berkeley v harvey mudd

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvey Mudd College
1

<p>Hey guys, sorry if any similar thread exists on this board. </p>

<p>(also i x-posted this at the cal forum to see if i could get a wider variety of responses)</p>

<p>Right now I'm admitted to Berkeley under pre-business & harvey mudd college as engineering. I applied to Cal as pre-business 'cause i was stuck between engineering and business (and i was scared that i wouldn't be able to get into cal eng'g, since it's so hard to get into), but lately i've decided that a business undergrad degree isn't very important to me anymore, and i'd rather do engineering. </p>

<p>I've visited both schools (HMC for an overnight prog, affiliated with the school--so perhaps i didn't get the purest feel for the campus, although i'm hoping to go back this week) (Cal thus-sat, including part of cal day) and I really really like both. I'm absolutely stuck in the middle; 50% of me wants to go to berkeley, 50% wants hmc. </p>

<p>I've made a pro/con list, although this is by no means comprehensive (which is why i don't think the current lop-sided-ness should mean anything definite?) but if anyone could help me out I would appreciate it oh so much. and if it helps, i've always planned to study engineering but then go into business (and i think i'm going to get my MBA), although lately i've been thinking that maybe being an engineer wouldn't be so bad. although i kinda...don't know what they do :x</p>

<ul>
<li>= both pro & con</li>
</ul>

<p>BERKELEY</p>

<p>PROS
+ extremely diverse, seems to be a more complete experience to be surrounded by all kinds of people (not just engineers/scientists)
+ $8.5k scholarship
+ excellent location, will never be bored/have nothing to do, SAN FRANCISCO
+ far from home
+ great, nice people – something for everyone kinda thing
+ 8417529358 club organizations
* will already know people there*
+ IEOR!!!! (industrial engineering & operations research major) Has that integration of business and eng’g that I wanted to do; potential double major w/Haas
+ prestigious?
+ if I decide I don’t want to do eng’g, can transfer—plenty of options, not restricted -- although i've heard about difficulties in transferring..
+ FAR FROM HOME
* forces you to be independent
+ one of the most amazing culture/history i know of. it seems like cal students epitomize human virtue</p>

<p>CONS
- ridiculously large—easy to feel overwhelmed/overshadowed
- mad competition, kinda
- killer amount of work
--not sure if you can get help, will have to search to find resources/etc.
--will have to be mad independent
* will already know people there
- location – “unsafe” (although I’d argue that it really doesn’t matter unless you’re not smart about stuff) – bums (although I really don’t care)
- lots of $$$ for airfare
* forces you to be independent (possibly cutthroat…)
- no guarantee that I can transfer into eng’g or get into Haas
- would probably get distracted from studying…
- elevators & dogs EVERYWHERE--elevators pretty much unavoidable. not to mention subways. (i have a mad fear of dogs and am claustrophobic)
- only ~7% out-of-state</p>

<p>OTHER
• ~$18.5k in loans? </p>

<p>HARVEY MUDD</p>

<p>PROS
* NERDS!
+ $33k scholarship
+ really, REALLY dedicated professors
+ easy to get to know professors—actually, you will get to know every single one of them
+ nicest faculty EVER. strong advising system
+ small class sizes
+ extremely prestigious in the ‘know’ crowd—equates with MIT/Caltech/Stanford—easy to get eng’g jobs
+ intense clinic program
+ honor code is no joke; you can leave your laptop outside and no one will take it
+ safe, calm area
+ really, really strong connection/unity among students; strong, solid support base; everyone works together; cooperative, not competitive
+ easy to get help if needed
+ like 99% of graduating HMC undergrads get jobs by November following their graduation
+ will get to know everyone, and will probably be known by everyone</p>

<p>CONS
* nothing but nerds, although I think that would be fine (not to mention there are 5 other colleges right next to it—so theoretically I could ‘escape’ from that if I really needed to) -- but it may be a more complete college experience to be surrounded by all kinds of people, not just scientists/engineers -- although i can find different kinds of people at the neighboring colleges....
- kinda stuck if I’m at an eng’g school and I decide not to do eng'g -- although i can do an off-campus major as long as i have an hmc minor
- not very well-known
- hella hard/lot of work…
- sooooo close to home……. (~40 minutes)
- boring location (Claremont), i think – although there is always a lot to do on campus
- perhaps too small. will never get the diversity with just 700 kids at HMC (3,500 total at the Claremont colleges) </p>

