<p>Damn, I didn't think I would end in this dilemma.</p>
<p>Anyways, my parents want me to get to the final decision ASAP and I'm stumped.</p>
<p>I got in Berkeley for EECS and CMU for ECE, I'm looking for a respectable tech/finance job after undergrad before grad school. I know CMU is pretty nerdy, and Berkeley is HUGE. I think I'd like the attention and smaller class sizes in CMU; but Berkeley, California and Silicon Valley...</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>There is relevant information on this thread,</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/carnegie-mellon-university/1116142-berkeley-eecs-vs-carnegie-mellon-ece.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/carnegie-mellon-university/1116142-berkeley-eecs-vs-carnegie-mellon-ece.html</a></p>
<p>In-state CA - choose Berkeley (just so much cheaper)
International - Tough decision</p>
<p>Both colleges - Very competitive, very challenging curriculum
Job prospects - Both are excellent
Research/internship opportunities - Both are excellent
Berkeley - May have larger class sizes compared to CMU</p>
<p>From a personal view point, some of my friends have chosen CMU if they can afford it. Berkeley is great but it is a larger school and some people want the smaller set up.
On the other hand, for some, it is Berkeley and nothing else.</p>
<p>Do you want a smaller campus or a larger place? If you lean to smaller class sizes/smaller school, CMU may have edge especially if you have to pay full price. There are guys here from both cmu and berkeley…maybe (you can help out - anirudh/yeahimthatguy ?)</p>
<p>(just saw anailways thread above- that is really good info)</p>
<p>CMU. Definitely. I love it to death :)</p>
<p>I have to choose b/w CMU SCS and UC Berkeley EECS. Tough decision there. Weather in Berkeley is obv much better( at least more Indian) than cold Pittsburg.</p>
<p>I’m leaning towards Berkeley because I have family there. Dunno where I’ll end up though.</p>
<p>ifgodwills - just wanted to add, a lot of CMU kids intern in Silicon Valley. So you wont have problems connecting to Silicon Valley from CMU.</p>
<p>Since money is not an issue, maybe smaller school/smaller class size might be more of a match for you. So I would lean towards CMU for you.</p>
<p>Hi ifgodwills!
Personally, I would go with Berkeley, but i inderstand why it could be a tough choice for you. Berkeley is much larger, so I guess you’ll have to decide whether you like the large college feel, or want something more smaller…</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, I would really appreciate if you could answer this question…
In your Berkeley “conditions of admission” , I’m sure you saw " Complete all final-year courses listed on your application (including any external examinations) with an overall unweighted B average for each term and no grade lower than a C. "
Being from India, Im sure you too have the Marks system, not grades (im assuming, that is). So how do you interpret that? Im really confused as to how to check whether I meet this requirement or not…
Please help!</p>
<p>Thanks guys,
Yea I guess I’m more cut out for a small college/environment. I guess Berkeley’s overall reputation and weather really draws me to it. </p>
<p>@anriudha: Is it easy to take a CS concentration being in ECE, since I’m leaning towards Computer Science. Also to switch to SCS, how impossible would it be? I’m on the SCS waitlist haha. Understandable though since I never took CS as a course in high school and learnt basic programming myself. (p.s. I know CS is just pure advanced discrete math xP)</p>
<p>@pratyush: Haha, feel for you bro, scary taking the decision as its gonna affect 1500days of our lives.</p>
<p>@sonu: I’m sorry, I study in an IB curriculum so they just want my IB transcript. I’ll have to call them to check what’s the conversion from IB to the A-E scale. I think you should do the same.</p>
<p>Anymore comments from current students?</p>
<p>You won’t go wrong with either one, honestly. Just do whatever your parents are inclined to. Talking to students usually, they will be pretty biased to whatever they chose. Make a list of pros/cons…Having family close to the area is important as well (like pratyush). Believe me, you will like to have a place other than your dorm during spring break/winter break.</p>
<p>Ok…just wanted to add - if you like peace and quiet, cmu will be better. If you like a vocal student body/lots of school spirit, come to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Honestly speaking, I think CMU SCS offers some AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING opportunities that really can’t be had anywhere else other than CMU, MIT and Stanford. There’s a reason why SCS has 5 buildings here, why Zuck only visited CMU, Harvard and MIT, etc… Berkeley’s too big a school, so according to supply-demand, if you’re an average student you won’t get the super-top-notch opportunities. I know some people with 2.7s get Qualcomm and IBM jobs here (even ECE for that matter), people with a high C average on CS courses get into companies like Apple and Facebook. Basically they’ll interview you if you’re CS ECE and if you ace it you’ll probably get the job</p>
<p>Also, its much easier to just get everything in general, I think. CMU opens a lot of doors. I’m sure Berkeley does too. But be prepared to study 10-14 hours per day. CMU is insanely hard. And everybody is smart. Everybody. I know psych and english majors that are intro programming TAs :)</p>
<p>Ok…just wanted to add - if you like peace and quiet, cmu will be better. If you like a vocal student body/lots of school spirit, come to Berkeley. </p>
<p>^ Peace and quiet, not really, but I agree with the fact that Berkeley has a lot of school spirit. CMU is highly lacking in that aspect. The only thing binding the school together is probably bhangra.</p>
<p>Berkeley for life. :)</p>
<p>Let me put another twist to the discussion. The fact that Berkeley is closer to the Silicon Valley plays a far bigger role than people imagine, and was perhaps the only reason that tipped the scales in favor of Berkeley for me, when I had to make the same decision.
