<p>i've been weighing them for the past two years and now have a month to decide, any opinions?</p>
<p>i'm in the college of engineering btw
and hope that the OHP this april will help me out in the decision</p>
<p>Have you been accepted by either university yet? and which engineering major?</p>
<p>I think you'll get a great education at either school, but certain majors at each stand out. Film and art at UCLA for example are top notch, whereas English, Engineering and several others at Cal are excellent. So for engineering I'd say Cal, but it is a very, very, very difficult major, so be sure that you're ready to go balls out if you choose to come here.</p>
<p>Come here and have some fun with us</p>
<p>i think..........for engineering, you should go to UC berkeley, hands down......but of course, if you don't think you can handle competetion.....</p>
<p>yeah; accepted to Berkeley (regents interview tomorrow) and UCLA engineering (no regents)</p>
<p>my intended major is bioengineering/premed
hmm berkeley is more renknown for engineering forsure but the competition scares me a little, my foundation isnt' as solid as it should be.</p>
<p>Bioengineering is arguably the hardest engineering major at Cal (on par with EECS and possibly harder because of SO many required courses, and from what I heard from grad students). I am a first year bioengineering student and were in the same situation as you. Since you are a potential Regents scholarship recipient, I'd say your foundation should be solid enough (though I'm not saying this will make engineering easy).</p>
<p>thanks Unlimited, what is the competition like for cal bioengineering?
professors/etc.. any info would be helpful since Campus Tours really wouldn't show what real campus life would be like</p>
<p>i'm aiming for med school, and am worried about keeping that 3.5</p>
<p>If you're aiming for med school, I would advise against doing bioengineering. The competition in pre-med classes is stiff enough without adding on the bioengineering ones, where a 3.0 is a good GPA and a 3.5 is probably top 25%.</p>
<p>Yes, choosing engineering for premed isn't recommended, since medical schools look at your GPA and doesn't put weight on your major. However, it can be done. </p>
<p>I am not sure how stiff the competition is for main bioE courses myself because I am still taking the lower div courses. However, my upper division and grad students friends have said upper divison is much less competitive than lower division courses. Be expected to take a minimum of 3-4 and possibly 5 tech/lab courses each semester for the first 4 semesters. </p>
<p>Consider visiting the campus on Cal Day; there will be an informative session for prospective bioE students where both professors and students give their views of the major, student life, etc.</p>
<p>Yeah, Cal Day can tell you much. However, consider being here on a day that isn't Cal Day (before or after) so as to see what campus is like on a more "regular" day.</p>
<p>Berk. </p>
<p>What are you looking for in college?</p>
<p>drab: looking for good education foundation where one is still able to succeed (top 10%) and not have to become a workoholic</p>
<p>i understand bioeng is the harder path for med school but i chose it thinking it would provide a fallback if i did not make it to med school. i'm going to OHP on april 21, is that cal day?</p>
<p>ya know, its not always about being top 10% once you're in college, theres the whole factor of presteige.....</p>
<p>sorry t3hcan0n, you gotta work for what you want. can't say you want to be one of the best if you don't want to be a workoholic.</p>
<p>Being top 10% in college . . . that's a lot tougher than high school, t3hcan0n, and the people that often do that are extremely passionate about what they study (as in, they often do it for fun), are smart, and are hardworking. I don't know if either UCLA or Berkeley will allow you to do so well in any difficult major without lots of work. What do you mean by "workoholic?" </p>
<p>How many hours a night would you consider ridiculous? How many units a semester?</p>
<p>t3hcan0n, if you're going into bioengineering, even the bottom 50% works hella hard. It's not like high school where most of the students don't even try, and engineering weeds out a LOT of people the first year. If you're choosing bioengineering and don't want to be a workaholic, you'll not only fall way way outside the top 10%, you'll probably FAIL OUT.</p>
<p>I'd easily recommend Cal. You'll learn a lot more, and all the major tech companies are in the Northern California. You could easily sign up for an internship at at least one of the major companies. The hottest ones like Genetech will always be very highly competitive, but smaller ones like Applied Biosystems also have their powerbase here. Med schools dont just look at GPA, they also take many many other factors into consideration. The number of other things you can do here far exceeds that of UCLA.</p>
<p>Cal Cal Cal.</p>
<p>Go bears!</p>
<p>One of the most difficult transtitions from high school to college is coming to grips with the fact that you're not the smartest person in the room. Everyone at Berkeley was the hot shot in highschool, so unless you're willing to work harder than them, you won't be at the top of the class. If you don't want to kill yourself with homework, yet still be the "smart guy," then you should choose a school that's not as demanding as Berkeley. That said, its not like success at Berkeley is impossible.</p>
<p>Agreed. Many students have quite a different view and idea of the academics before arriving to college and after arriving to college. I sure did.</p>