<p>Is Cal's Bioengineering hard to get in?</p>
<p>it probably is because its engineering, but im trying to make sure</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>EECS, Bioengineering, and Engineering Undeclared are the most competitive.</p>
<p>Sigh...
why does this happen to me? maybe is should have done a little bit more research before picking a major. I picked bioE for LA too........</p>
<p>anyways
how much harder is it? are there any stats out there for the undergraduate class for last year?</p>
<p>A google harder, more or less. Stop worrying and see what happens. If you don't get in, you'll be fine somewhere else, and it may, in fact, be much better that you don't go here; who knows?</p>
<p>Pardon my ignorance, but how does Cal admission work?
Can i get into the college without getting into the bioE major itself, as in undecided or something? or will i be flatout rejected</p>
<p>Prospective students may apply for engineering-undeclared and have the chance to choose any engineering major at the end of their sophomore year. However, engineering-undeclared is highly impacted just like EECS and BioE.</p>
<p>Looking for a job with a bioE degree right out of undergrad may be difficult, however.</p>
<p>While I don't want to discourage anybody, honestly, I wouldn't go for BioE. Not only is it hard to get admitted into, not only is it hard to complete, but it also doesn't really pay that particularly well, relative to other engineers.</p>
<p>The way I see it, if you're going to complete a major that is both hard to get into and hard to complete, you might as well get the good salary too. If you like bioengineering stuff, I personally think a better choice is to go for ChemE or ME and just fill your engineering elective requirements with biotech/bioE classes. The truth is, bioE employers aren't really going to care very much about what specific engineering discipline you have, as long as you know the stuff. Nobody is going to say "You really know the stuff and your personality matches our company, but I see that you have a ChemE degree not a BioE degree, so we're not going to hire you." Never happen.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I've always wondered why is it that the bio/biotech industry is so cheap. The sad truth is that it simply doesn't pay its employees very well. Biology majors are by far the lowest paid of all the natural science majors. Industry reports say that biotech is going to become the next major world technology and world industry and more people should be trained to enter it, but what exactly is the incentive to do so when the pay is relatively low? The basic rules of economics dictate that if you want more people to enter a given field, you have to increase pay. </p>
<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/IntBio.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/IntBio.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MolEnvBio.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MolEnvBio.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/GenPlantBio.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/GenPlantBio.stm</a></p>
<p>Indeed, ALL bioE grad students I have spoken to have said almost the same thing. Since I am a first year bioE student, I've been contemplating about switching majors into Economics (as my parents have asked me to consider). But what's holding me back is the irony of giving up a highly-impacted major and transferring out of CoE when so many are trying to transfer/apply into them.</p>
<p>So next semester is a bit crazy in terms of classes as I will be taking chem and econ along with math, second half of r&b req. and one seminar. I'll see how it goes the first few weeks..</p>
<p>To be fair, I would say that if you really like the field, then you should go for it.</p>
<p>My logic is based on the same logic that I would never tell anybody to major in physics or mathematics unless they really liked it a lot. Honestly, if you're good enough to complete a physics major, you're good enough to complete a degree in degree in EECS or ME. If you're good enough to complete a degree in Math, you're probably good enough to complete a degree in CS. In each case, depending on the electives you choose, the material is almost the same both in content and in difficulty. And those latter degrees pay substantially better.</p>
<p>Now I agree that if you can't get into engineering/CS, then physics/math may be the best you can do. But again, if you have a choice, and unless you really have a burning love for physics or math, I don't know that I could recommend taking that route.</p>
<p>Truthfully I don't know what I field I want to go into, even though many say what undergrad degree I graduate with won't restrict me to a certain field, I still feel pressured because I need to make a choice of major fast because there are way too many lower division reqs.</p>
<p>Let me also point out that in the last few years, Berkeley instituted one of the most pernicious policy changes that the school has ever devised - namely Berkeley substantially raised the requirements for students trying to transfer into L&S. I know why they did it too - in the old days, L&S was seen (with a lot of truth) as a dumping ground for students in the CoE or the CoC who couldn't make it. A lot of students would try out engineering (either in the CoE or chemical engineering in the CoC) and if did poorly, they would just transfer over to L&S. While this had the unfortunate side effect of effectively making L&S into a dumping ground, it at least had the compassionate benefit of providing for engineering students who don't have what it takes to get an engineering degree another path by which they can graduate. So the good outweighed the bad. </p>
<p>Now, Berkeley L&S has changed its policies such that you need decent grades to transfer in. While there is no hard cutoff of what those grades have to be, the upshot is that transferring from engineering to L&S is not the automatic rubber-stamp that it was in the past. Some engineering students with bad grades will try to leave engineering for L&S and be denied and thus be forced to stay in engineering. Believe me, there are a LOT of engineering students at Berkeley who get bad grades. This has created what I deem one of the nastiest and saddest paradoxes of modern-day Berkeley: If you get bad grades in engineering, you may want to leave engineering, but your bad grades may prevent you from leaving. In other words, the very reason why you want to leave is precisely the reason why you're forced to stay. Sad indeed.</p>
<p>The point is, you now gotta be careful whether you really want to be in engineering or not, because if you do poorly, you might yourself unable to get out.</p>
<p>Dang all this info makes me really regret choosing this major....