<p>OTHER
• only ~12k in loans
• can always take summer school @ cal…
• when i talked to a berkeley prof (of Haas), he told me straight out to go to harvey mudd. which was actually really weird, haha
• general engineering program. i have no idea whether this is good or bad, but since i'm not really sure what eng'g i want to do, it seems better</p>

2

<p>if your heart is not 100% into mudd, you will hate it when you get here. like you said, it is a lot of work and is VERY VERY demanding. the curriculum is as intense as caltech... whether or not techers agree with me on that is a different story.</p>

<p>anyways... hmc will sharpen you like no other. the only problem is that with all these great new smarts comes a certain level of depression.</p>

3

<p>i'm not sure whether or not to reprimand you or commend you, but i think you're scaring the prospective students with all your talk of "it will be so hard and you'll get so depressed". while this is true, at times, by no means is anyone depressed all the time. people who are just leave. yeah, a lot of the time, it sucks. but something's keeping us here, and it's not just our ridiculous stubborn determination to see something through to the end, although that's probably a factor... </p>

<p>i think it's possible to like this place even if you're not 100% into it. it's also possible to (like me) be 100% into it and not like it so much when you get here. i think i just didn't look into colleges enough when i was in high school, though (i was lazy and went for ED). </p>

<p>as far as the berkeley/hmc decision, it seems like you have good reasons to choose both and i can't really tell from what little i've seen of you (i.e. this post) to know whether you'd be happy here. the general feeling i get about big universities like berkeley is that most people like them -- not love them or hate them, just like them. mudd is quite different -- it seems like most people love it AND hate it, but no one is apathetic about it. there are definitely lots of strong feelings about this school. so, do you want a school that will make you a nicely balanced, boring person, or do you want a school that will inspire passionate emotions? another thing is that if you're not set on a technical major, you might get pretty frustrated by the academic program here. on the other hand, if you think you really like engineering and you're gonna want to stick with that, you'd be better off coming here, cause competition at berkeley is cutthroat (from what i've heard), and you might not even be able to change majors. </p>

<p>i dont know if this has been at all helpful, but i'm putting off finishing a research paper that was due last thurs, and i figure i may as well throw out my advice while im at it. better use of my time than, say, playing yahoo games...</p>

4

<p>the absolute truth is the infinite sum of all relative truths divided by infinite. (my evaluation of mudd is perfectly legit, as long as you give your perspective as well. it also does no good for mudd if people think they are going to like it here and get here and it is a shock to them. ) </p>

<p>this place is amazing yet depressing at the same time. middle 50% is quite an accomplishment here. what i live for, however, are those little moments of "awesomeness" when you walk out of class because you learned something absolutely amazing. i don't know how common in undergrad programs that is, but i definitely love it.</p>

5

<p>Heres a pro: Not just another face to people</p>

6

<p>I have exactly the same dilemma to deal with in the next 5 days. Can anybody talk about the research opportunities at Mudd for engineering majors (or lack thereof)?</p>

<p>Another issue - does anybody know where there are tangible stats about where engineering undergrads are going after they graduate?</p>

7

<p><a href="http://www.eng.hmc.edu/EngWebsite/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eng.hmc.edu/EngWebsite/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I found some stuff on the "after you graduate" link on that page, and you might want to browse around there a bit for other stuff, too.</p>

8

<p>Harvey Mudd is better in my barely informed opinion. Are you sure you can even get into Berkeley engineering after being admitted as prebusiness? I thought most of their engineering majors are impacted.</p>

9

<p>I'm not sure, but IEOR is one of the smaller majors, so I was hoping that it would be okay to switch in...and I talked to some students and advisor, and they said it shouldn't be too difficult as long as I don't completely bomb pre-reqs. but it's certainly no guarantee :/</p>

10

<p>i know very little about engineering, but i'm going to claremont mckenna...the whole nerdy thing and small school vibe....and lack of diversity....can all be easily escaped with the 5c system. you'll have friends from pomona who are philosophy majors that you hang out with...or at least share a library with. and harvey mudd throws the best parties out of the 5cs apparently. </p>

