Berkeley Really That Difficult?

<p>Seriously though, guys. Anyone from philosophy, can you discuss the experience at Berkeley? Rhetoric? Linguistics? Art (ceramics)? Basic language courses, math 1a and 1b versus math 16a and 16b?</p>

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<p>Ok. Math 1A--easy, Math 16 series easy. Math 1B--highest flunk rate class on campus.</p>

<p>Thing is--most people who take math here have already taken Calculus BC in high school and passed their AP tests. </p>

<p>I--however, got a 4 on the AP Calculus BC test--and took the 16 series because I'm lazy.</p>

<p>Engineering---really competitive. They study their b*tts off. Also, if you are in EECS--in order to get the top notch jobs you need to maintain a 3.8 or 3.9 GPA. Yes, for electrical engineering comp sci.....</p>

<p>(Heard it from a friend who is in EECS)</p>

<p>Engineers study their bottoms off.</p>

<p>L&S more laid back. You have "dumb" kids; you have really intelligent kids. If you have a strong background in high school, took a lot of AP classes, you'll do fine.</p>

<p>I would add that it is true that if you are in EECS and want to get an absolute top-notch job in the industry, you need a high GPA. It is true that places like Google, microsoft, and other 'elite' CS employers do look heavily at the GPA. </p>

<p>But if you're OK with a non-top-notch industry job, or a job that is outside the industry, then you don't need a stellar GPA. Even the low-end industry jobs are pretty good. The fact is, despite outsourcing and the tech crash, there are so many companies in the Bay Area, especially Silicon Valley startups, who are looking for EECS graduates that as long as you don't mind not working for the super-brand-name companies, you should be fine. Even the lowest-end EECS jobs are pretty good, relative to what graduates in a lot of other Berkeley majors have available to them. So you don't get hired at Microsoft and you end up working as an engineer for some local tech company nobody's ever heard of. So what? It's still pretty good. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if you have the personality and the look (a big 'if', mind you), you can go for investment banking and management consulting. IB and MC firms LOVE Berkeley engineers, as long as they have the personality and the look. I know a bunch of Berkeley graduates with only average GPA's who nevertheless got hired at top IB and MC firms.</p>

<p>In my English 45A(Justice) section, there weren't many A's at all. Maybe just a tough GSI or teacher, though.</p>

<p>Where do Economics and Statistics fall in terms of average GPA?</p>

<p>I took English 45A too--(eek) j/p. English is definitely "hardcore" here--because we have the number one English department. But yeah--only junior transfer students who are already superb at writing get A's.</p>

<p>Um, I am an economics major actually and I guess most people get B's. (Maybe)...unsure. But to actually apply to get into the major (because it's impacted) you need a 3.0. However, they recommend you get a 3.5 to definitely get in. In my Statistics 21 course--only 20% get A's--because it's curved. Actually a lot of economics courses are curved......same with mathematics.</p>

<p>Each major can be quite different. I think it's a bit of a generalization to say technical courses are graded harder (unless you're going to count philosophy & rhetoric as technical departments)</p>

<pre><code> I have many friends in English that are repeatedly permitted to turn in major papers extremely late and as long as they are of good quality they may get marked down to an A- or B+. I have one friend who is a double major who attempted to turn in a late paper in Philosophy and lost a limb (just kidding but he failed the paper). I found philosophy coursework to be pretty rigorous and quite comparable with some of my mcb/cs coursework. I'm surprised by the statistics on humanities coursework A/A- average-good research sakky.

On a sidenote I'd say from personal experience that getting hired by a top company boils down to who you know before gpa or any other factor. I have several friends from my department who were hired by google and apple that had significantly lower gpa's than I did, but were recommended by people who worked there. In fact two friends who were employed by google were recommended by a current employee and went through several days of interviewing before getting hired and the 5k signing bonus. The kicker is they were FILM majors and are doing very well there (although the commute from Berkeley is hell).
</code></pre>

<p>who one knows is often the most important aspect of any decision :)</p>