Hey Guys,
I was recently admitted to the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, Regents at UC Berkeley for CS L&S, and USC with Viterbi Fellow and Trustee Scholarship. Obviously, USC and UC Berkeley (to an extent) are far cheaper than CMU, while CMU’s program is ranked really highly. While UC Berkeley is also ranked very well in computer science, I would probably have more opportunities given the specific programs I was admitted to in CMU and USC. This is a really difficult decision, so I’d really appreciate your insights/advice. Thanks!
All things being equal, I’d go for the money and graduate debt-free or as close to debt-free as possible. All of those are excellent Us that have great programs and reputations.
USC has lots of career fairs for the engineering school, which students can participate in as soon as they start school. S was participating from fall of his freshman year! One great thing about USC is that it has 40% females in its engineering school, which S felt was a real plus.
It’s hard to give any advice without knowing how much the difference in cost means to you/your family. If you are in state for CA, I’d definitely go with Cal Regents as the cost difference with CMU won’t be worth it (unless you are very wealthy). - You can get the job opportunities you want with Cal just as well as with CMU.
You won’t have a problem getting a good job with a degree from any of those schools. If it was me, I’d pick between Cal and USC because of the lower cost.
One thing to be aware of is that if you are in UCB L&S, you need a 3.30 GPA in the prerequisite CS courses to declare the L&S CS major.
https://eecs.berkeley.edu/academics/undergraduate/cs-ba
It is sad how many people will base major life decisions on rankings that are manufactured, bought and sold by public relations firms working between universities and the magazines that publish them. These rankings mean very little to the real world - what you do anywhere you go is what matters. Every one of those schools is fantastic. Do you want to live and make your connections in Pittsburgh or west coast. Frankly, I would eliminate UCB with no direct entry into EECS.
The OP isn’t trying to get into EECS. I’d think someone who got a Regents’ Scholarship wouldn’t have a big problem getting into the L&S CS program.
You should consider the fact that Berkeley is located in Silicon Valley. You will probably have a bigger variety of interesting projects and job opportunities at Berkeley than CMU. As a Berkeley student, you might work at a cool startup or be funneled into Google/Amazon/Facebook. As a student at CMU, you might have fewer opportunities to be involved with a startup because the startup culture in Pittsburgh isn’t as strong. Keep in mind that you should want to keep options open (pertaining to major and job opportunities) as an undergraduate because undergraduates tend to change their minds a lot. Berkeley will give you many different options in terms of jobs and nearly every major in Berkeley is “top 10-ish”. Plus, Berkeley is cheaper too. I’d go for Berkeley.
P.S. I have a couple of friends that picked Berkeley over CMU SCS and they are very happy with their decisions