Is it possible to change major at this point, now that the application has been sent?</p>
<p>No, it's not possible.</p>
<p>Well, look, like I said, you can always try to switch over to chemical engineering. ChemE is still engineerig, but the difference is, it's run in the CoC. The CoC is harder to switch into than L&S, but not THAT much harder. I would suspect that it's easier to switch into chemical engineering than to switch from one CoE major to another, although you might want to check on that, as I know things have changed recently. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. ChemE is an absolute bear of a major. Along with EECS/CS and Physics, it's probably one of the top 3 most difficult majors at Berkeley. However, again, my point is, at least you'll be making pretty decent money. BioE ain't no cakewalk either, and also doesn't pay that well relative to other engineering majors. </p>
<p>I and my brother are both in BioE major.
Trust me, the BioE curriculum in Berkeley sucks. Basically, you just pick random classes from a huge list, and there you go, you're a Bioengineer. This dept is just a mess, and there's gotta be a reform of some sort aiming particularly at the curriculum.</p>
<p>When I applied last year, they are building the Stanley Hall, which is going to house the BioE dept this year. At that time, I thought, wow, CoE is gonna pay some attention to this messy department now...maybe BioE @Berkeley is gonna be one of the top programs in the country in the near future.....</p>
<p>Hah, I guess I was a little foolish. I can see the graduate program is getting better and better. But the same doesn't go for undergrad......I guess I'll just wait and see....zZZZZ</p>
<p>I know its incredibly hard to switch majors at Cal... but is it easier to switch from BioE to something like Molecular Bio? cuz i wrote BioE as my major as well...</p>
<p>Like Sakky have said, a min. of 3.0 is required to transfer from CoE to L&S, but even some CoE students are not able to earn that 3.0 to transfer, thus stuck in CoE.</p>
<p>It's not incredibly hard to switch majors at Cal in the whole. Actually, it's easy to switch from most majors to most other majors. But if we're talking about the CoE, or the CoC, or from one college to another, or Haas, or CS, maybe a few more, a small group of fairly popular things, then yes, it can be hard to switch from major to major, (@^_^@).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Like Sakky have said, a min. of 3.0 is required to transfer from CoE to L&S, but even some CoE students are not able to earn that 3.0 to transfer, thus stuck in CoE.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Truly, this is one of the saddest changes I have seen at Berkeley. They didn't use to have this rule. It's a recent change and a truly unfortunate one. The fact is, there are PLENTY of engineering students in the CoE or in the CoC (in chemical engineering) who have nowhere close to a 3.0, particularly during the weeder wars. A lot of these students would love to be able to major in something else, but are trapped because nobody wants to let them in, because they don't have high enough grades. Of course, if they were getting high grades in engineering, they probably wouldn't want to switch out in the first place.</p>
<p>I can understand that L&S was tired as being seen as a dumping ground for the lazier students from the other colleges. But come on, you gotta provide a safety net for those engineering students who are doing poorly. I think a far better way to do it is for L&S to institute a GPA requirement for transfers, but WITHOUT REGARD TO WEEDER GRADES. After all, the whole point of weeder classes is to weed people out. So then you have to ask the question of what happens to all these people who get weeded out. If these people aren't good enough to be engineers, fine, but you gotta give these people some alternative path. You can't just toss them by the side of the road and abandon them.</p>