<p>I sincerely doubt you'll have time to do any sort of paid research during the school year. There are jobs to get on campus, but don't count on getting a lot money from them. School takes up a lot of time. </p>
<p>That being said, the SURFs over the summer are pretty good for money. 6k for 10 weeks? :D</p>
<p>Hriundeli,
Aside from books, my son has spent very little this year - I doubt if he spends more than $20 a month on misc stuff. Of course, I do send care packages on a regular basis & he stocked up on shampoo and stuff while he was home on breaks. Laundry he "charges" to his caltech card and its only $1.25 per load and since the bill comes home, I end up paying for his laundry. I think you could easily get by on 1K per school year if you're not including books. You might even be able to include books for that if you watch what you spend. I understand there are lots of opportunities for paid work - maybe not research but there are jobs on campus. Although remember frosh are not allowed to work the first term. And it seems there are also opportunities for free fun - free showing the new Spiderman movie, preview of a Numb3rs episode, free talk by Stephen Hawking...just to give some idea of some of the free fun stuff that goes on adn that's only what mom has heard about - I'm sure he doesn't tell me half of what goes on ;) </p>
<p>I also don't know if you need to include travel expenses...</p>
<p>Thanks Lizzy and OaklandMom (my dad found your post to be quite helpful..we'll see what Fin Office has prepared for us)</p>
<p>49)
Where is Ben? =)</p>
<p>Hi!</p>
<p>Hriundeli -- I am very happy to hear your good news. You are a great fit and I think you'll be happy here.</p>
<p>As for money, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If push comes to shove and you need cash, you can make $50/hr tutoring rich high school kids for the SAT math section. It's not that fun but it's a pretty fast way to make money. And after second term you can work on campus in many places (library, coffeehouse) and in some cases (like the library) make decent money doing very little.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for money, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If push comes to shove and you need cash, you can make $50/hr tutoring rich high school kids for the SAT math section. It's not that fun but it's a pretty fast way to make money.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Really? :D</p>
<p><em>nod</em> just don't be like most Caltech students, selling your services too cheaply. You have to charge what the market will bear, which means skimming the least-price sensitive consumers off the top.</p>
<p>Hi all! Nice to join this discussion. I am admitted as a Caltech transfer student for Fall 2007 term. I am currently a Pasadena City College student. My major is chemical engineering.
Question:
50) What is the average GPA of Caltech students in chemical engineering major? (or all engineering in general ?)<br>
51) How hard is it to have a GPA > 3.8 / 4.3 if you are a chemical engineering major? (or all engineering in general?) How much work is expected? Is it true that we only can sleep for 4-5 hours/day because of the hard coursework?
Qualitative description or quantitative answers are greatly welcome!</p>
<p>Thank you all for the replies!</p>
<p>I'm not a chemE, so I don't have a lot to say on this subject. That being said, some people here consider ChemE one of the hardest/most time intensive majors at Caltech. A ChemE friend of mine once told me that this was because ChemEs have a lot of classes that take an above average amount of time to complete.</p>
<p>thank you lizzardfire. More answers are welcome!</p>
<p>Specifically, ChE is difficult because of the sheer number of units required for graduation. Being a transfer student will affect the numbers a bit, but at least for everyone else, the number of option units required for graduation is (I'll just pick the most common ones)</p>
<p>Math: 147
Physics: 198 - 201
Mechanical Engineering: 177 - 195
Biology: 158 - 176</p>
<p>and then...</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering: 272 - 281.</p>
<p>Then add 255 units for all core requirements; we'll be looking at no less than 527 units for graduation, whereas everyone else needs 486 or 483 (including electives; when ChE's do 527 units, that's not including electives). So ChE's just tend to have significantly tighter schedules than everyone else.</p>
<p>Is it hard to get a 3.8? Rather so, but it really depends on how smart you are, and that's something that's almost impossible to gauge. I mentioned this on a previous post, but some people get 4.0+ with comparatively little effort; others have to work very hard just to pull a 3.0. I think most people can get 6 to 8 hours of sleep if they schedule themselves right and not obsess over social life (key words: "not obsess over," not "give up"). Then again, ChE's may have it harder in this respect because they have to take more courses. I'd need a real ChE to answer this one.</p>
<p>I am getting a little nervous now as i haven't heard anything from Caltech since i sent in my deposit (apart from a survey). Is this usual? Also any tips or guidelines about the Visa process would be useful.</p>
<p>oh and my first post on CC woo!</p>
<p>Yep, that is usual- you probably won't hear anything until they send you the big packet of stuff sometime in the summer. I don't have any tips for the visa process other than you should probably start sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>I got a 1 page "We're excited you're coming" letter. I assume they sent one to everyone, so if you don't get that in a few days, I might start to worry. I got paranoid and emailed the admissions office to confirm before I got my letter. Congrats on your first post - watch that you don't get addicted, though I guess if you're already into college that won't be as bad.</p>
<p>I got one of those letters too. I guess there's a possibility that they don't send those to international kids. I'm sure you can call or e-mail them to confirm.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help guys</p>
<p>No, they do send them to international kids. I got one.</p>
<p>Well the mail here is really really slow - its even possible that my cheque hasn't reached them yet - so i'm not too worried yet, but give it another week and i will be :)</p>
<p>Jaffa, where do you live, and when did you send your cheque in? (I sent mine in on April 12 and only received the 'yay, you're coming!' letter a couple of days ago, so 'slow' isn't even the word -- I'm in India.) I'd agree that you shouldn't worry yet, but if you are worried then possibly email the admissions office later on.</p>
<p>And the visa paperwork arrives later, am I right? (Any international students who might be able to confirm the truth of that?)</p>
<p>52) I want to take up a finance related career(like i-banking, maybe) after graduation...does my major make a huge difference? i'm thinking of majoring in either EE or maths(with a minor in economics)..will i be better off taking EE or maths or will it not make too much of a difference..</p>
<p>53)This may seem a silly question to some, but I do not know much about the career fairs there..is it possible to get an internship with a bank aftr freshman year at the career fair?</p>
<p>54)Are there certain majors at caltech that are looked at with much more respect than others(by prospective employers or grad schools) or are all majors considered to be the best in the country? I have heard that sciences, in general, are stonger than engineering at caltech. Is this true? If yes, is there a major difference in the quality or a minor one?</p>
<p>55)A general question..How many units are needed for a bachelor's degree and how many units do the core curriculum account for?</p>
<p>22: For i-banking, I don't know. It probably doesn't matter. For hedge funds and quantitative strategies and the like, I think they'd be leaning towards Math/Ec, but EE would probably be okay. I don't know if we have a minor in economics, but I doubt that employers would look at a double major unfavorably.</p>
<p>74: I don't know much about getting an internship with a bank after freshman year anywhere. Internships between junior and senior year seem to be the norm, with the rare case of internships between sophomore and junior year.</p>
<p>13: This is probably true. </p>
<p>46: Usually around 486 units are required for a B.S., with 255 from the core curriculum (about 40% of these are humanities and social sciences).</p>