<p>What should i pick... dont ask if i have gotten in to berkeley I am just looking for opinions</p>
<p>Any input is good, consider social life, acedemic reputation... whatever</p>
<p>any input is appreciated, just thought i would add that</p>
<p>The CalPoly program uses a more “hands-on”, practical approach to teaching computer science while Berkeley’s program will use a more “theoretical” approach to teaching computer science. </p>
<p>The former program is designed for a student that is interested in jumping into the work force right after college while the latter program is more intended for students interested in pursuing graduate study in Computer Science.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s program is also, obviously, a lot more prestigious; but you will be receiving a BA, which some students dislike and find less prestigious than a Berkeley BS. Do note that Berkeley also offers a BS in computer science.</p>
<p>CalPoly tuition is cheaper than Berkeley; though, Berkeley isn’t exactly “expensive”.</p>
<p>Overall, most students would choose Berkeley but there are some students who prefer the CalPoly alternative.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure there’s only one CS at Berkeley. There’s EECS but that’s different. The BA should be pretty well regarded.</p>
<p>I’ve never really bought that whole “Cal Poly is more hands-on.” Always seemed like Cal Poly is trying to come up with something that gives it an advantage over UCs. I still don’t know of any.</p>
<p>I can tell you that the Berkeley BA in CS is much more prestigious than the BS from Cal Poly. That it’s a BA doesn’t matter; in fact, if you look at the starting salaries of the CS BA vs. the CS BS, you’d find that the BA students always make a few thousand more on average (this might be statistical error, but there’s always been a gap, sometimes a large one). </p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a></p>
<p>The bigger point here is that those who matter (i.e. employers, grad schools) will not care that it’s the BA–Berkeley’s CS BA graduates have an impressive track record. You won’t even need to say it’s a BA if you’re afraid of what others think–a CS degree "wow"s people anyway.</p>
<p>Obviously, the prestige of Berkeley will take you far on its own, but the prestige of its CS program will take you even further. Consider that both programs at each school are impacted, so IMO Berkeley’s the clear option if you get into both.</p>
<p>I would bet that most people don’t even know the difference between BA and BS. You will wow them more with the UC Berkeley than the Cal Poly Pomona.</p>
<p>Cal poly = cal poly slo just to clear that up. Ok, thanks for that. Everyone agrees that berkeley is more prestigious. But what about college experience, social life, girls. I have heard rumors about both. I also really like sports so even though Cal doesnt have the best sports they are still Pac-10.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/d1final.pdf[/url]”>http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/d1final.pdf</a></p>
<p>Sports Directors Cup 2009-10</p>
<h1>9 - UC Berkeley - out of 283 Division I universities</h1>
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People say this over and over about the UCs like a mantra. Trouble is, there’s little evidence to support it. The UC system is a research university but that does not mean that its undergraduate programs have the primary goal of training future grad students.</p>
<p>To look at the evidence, the latest career survey from Cal of graduating CS seniors (BA degree) shows that 63% are employed and 19% are in grad school. Source: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm</a></p>
<p>So by a 3:1 ratio, the actual students in the actual program seem to be refuting the ‘primarily for grad school’ thesis.</p>
<p>With regards to whether UC is gear mainly for grad school, I think this thread offers some good insights:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1096816-counterintuitive-side-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1096816-counterintuitive-side-engineering.html</a></p>
<p>@phantasmagoric</p>
<p>“I’ve never really bought that whole “Cal Poly is more hands-on.” Always seemed like Cal Poly is trying to come up with something that gives it an advantage over UCs. I still don’t know of any.”</p>
<p>With regards to your earlier statement, I think it is just a reflection of your ignorance and snobbery. </p>
<p>I don’t go to Cal Poly (I go to Princeton), but my younger sister does and loves it. The “learn by doing” philosophy to education has been around for over 100 years, since the founding of Cal Poly. So it is not some gimmick, the school thought up last month. </p>
<p>As with some of the advantages offered by Cal Poly over UCs, it has litany of attributes. Attributes such as highest undergraduate starting salary over all other public California universities, including Cal. #4 ranked undergraduate architecture school in the US, over all other California universities. One of the cheapest tuition, with one of the finest quality of education. One of the finest engineering school for undergraduate in CA etc, etc. The school is located in one of the most beautiful section of California coast, with several brilliant beaches.</p>
<p>I would say those are pretty compelling advantages for a modestly funded public university.</p>
<p>Also, nowadays with all the CA budget cuts, no need to be a snob and dump on the CSUs such as CP. </p>
<p>For people to really say ‘WOW’ about one’s undergraduate degree, you better be from one of the HYPMS; Not a CA public school.</p>
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<p>I have tons of friends at Cal Poly (one of my close friends is a junior there in engineering); it’s the college that my high school always sends the most students to.</p>
