UCSB Open House

The spring 2026 UCSB Open House will be held in early April 2026. Please visit the UCSB Admissions Open House page for the most up-to-date information and registration details for future open-house events.

Prospective-Student Presentations

Learn about the engineering curriculum, as well as research, education-abroad opportunities, internships, and more!  The session will be presented by an academic advisor from the College of Engineering and is best suited for students, friends, and family who have already been admitted to the College of Engineering at the freshman or transfer levels. Requirements for UC admission will not be covered in this presentation, so prospective students and guests are strongly encouraged to attend a UC Santa Barbara Office of Admissions Campus presentation.

Spring 2026 dates will be posted in mid-February 2026.

Watch a recorded version of the presentation on our YouTube channel.

Virtual Lab Tours

Peruse a selection of photographs of lab spaces.

Student Voices

Click to read about the student experience directly from students themselves, or check out videos/flyers from some of our STEM student orgs:

Student-Research Showcase

Welcome to our virtual student-research showcase!  

To view full project descriptions and view more capstone or design projects:
https://capstone.engineering.ucsb.edu
https://capstone.cs.ucsb.edu/teams.html

Aesha Parekh (BS ’22) became involved in undergraduate research through the Computer Science Department’s Early Research Scholars Program, a year-long research apprenticeship program that provides undergraduate students with their first research experience. She was part of a team that worked with computer science associate professor William Wang, co-director of the National Language Processing (NLP) Group. The team wrote multiple papers about their research that were accepted to top NLP conferences, where they later presented their work. “When we started, the fields of NLP and machine learning were entirely unfamiliar to us,” explained Parekh, who accepted a position as a software engineer at LinkedIn. “We ramped up on the area and learned to read research papers, explore research questions, design and conduct experiments, and compose quality papers.” Prior to graduating with honors and a computer science degree, Parekh was named a finalist for a prestigious award from the Computing Research Association, distinguishing her among the top ten undergraduate researchers in the nation. She also received a 2022 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research.

Once the Computer Science Department’s Early Research Scholars Program introduced Tony Sun (BS ’21) to undergraduate research, he was hooked. Working with associate professor William Wang during the year-long program, Sun investigated algorithmic fairness in artificial intelligence, with an emphasis on natural language processing (NLP). Sun eventually first-authored two papers that were accepted to the top NLP conference. One of the papers even became part of the curriculum at Stanford and Princeton. Papers that he wrote during internships with Amazon Science and Google were also accepted by prestigious conferences. “Research at its core is all about indulging one’s curiosity. It's a beautiful process that pushes humanity forward and makes life better for the next generation,” said Sun, who received the College of Engineering’s 2021 Tirrell Award for Distinction in Undergraduate Research, as well as an Outstanding Senior Award. After graduating, Sun began working at Google while simultaneously pursuing a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford University.

A first-generation college student, Diego Lopez (BS ’22) was always interested in undergraduate research, but he also faced a central fear that stopped him for some time. “I thought the last thing a professor would want is a freshman with no experience to get in the way or mess up the lab or take up time,” he said. “Research was always intimidating to me. I had no idea how to find those opportunities.” Fortunately, opportunity knocked on Lopez’s door, when he heard Dotti Pak, the education director for UCSB’s Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), explain the Research Internships in Sciences and Engineering (RISE) program during a career service event. Lopez joined RISE and said that his confidence grew by having to speak in front of the group nearly every day. That continued while working in the lab of chemical engineering professor and current department chair, Mike Gordon, where he says, “My mentor, [postdoctoral researcher] Oleksandr Polonsky, had this attitude ‘to just go for it.’ Before, I wasn’t that kind of person. I was too afraid of doing something wrong. But Oleksandr’s attitude kind of rubbed off on me to try it out and see what happens. Now, I use that outside of research, too.”

Henry Moise (BS ’21) was an average high school student in the San Francisco Bay Area and wasn’t thinking about going to college. He did attend community college, and then transferred to UCSB, where he found the transition challenging during his first two quarters as a chemical engineering major. Then, he found that he could put his experience working with tools in a hardware store to good use in chemical engineering professor Eric McFarland’s lab. Moise spent a  year as an employee in McFarland’s startup company, C-Zero, Inc., before beginning a PhD program at Stanford. “I would never have thought I’d be so excited reading science papers by other groups about methane pyrolysis,” he says. “It’s a cool feeling to be excited about things like that, and grad school will allow me to take that further.”

Academics

technology management DEPARTMENT

The Technology Management Department (which began as a certificate program) continues to offer an undergraduate certificate as well as graduate-level programs for students interested in management, business, and entrepreneurship in the science and technology industry. The courses and certificate are open to all students at UCSB. Learn more about TMP.

ap, ib, and a-level charts

You can see information about how your AP, IB, and A-Level exams will transfer to UCSB in the General Catalog. Students who attend UCSB will be provided individual advising on how exams and other transfer work will impact their time to degree, major requirements, and GE requirements.

Change of Major

Students admitted as freshmen may pursue a change of major into the College of Engineering or between College of Engineering majors. Students admitted as transfers may not pursue a change of major into or within the College of Engineering. Please visit our Change of Major website for more information and details about the requirements for each major. We created a video containing additional information for students who are admitted as freshmen and are curious about the change-of-major process.

Career and Internship Information

After graduating, COE students are prepared to enter graduate school or industry. During their time at UCSB, quarterly career fairs, on-campus interviews, and other activities enable students to be actively recruited for internship and career positions.