Agreed that the job opportunities at big companies are nearly the same at both institutions, but where Berkeley takes the lead, imho, is the startups. There is a frenzy of startups around this place and the amount of opportunities they give you is unparalleled. For that matter, there are tons of VC’s looming around here that would fund you if you wanted to start your own company, and I do know people who’ve gone down that track.
As anriudha said, CMU is hard. But so is Berkeley. The average graduating gpa of an EECS major is 2.7. Nuff said.
At the end of the day, Berkeley, CMU, MIT and Stanford are on par, and you’ll very soon realize this fact wherever you go, but if you’re doing anything CS related, you will be coming to the Bay and this is where Cal and Stanford give you the edge. This is why I chose Berkeley. (And perhaps a bit because of the weather haha.)</p>
<p>I’m on the same boat; accepted to ECE waitlisted to SCS. I think I’ll choose CMU.</p>
<p>Leaning towards CMU too, sounds like a fit tbh,</p>
<p>@yeahimthatguy:
Can you tell me about taking classes apart from your major and if it really is that hard at berkeley? And what about switching majors? This is one of my real concerns</p>
<p>Also, how large are your classes at the moment? Do you get to interact with the professors? Like Anirudha said, do average students get a chance with jobs and internships or is it really cut throat? </p>
<p>Does it’s budget situation affect school life? And are the dorms more stuffed than any other uni?</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your feedback. </p>
<p>My best friend just got into Stanford so there’s little incentive towards Cali too :P.</p>
<p>Also Anriudha,</p>
<p>Is it close to impossible to switch from ECE to SCS after the first year if I do fairly well on my CS courses? And what’s your thoughts on the party scene? Is it really dead? :/</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>The flexibility that a Berkeley EECS degree offers you is arguably the best. There is virtually no ‘core’ curriculum once you get to upper division and everything is elective. Besides that and your humanities courses, you get a buffer of 24 units (Out of a total of 120) that you can use as you want, and take courses in whichever department you like.
As far as switching majors goes, if you are an EECS major, then you can switch into any other other major without any considerable difficulty. This is because typically EECS is the hardest major on campus, and the most well respected.
As for class sizes, they vary. Lower division CS courses typically have ~300 students. Since the class is so big, you’ve got a discussion section apart from normal lecture, where the section size is less than 25 students, to make up for the lack of small classes. The class sizes become substantially smaller when you start taking upper division courses and settle around a 100 students at most.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are confusing two separate things. Do average students get job opportunities? Yes. Do they land interns at Google/Facebook/Apple/Oracle/Microsoft/Amazon? Very much so.
But this being said, I would go out on a limb and say that Berkeley is perhaps the most competitive school around, even more so than MIT. Now I understand this might seem a bit counter intuitive considering Berkeley is a public school, but if you happen to come here, you will realize how true that is within one semester itself. Anyway, before I get fired at for making such a claim, I will back it up with a CS professor here at Cal who’s himself from MIT. (It’s a very good read in general and very aptly summarizes what Berkeley is like. It would greatly help you and forewarn you about what you can expect once you get here):
[Anant</a> Sahai’s Unofficial Advice Page](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~sahai/advice.html]Anant”>Anant Sahai's Unofficial Advice Page)
Does the budget situation affect school life? Yes, it does. But not the EECS department, because it’s the richest department by a mile. The research is still cutting edge though.
The dorms are super pathetic, overstuffed and downright expensive (Also because this area is one of the most expensive areas to live in). But yeah, the dining commons are relatively the best you will find. (I’ve compared them to schools like UChicago and Stanford and trust me, this place’s food is head and shoulders above them haha).</p>
<p>Is it close to impossible to switch from ECE to SCS after the first year if I do fairly well on my CS courses? And what’s your thoughts on the party scene? Is it really dead? :/</p>
<p>Also, with respect to transferring to CS - its not that difficult as long as you have a good GPA (3.2-3.5+), and you have to take Concepts of Math, Principles of Imperative Computation, Functional Programming, Great Theoretical Ideas in CS (15-251) (BDSM, rapeeee, murder; taught by burninator / the creator of CAPTCHA/Duolingo / the great Luis Von Ahn), and if you don’t have like amazing grades in general then Intro to Computer Systems (15-213) will help your case. Basically if you do all these courses and still think that you wanna do CS, then there’s no reason that the Asst Dean won’t transfer you in.</p>
<p>I have to choose b/w CMU SCS and UC Berkeley EECS. Tough decision there. Weather in Berkeley is obv much better( at least more Indian) than cold Pittsburg.</p>
<p>^Pittsburgh weather isn’t THAT bad, honestly. 95% of the time you’re in some building or the other and honestly I just had one snow jacket that lasted me all winter.</p>
<p>YeahImThatGuy - Haha I like how we’re pitching our schools to prospective students :)</p>
<p>^ Touche. Haha!</p>
<p>CMU it is :)…</p>