<p>i would have to second your pros and cons....they are pretty much accurate. My feeling is that i can enjoy a small school undergrad experience (more support, better foundation, closer friendships, make better connections) and then go on to a huge public university for post-grad work (probably law school for me). aka....CMC then Berkeley (or UVA...or UW Madison...or...).</p>

11

<p>I don’t think I would worry about being overwhelmed/depressed at Mudd. Yes, it’s intense - I have an extremely smart friend that is going there and he can attest to that. However, look at the advising system. Look at how close-knit the community is. Look at how these and other things affect there graduation rates (something like 85%). Mudd holds on to way more students than Berkely, and the reason is because you aren’t lost in the crowd.</p>

<p>I would also argue that you are an undergraduate, you want to do engineering, and that Mudd is arguably the best school in the country for that purpose. For undergraduates, you will get more attention and more resources devoted to you at Mudd. The students are also better than Berkely’s (my friend said that around 75% of his class aced the Math II).</p>

<p>There are lots of business classes to take at Mudd and the Claremont Colleges - Mudd requires something like a third of your classes to be in humanities and social sciences. I don’t think you have to sacrifice your business aspirations if you go there at all.</p>

<p>Add the scholarship on top of that and I think you’d really have to like the other things about Berkely to consider going there. Just my opinion.</p>

12

<p>This is a weird dilemma you have here. I’ll try to advise you as best as I can. The issue with Berkeley for you is that you’ve not been accepted to the COE. I think that in and of itself may be a problem – you say you want to do engineering, and while Berkeley has a great program, it’s hard to contrast the two until you’re actually into engineering – which is harder to get into from inside Berkeley than outside, I think.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>The key to avoiding being too flattened out in a large school is to find a subset of it that you feel very strongly part of. For instance, you’ll probably form a group of people in your major whom you associate with…potentially relative to your level, given they come in all levels at a large school.</p>

<p>These schools are actually very, very different, and it should not be too hard to choose one in one sense. But one negative about Berkeley for you is not being in the COE from the start. I’d really ask around to see if you’ll be able to switch into what major you want.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This comment makes me worried for you. It seems like you could go to HMC and realize you don’t really like engineering, and go to Berkeley and decide you WANT engineering but not be able to switch in so easily, or not at all.</p>

13

<p>-As mathboy stated, you have not been admitted to the school of engineering at Cal which you would obviously have to do if you wanted to get a degree in engineering. However you probably could get admitted to Cal engineering if you were able to get into Mudd. </p>

<p>-There are LOTS of nonnerds here and of course at the other nearby colleges. </p>

<p>-Not everybody here finds it depressing. Its a bit brutal and you lose lots of sleep here, but its heavily rewarding (and for me that makes it non depressing). </p>

<ul>
<li>I cant really stress how amazing of an opportunity it is for a Mudd education to be acquired so cheaply. Im personally paying 40k per year myself.</li>
</ul>

14

<p>

</p>

<p>I actually think it’s almost certain that this poster would have been admitted if he were to apply as a high school student. Applying from within the school is a strange game, I think. I don’t know enough about IEOR or your specific circumstances to reasonably predict. I do know people who have transferred into EECS here from L&S, so it’s certainly possible, but while almost everyone accepted to Mudd is strong enough to have a good chance at Cal engineering <em>as high schoolers</em>, succeeding within CAl is a different story, and I know plenty who got into Mudd who would find both Mudd and Cal engineering very much of a shock and get thrashed the hard way into shape…hence it’s hard to tell what your specific case will be like. I’m not saying to discount Berkeley, because after all, Mudd is a very specific school and you don’t want to go there just because you couldn’t think of anything better (rocket here will tell you that any day), but be careful, and ask around. </p>

<p>I am sure you won’t find it <em>completely</em> depressing unless you really get bogged down into achieving some specific goal. I know a physics graduate from Mudd, and he seems to have pretty good spirits in general, though he did often mention how he felt stupid at Mudd.</p>

15

<p>Ah, guys, note the date on the original post. I expect that ddrhobbit has made his decision already. :)</p>

16

<p>O.O thats one hell of a resurrection.</p>