<p>I got accepted into Berkeley (Undeclared L&S) and San Diego (Bioengineering) and I have a hard time choosing which college to go to. Here are the good things and bad things that I have come up with.</p>
<p>BAD:
Berkeley: difficult courseload, competitive, mediocre dorms, mediocre setting, too close to home, weather not as good as SD
San Diego: socially dead, may have to commute to school during jr. and sr. year, too far from home, unattractive girls (so I’ve heard)</p>
<p>GOOD:
Berkeley: prestigous, name recognition, very strong programs, good food, better social setting, close to home
San Diego: nice weather, better dorms than Cal, right by the beach, less competition (?), generally more laid back</p>
<p>Besides the list above, I feel that the major is giving me the hardest time. Bioengineering at UCSD is ranked top 3 in the nation and it is supposedly the next hot job market. Undeclared L&S at Berkeley doesn’t really have anything I’m interested in, other than cellular/molecular biology. I eventually want to go to med school or grad school and I don’t know which one will help me more: the hype over my major at UCSD or the name recognition of Cal?
I’ve concluded that the hype over Bioengineering may die down over 4 years and I’ll be just like the many others with a degree in computer science now. However, the name recognition of Cal won’t go away in 4 years, and that may give me an advantage when applying to grad or med school.<br>
Furthermore, I’ve been told many times that one’s undergraduate major doesn’t really matter, it’s the graduate degree that really counts. Anyway, can anyone help me with my decision?</p>
<p>Right now, I am sort of leaning toward Cal because it’s more convenient, but my first choice has always been UCSD.</p>
<p>If your first choice is UCSD, then why not go there? If you are not interested in the undeclared L&S major at UCB, then why go there? Frankly, you can't go wrong at either place. But my opinion is: If you are in bioengineering at UCSD and its program is ranked second after JHU, then go there.</p>
<p>True, MCB at Cal isn't bad; but a MCB student at Cal is stressed and tired from its highly competitive nature. My mom, who has taught primarily MCB majors at UCB, says that many MCB students either forgo their medical school aspirations (and go to law school instead) or spend a year after graduating to work in a lab or get a MPH degree before reapplying to med school. In these cases, the Cal name recognition did not help.</p>
<p>I have the exact situation. I was accepted into UCSD bioengineering:biotechnology and berkeley's mcb. I know that if i do choose berkeley, my plan will be to change majors (since i much prefer an enginnering major over a plain science major) to bioeng or chemE. however i know that the change of college into engineering is VERY VERY hard to do, so if i do happen to get rejected from both bioeng (college of engineering) and chemeng (college of chemistry), then i'll apply to haas undergraduate program. (i have equal interest in business and engineering) HOWEVER, the application for haas is ALSO extremely selective. Thus im really bent on where to go now. should i go to berkeley and take the three chances and hope i'll make it into one of them, or should i just take the safe way and take ucsd's #2 bioengineering program? I know that if i do happen to get rejected from all 3 of my planned goals, i would have rather went to ucsd instead because i would definitely not want to be an mcb major. tell me your opinions and advice if you were in this situation. thanks. also if anyone can provide me some more detail of just how hard it is to change from L&S to eng, i'd greatly appreciate it.</p>
<p>haha simlilar situation to dopestuh. i heard it's hard to transfer from LS to CoE but not very very hard. it's do-able though. i say go to ucsd...i got into ucsd too but it was for bioE premed and i dont really want to go to med school. Right now i think im heading to cal for mcb and ill try to transfer into CoE and if i dont i guess im stuck in mcb. ah! what should i do!</p>