<p>btw. before anyone flames, that was a joke. at the end of the day, go with what feels right to you.</p>
<p>and yes. i've also heard that the european education style is more depth less breadth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley, however, had ME being one of it's 3 original majors (the only one that still is offered). It's no wonder that Berkeley is always in the top 5 Engineering schools whoever is ranking, but often times Harvard focuses so little on Eng. that it's not even ranked in the top 50 (see US News rankings for proof).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As said above by LaxAttack09, you are, first of all, factually wrong, as Harvard is ranked #23 in grad and #30 in undergrad engineering according to USNews. Come on. Please check your facts before you make statements like that. </p>
<p>
[quote]
at Harvard the computer science department had less than 100 people, and very few faculty. The argument of quality vs. quantity can't be made here, because really CS at Harvard is not very deep or wide in terms of courses and expertise. Harvard was founded as a liberal arts school, and to this day continues to be one.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, I don't know about that. Seems to me that Harvard is doing pretty well as a CS school. Again, according to USNews (which you recommended that we check), I see that Harvard is ranked #15 in CS for grad. I would say that's pretty darn good considering the hundreds and hundreds of other CS programs out there. You gotta have some reasonable breadth and depth to merit a #15 ranking. After all, I see that Harvard is ranked higher in CS than much larger tech-oriented schools like Purdue, Penn State, or Virginia Tech. </p>
<p>But secondly, I am not sure that what you are saying regarding the breadth/depth matters that much anyway. That's because Harvard has a complete cross-reg relationship with MIT - and MIT is literally only a few miles away, very easily accessible by public transportation - as it's only 2 subway stops away. I doubt that you will run out of breadth and depth of CS courses if you're just an undergrad, but if you do, you just take a bunch of CS classes as an MIT cross-reg student. Plenty of students do. Hence, I would argue that a Harvard CS student has access to an education that is * arguably as good at, if not better than * what a Berkeley CS student has access to. After all, the fair comparison is not just Berkeley's offerings vs. Harvard's offerings, but rather Berkeley's offerings vs. Harvard + MIT's offerings. </p>
<p>But thirdly, I think I have to back up LaxAttack09 and point out that you have to ask yourself what you want to do with your life. The truth is, plenty of students who think they want to become engineering students will not complete engineering degrees, but will instead switch majors to something else. And even if they do complete eng degrees, many of them will not take engineering jobs, but will instead opt for jobs in, say, consulting or banking. For example, it's become quite the running joke at MIT that many of the best engineering students will ditch engineering and run off to consulting and banking. Furthermore, even if you do take an engineering job, you may not stay there for long - an extremely common career path is to work as an engineer for a few years, then get your MBA, and then get a management job. </p>
<p>The truth is, very few people can confidently say that they know what they want to do with the rest of their life. That's why I think that breadth of school is more important than the school's ranking within a particular major. It's certainly the safer choice. What if you choose a lesser-known school because of its strength in a particular major, and then find out later that you don't want to major in that field anymore? You'd probably like to go back in time and make a different choice of school. But you can't. What's done is done.</p>
<p>
[quote]
you should understand that there are a lot of people out there who are committed to engineering and don't even bother applying to harvard because harvard's engineering program just sucks. yeah, sucks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>See above - Harvard is ranked from #23-30 in engineering. If Harvard engineering "sucks", then what does that say about the hundreds and hundreds of other engineering programs that are ranked even lower than Harvard's? Frankly, I would say that it's rather elitist to say that any school that is ranked #23-30 "sucks". </p>
<p>
[quote]
why would you study engineering unless you want to be an engineer?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know - same reason that most people who study history don't actually intend to become professional historians. Most people who study sociology don't actually intend to become sociologists, most people who study psychology don't intend to become psychologists, most poli-sci students don't intend to become political scientists. Most people who major in those fields do so because of general intellectual interest and because they have to major in * something * in order to get a degree, not because they actually intend to pursue it as a career. Yet nobody hassles them about majoring in something that they won't pursue professionally. So why can't we afford engineering students the same privilege?</p>
<p>Look the truth is, at any engineering school, even the top-ranked ones, there are plenty of engineering students who are just not that committed to engineering as a career. A lot of them are, frankly, just pursuing engineering as a 'backup career' in case they can't get the job offer or law/med school acceptance that they really want. I see nothing wrong with that - that's a perfectly rational thing to do.</p>