<p>I was admitted as a Junior level transfer student to Berkeley and UCLA for Mechanical Engineering. Basically, I have two questions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When I originally chose my major I was torn between Mechanical and the computer related degrees (Computer Science and Engineering at UCLA and Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Berkeley). I looked at some salary info before applying, but I didn't know each school published average salaries for their graduates. So, I didn't notice until after being admitted that Mechanical Engineering pays considerably less than the other degrees. Should I not agonize so much over these numbers? I'm wondering if making my school choice based on whether I can change majors there is a bad idea.</p></li>
<li><p>After school I want to end up in southern California where I've lived all my life. Would it be a bad idea to go to Berkeley if I don't intend to work up there? Is this enough of a reason to turn down the better of the two schools and stay in LA?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I didn’t want to make the first post too long, so I’ll provide more relevant details here for those who made it this far. :P</p>
<p>First of all, I’m 27, and in order to attend either school I’ll have to leave the company that I’ve been working for for 9 years making about $55K / year. So, the bottom line is very important to me.</p>
<p>Also, through my current job and my hobby projects I consider myself to have become a pretty good and experienced programmer. So I thought that even with my Mechanical Engineering degree I might still be able to try for internships in software and shoot for those higher paying software engineering jobs. But, I don’t know how realistic this is.</p>
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<li><p>Major in the one you like more. Both are engineering, both should have great job opportunities. I think you’d also be behind on pre-reqs if you tried to change now. I mean, most STEM majors share a lot of coursework, but unless you’ve been taking lower div CS classes, you’re behind. You might be able to minor in CS, if you really wanted to. Looks like it’d be pretty much impossible to change to EECS at Berkeley and hard/competitive at UCLA, though. I wouldn’t worry about the numbers too much… you’ll do best in the field you’re passionate about. Also, salary is probably a bit biased on the CS vs ME at Berkeley at least, since EECS is pretty prestigious here and all the big companies recruit like crazy… so it might be that CS is inflated, not that Mech E is bad.</p></li>
<li><p>(No idea, sorry! I’m CS, so bay area is the place to be.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>failure622, thanks for the reply! It looks like Berkeley won’t let me change majors, so if I really want to change that’ll mean going to UCLA and trying it there. I like both subjects equally, so if I end up stuck in ME I won’t hate it. My concerns are really just about how much money I’ll end up making in either field. The reports I saw before applying made it look like the gap wasn’t so big, but on Berkeley’s site it looks like on average the gap is about $20K / year. You might be on to something about the CS numbers being inflated though.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention that the required courses for community college transfers are pretty much identical for both majors, so that shouldn’t be an issue.</p>
<p>I can’t seem to talk to anyone in the career center at Berkeley until I’m officially a student in the Fall. Can anyone else give me advice on the possibility of working in software with an ME degree and whether it’s a bad idea to go to school in Berkeley if I intend to move back to SoCal? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Cal has Computer Science in their College of Letters and Science. As an engineering admit, I believe you can change your major to L&S. You’d probably don’t want to try and get a job in the computer industry with an ME degree - they’re quite different. Have you checked to see what software companies are in southern California? I’m sure they’d appreciate getting a Cal graduate, as would any computer company anywhere in the world. I would SIR to both to buy a bit more time for you to decide.</p>
<p>The possible barriers if you are an incoming transfer student are the requirement to complete at least a semester at Berkeley, and be able to declare a major since you will have more than 60 units at the time of the proposed change.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, thanks for those surveys! I had seen them though and they are what originally made me have second thoughts about my career choice.</p>
<p>@SoCalDad2, I’m considering waiting another year like you said but it’s a very hard thing to do. I never thought in a million years I’d get into Berkeley or UCLA, and if I didn’t get admitted on the next try I’d hate myself forever.</p>
<p>@cadave, I spoke to my admissions officer and he told me that changing my major is not possible at all. I believe that goes for L&S too since I was admitted as a transfer. I haven’t looked into what particular software company might want me, but I figured there must be plenty in SoCal even if it’s no Silicon Valley. But you have a point about them wanting Cal grads.</p>
<p>I don’t think I can switch to L&S, but I’m not really keen on the idea. Maybe I shouldn’t be so against it, but I’d rather go to an engineering school even if it means waiting a year. But risking not being readmitted is very scary. :S</p>
<p>@AngelJ If you plan to stay with ME, UCLA will do just as well as Cal. Have you looked into whether you can double major in ME and CS within the L&S at Cal? That may allow you to fine tune your true interest and possibly transition from ME to CS. Just curious, is there any particular area of ME that you’re interested in? Also, I don’t know what the course requirement is for CS majors, but if your work at JC was based on engineering prereqs, you may have more CS courses to take to catch up. Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>@cadave, I thought my career would benefit from going to Cal since it is one of the very top engineering schools. Would it really be about the same as UCLA as far as my career goes?</p>
<p>One of the messages I received with my admission decision from Cal reads like this, “Students admitted to the College of Engineering as junior transfers will not be permitted to change their major, including adding a second major.” and my conversation with an admissions officer supported this. It sounds like at Cal I’m stuck with my decision to do Mechanical Engineering alone.</p>
<p>I can’t say there’s a particular area of ME that interests me. But I can say I believe heavily in the promise of computational fluid dynamics. I think one day it’ll make wind tunnels look like the abacus and it’d be neat to be a part of that. I thought with my experience in programming I just needed the knowledge of fluid dynamics from a degree like ME. One of the things that sways me toward CS is that with just a BSME, I feel like I’d probably end up doing mundane CAD work instead of the cool stuff I fantasized about.</p>
<p>Lastly, based on what I’ve seen on assist.org, the requirements to transfer to Cal’s and UCLA’s engineering schools are pretty much the same for all majors. So, I don’t think that should be an issue.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the responses guys, I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Cal and UCLA are both great schools for Engineering so I wouldn’t say that choosing one over the other would really make a significant difference (assuming you like the environment in both of them since you’ll be staying there for a couple of years).</p>
<p>In regard to the ME vs EE/CS situation, If you plan on getting a Masters later on you can just get a BS in ME and later a Masters in EE/CS. The Masters degree is the one that stands out anyway.</p>
<p>The location of the school doesn’t really matter that much. You can go to Berkeley and then just go back to Southern California when you’re done with school. I’m from Northern California and I plan on going to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo as a transfer student. When I’m done, I’ll just go back to Northern California since it’s where I would like to stay and also there’s a lot of companies in the Bay Area that will practically hire Cal Poly Engineers on the spot. Good Luck with your decision.</p>