Berkeley EECS vs. Carnegie Mellon ECE

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Soo.. I'm an international who got into both. I'm pretty sure I want to do something EE or CS related. I also got waitlisted at CMU SCS (which I've heard is a pretty awesome place)</p>

<p>Help me decide, good people of CC. Here are, from my not-very-informed point of view, the pros and cons for both:</p>

<p>Berkeley
(+) Location, weather
(+) Marginally better reputation
(+) Proximity to silicon valley, helps in internships ?
(-) Class size? I don't know, really.. I've been in classes of 66 to classes of 4, and haven't had a lot of problems there..
(-) The California State Budget Crisis. This is really bothering me right now, even though I've only heard nasty things about it. Libraries not being open for 24 hours, classes being impossibly hard to get into, people taking 5 years to graduate: NO SIR. Do not want. Could someone elucidate?
(?) Is Berkeley's undergrad EECS as good as its grad program?</p>

<p>CMU
(+) Its amazing for CS, and I think ECE is pretty close to CS. Plus, I was waitlisted for SCS, so assuming I get in (hah!), then which would be better?
(+) Smaller size, so I'd imagine more personal attention by the profs.
(-) Marginally weaker reputation.
(-) A bit more expensive.</p>

2

<p>Smaller school size does not mean the student/faculty ratio is lower.
Berkeley is the obvious choice.</p>

3

<p>Berkeley does have a better reputation (as in, #1 reputation), but I think internship-wise you’d be the same at either school. However, if you go to Berkeley ugrad, they probably won’t accept you for grad (and you can expect grade-deflation at Berkeley). </p>

<p>With equal costs, I would go to CMU, unless I was really attracted to the bay area as a living environment (it does offer a lot of things that Pittsburgh can’t).</p>

4

<p>JamesMadison: That may be so, but Berkeley is known for its low student/faculty ratio and large classes.</p>

5

<p>Sorry to bump an old thread, but regarding the above post, how can there be a low student/faculty ratio with a large class? Unless there is a large number of professors?</p>

6

<p>Suppose there are 1,000 students, and each takes four classes. Each student takes two 1,000 student classes and two 10 student classes, each taught by one faculty member, and each faculty member teaches two classes. So that would mean that there are 202 classes needing 101 faculty members, for a student / faculty ratio of 9.9.</p>

<p>You can check on-line schedules of classes to see how big the classes actually are.</p>

<p><a href=“http://schedule.berkeley.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://schedule.berkeley.edu</a>
<a href=“Carnegie Mellon University - Schedule Of Classes”>Carnegie Mellon University - Schedule Of Classes;