<p>Try not to make assumptions about others.</p>
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<p>Again, you make an assumption about my knowledge. I know that it’s their philosophy–their official motto, actually.</p>
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<p>I really really doubt that CP SLO would have an advantage over Cal in starting salaries for CS.</p>
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<p>That’s because it’s a 5 or 6 year accredited program; most California schools are not included in such rankings because their undergraduate program is not intended to be a professional degree (rather, pre-professional). And anyway, how is this even relevant to the OP?</p>
<p>The rest of its attributes, I wasn’t disputing. But in this case, you’d be hard-pressed to prove that it’s superior to Berkeley. People do “wow” over a Berkeley degree, not just over HYPMS (and you call me out on snobbery?).</p>
<p>I am simply saying that its “learn by doing” philosophy does not make it superior, as many people from CP SLO try to make it seem. CP SLO, like the entire CSU system, is for terminal degrees–getting students in, pumping students out. That’s why there are very career-specific majors at CSUs. That’s what they mean by “hands on,” which is a clever spin on its purpose in order to make it seem as good as the UCs. Sorry, but the UCs are more esteemed for a reason.</p>
<p>I don’t even know why we’re debating this; no one would say that CP SLO is the better choice here over Berkeley.</p>
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<p>Actually, the gap can be simply explained twofold. Firstly, the Berkeley “CS BS” program is actually the integrated “EECS BS” and therefore includes numerous “pure-EE BS” students, and pure EE jobs tend to pay less than do pure CS jobs on the high end (which Berkeley engineering graduates tend to go). A comparison of the “pure-CS BS” students vs. the “CS BA” students would be more fair, but the Berkeley career office does not provide this information. </p>
<p>Secondly and probably more importantly, the BA CS program until only recently required that students apply specifically to the major as continuing students after having performed well on the lower-division prereqs, with no guarantee of being granted entry. Hence, those students who performed relatively weakly in the lower-division were not even permitted to enter the program at all and hence would never count in the official salary statistics. In contrast, the vast majority of CS BS (or more accurately, EECS BS students) were admitted into the program straight from high school to be dismissed only through the formal process of academic probation. Hence, those students who earned straight C’s in the lower-division are still part of the program and could still potentially survive to graduation. If those students were to be excluded from the salary calculation, the average BS EECS salary would look far better.</p>
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<p>The explanation for this is simple: Cal Poly has a higher percentage of students in technical majors such as engineering than does any other public university in the state, Cal included. After all, that is why the school is called “California Polytechnic State University”. It is a well established fact that technical majors tend to pay better than do non-technical majors. The graduates from even the best humanities programs are not paid as well, on average, as are the graduates from even a low-tier engineering program. (To be clear, I am not saying that Cal Poly is a low-tier engineering program.)</p>
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<p>Sakky, take a look at the data again. The data specifically detailed the figures – 88 graduates for BACS with the starting salary figures for that specific program. The EECS has it own detailed data too, separated from the BACS data.</p>
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Link please.</p>
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A lot of people are really impressed with Berkeley and couldn’t make any distinction between it and princeton, and I am one of those people. In fact, if we’re simply talking about computer science here, I’d be more impressed with a Berkeley CS than a Princeton CS.</p>
<p>Only colleges that beat Berkeley in prestige in CS are MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, and maybe Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>2010 NRC Graduate School Rankings</p>
<p>COMPUTER SCIENCE</p>
<p>1—Stanford
2—Princeton
3—MIT
4—Berkeley
5—Carnegie Mellon
6—Cornell
7—Harvard
8—UC Santa Barbara
9—Penn
10–UCLA</p>
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He’s obviously referring to the PayScale survey.</p>
<p>[Top</a> State Universities By Salary Potential](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-state-universities.asp]Top”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-state-universities.asp)</p>
<p>CalPoly SLO does have a better showing than Berkeley for starting salaries here.</p>
<p>I don’t really find CalPoly’s high standing particularly difficult to believe given that it’s primarily an engineering school in California. -.-</p>
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<p>Uh, no, perhaps you should take a look at the data again (or perhaps the original question). The relevant data would be a separation between the various options within the EECS program. Some (actually most) EECS students specialize in CS, whereas others specialize in various aspects of EE. The former are therefore comparable to the BACS students, whereas the latter are not. Unfortunately, no salary breakdown exists to separate the students within the EECS program. All EECS students, regardless of specialty, are lumped into a single category.</p>