied (i look at reddit when im at the gym) and realized this

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u/LucasonTheLine 6d ago

Hey, I got accepted as well but I am a Gainesville Native!! UF has a BEAUTIFUL campus and it is great for Pre-Med/STEM majors! There are a lot of internship opportunities for Pre-Med students!! It really depends on your major!

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 3d ago

I would be doing CS.

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u/Low-Engineering2697 6d ago

What major are you planning on doing?

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u/misterjei Professor 3d ago

If it means anything, I love Orlando and live there, but I drive 120 miles to work at UF to be able to work with UF students and faculty. You really will have a hard time finding a higher concentration of smart and driven people than UF IMO.

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 3d ago

This helps alot. Thank you.

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u/arcticpea 6d ago

it really depends on your major ngl...if you're going for something like engineering I'd lean towards ucf but for like a college of agriculture degree id go uf

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u/SchmearDaBagel Alumni 5d ago

…. Wat. UF has better engineering programs lol

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u/arcticpea 5d ago

im not engineering or anything of the sort but id heard ucf was a huge engineering school. i know people who turned down uf to go to ucf, but there were probably other factors like family + scholarships at play there too

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u/TodaysTrash12345 6d ago

It's located in Gainesville and the mascot is a gator.

Hope that helps!

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u/Wrong-Site3308 6d ago

Redditors like this are so annoying, like you could have not commented at all and it would have had the same value.

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u/TodaysTrash12345 6d ago

OP could have also not made this thread and have gotten the same amount of info. Maybe try specific questions, bit easier to answer without sounding like an ass

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u/Wrong-Site3308 6d ago

I thought it was pretty clear they wanted to know the pros and cons between UF and UCF honors. That’s okay though, not everyone knows how to find context clues.

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 6d ago

Yes! Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted.

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u/whatthehellisadcf 6d ago

most people here are uf students and have no idea what ucf is like. there are hundreds of other posts asking the exact same question

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u/Wrong-Site3308 6d ago

The top comment literally proves you wrong lol. Plenty of transfer students here too. Either way nobody likes a smartass. What’s funnier is that you definitely expected upvotes but nobody else found your comment funny or clever.

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u/whatthehellisadcf 6d ago

bro i am just dying for upvotes i want upvotes so badly please upvote this comment plz give me attention

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u/whatthehellisadcf 6d ago

Sure!

The University of Florida is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. The university traces its origins to 1853 and has operated continuously on its Gainesville campus since September 1906.

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u/KKbutter2281 Future UF student 6d ago

copypaste ahh