El Camino College invited over 60 universities to the Fall University Fair to help students plan for their futures. Each university set up different booths outside of the Student Services Building where they got the chance to answer students’ burning questions on Sept. 22.

“The purpose of this fair is for our students to connect with university reps,” Rene Lozano, El Camino’s Transfer Center Coordinator said.

Lozano said that he wanted to bring universities directly to the students rather than have the students go out to get the information themselves.

Every fall and spring semester, universities are contacted by El Camino to speak to students about their campuses. The event features local universities, private and out-of-state universities.

“We tend to attract universities because they know that they’re gonna get really good students here and a lot of traffic,” Lozano said.

The Fall University Fair attracted over 200 students to the various booths spread out across the plaza. Some colleges, like private Drexel University, came all the way from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Drexel University’s Assistant Director of Transfer Administration Ashley McManus said that Drexel is well known for its co-op program. Students don’t take classes for six months to work full-time in their area of study and they don’t pay for tuition.

“We have over 80 majors that we offer across our 14 colleges,” McManus said.

McManus said that Drexel University tries to make the transfer process as easy as possible for students.

Meanwhile, students thinking about transferring to a California State University are required to complete the “Golden Four Classes”, which are classes that focus on oral communication, written communication, critical thinking and mathematics.

California State Universities have educational road maps that help students pick out what classes to take, dubbed the California State University (CSU) General Education Breadth. In this form, the “Golden Four” is in Area A.

Christin Johnson, assistant director of the outreach and recruitment office at CSU Fullerton said the university places a focus on students learning through experience.

“We emphasize a hands-on learning approach on our campus,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that students are required to have a strong GPA and be in good academic standing in previous colleges or universities they attended.

18-year-old economics major Heidy Marcelino walked through the university fair, hoping to find representatives from schools she’s hoping to transfer to in the near future.

“I learned more about the transfer application, the tuition and got suggestions on how to fill applications out,” Marcelino said.

Marcelino said that she spoke to her top three choices of UC San Diego, UC Irvine and UCLA. Marcelino said she gained new knowledge, allowing her to start preparing for the future.

19-year-old nursing major David Oguekwe’s focus was on finding someone to help him with his transfer experience.

“I appreciate that [the Transfer Center] sent the notification in advance,” Oguekwe said.

Oguekwe hopes to transfer to UC Irvine and spoke with a representative to gain more information about their transfer requirements. UCs have their own requirements for transferring students.

“UC’s require what we call, Seven Course Pattern,” Christopher Ramos, Regional Admissions Representative from UC Santa Cruz, said.

Seven Course Pattern consists of one UC English composition course, one UC math course, and four general education areas like physical and biological science, Ramos said. GPA is also important, for California residents, the GPA requirement is 2.4 and for non-residents, it is 2.8.

While the University Transfer Fair was a one-day event, the El Camino College Transfer Center is available to help students Monday through Thursday from 9 p.m. to 5 p.m. in room 228 inside the Student Services Building.