<p>yah, chemE here as well, maybe do a major/minor with bioeng</p>
<p>hey striker1287 here are # of students in chem/chemE:</p>
<p>awesome, thanks. wow, i would have never thought that there'd be more chem majors than chemical biology majors.</p>
<p>I'm a junior chem major at Cal. Yeah, college of chem kicks ass. A lot of very smart kids (among those in upper division that survive the first 3 semesters)..... I had an SAT of 1510 and I'm only slightly above average amongst my peers in terms of grades, etc. A lot of smart ChemE and ChemBio too. All I can say to you guys at this point is: good luck.</p>
<p>and no, as of class 2006, there are just as many chembio people as there are chem...chem bio is going to no doubt overtake chem in terms of population soon.</p>
<p>what happens if you don't "survive" chemistry??</p>
<p>how many ppl in chemistry biology go premed?</p>
<p>chem bio, college of chemistry.. man, i think i might die, haha jk.. it should be interesting..</p>
<p>if you're a premed, go to MCB. My GPA took a hit after I switched from MCB to College of Chem Chemistry. 2 semesters of General chemistry went by without much deep thinking, so i decided to make it my major........then I got academically-sodomized by chem 5, 112A, 112B, 104A, 104B, 120A, 120B, 135, 125 (so far), and the two additional math classes I had to take: Math 53 and 54. DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GONNA GO PRE-MED. You don't need these classes for med school, and while most pre-meds are studying for MCATs, volunteering, acing the easier MCB classes (ie. MCB 130), and having a social life, you're gonna be ****ed off, deriving quantum-mechanical expressions for vibrational energy transitions in diatomic molecules (ie, something that will not help you as a doctor). But yes, quite a few Chem/chem bio majors go to med school. Why they majored in chem/chem bio? i'm sure even they can't give you a good answer.</p>
<p>Are you chemistry B.S. majors usually able to find jobs easily after you graduate?</p>
<p>How about those with a graduate education?</p>
<p>I have the same question as nandayO</p>
<p>Yeah, finding a job is no prob, esp because a lot of profs own biotech companies in the Bay Area. But trust me, you'd want to get a higher degreee. Most Cal Chem alumni who take up jobs immediately after college do so only for a couple years before going to grad school. Most chem majors go immediately to grad/med/law school. Professional chemical research, like research in any other pure science, requires a PhD.</p>
<p>do you guys know wheres a good internship summer program that deals with chemistry for a high school junior? can you please give me a link? and by applying for a chem lab internship does it look good on your application when applying to the college of chemistry in uc berkeley?</p>
<p>Well it definitely wouldn't hurt.</p>
<p>I'm a freshman chem bio major (I just switched from chem) in the College of Chemistry, and after almost a year at Cal, I can tell you that chem classes here are HARD. And not just the upper div ones, either. I personally passed out of 4A and 4B, so I've been taking the 112 series since last semester and it's definitely not easy. But then again, neither is 4A and 4B, judging from the horror stories I've heard about them from my friends. Even Chem 1A can be relatively difficult, depending on your professor. But the bottomline is, the chem department at Berkeley is simply top-notch and I suppose it only makes sense that they'd want to keep their standards as high as possible. Of course, that's not good for those of us who want healthy GPAs, but hey, at least you know you're really getting a solid education. Besides, it's not impossible to do well in these classes. The curve usually balances everything out, so all you have to worry about is the competition. :) Which is another matter altogether...</p>
<p>Also, the College of Chemistry is very selective (more so than L&S anyway) and it definitely isn't a snap to get into. After all, it DOES house the top chemistry department in the nation. So for those of you who did, congratulations and give yourselves a pat on the back! The faculty is BRILLIANT (my roommate's chem 3A professor is up for a Nobel Prize), and you should definitely try to do research for one of them sometime in your undergraduate career, especially if you're interested in applying to grad/med school.</p>
<p>I have to admit, I'm reconsidering Cal because of the apparent competition. But I guess, California Dreamin' is right- we're going to get a solid education. </p>
<p>Since Cal is the #1 chem school in the nation, it would logically be an awesome place to do graduate studies in chem. But will going to Cal as an undergrad affect my chances of getting into Cal for grad school? Or should I not even consider this right now and just focus on getting a great undergraduate education?</p>
<p>How much of an advantage is it to apply for graduate school with a degree from Cal in the college of chemistry as opposed to going to another school for undergrad?</p>
<p>To answer striker1287's question, the truth is that if you go to Cal for undergrad in chemistry, you will actually HURT your chances of going to Cal for grad in chemistry. This is because the Department of Chemistry believes in the 'no inbreeding' philosophy, which means that you should go to a different place for graduate school than you did for undergrad, and get a more diverse experience. If you end up going to the same place for graduate school as you did for undergrad, then you run the risk of getting the same profs over and over again, and hence, becoming inbred. This is why very few Berkeley chem graduate students did undergrad at Berkeley. That is why the Berkeley chemical engineering department has an explicit rule of not considering any undergrads who did chemE at Berkeley, unless they have been elsewhere for X number of years (i.e. at a job or at another school). </p>
<p>Now, to be fair, it's not just the Berkeley chem department who believes in the 'no-inbreeding' rule. Some other elite chem departments, do the same thing - i.e. the ones at MIT and Caltech - in that they greatly frown upon taking their own undergrads because they fear inbreeding. Furthermore, not all Berkeley departments believe in this rule. Each department at Berkeley makes its own decision.</p>
<p>Sadly, what Sakky just said holds a lot of truth. This is one of the reasons why I just switched from being a chem major to being a chem bio major. I want to have the option of going to Berkeley for chem grad school (putting aside for now all thoughts of how extremely difficult it is to get in), and I don't want my choice of undergraduate major to kill my chances immediately. Granted, I don't know exactly how effective it will be to apply as a chem bio major either, but at least it's not straight-up chemistry.</p>
<p>It's also true that this rule against "in-breeding", as sakky puts it, does not apply to every grad department at Berkeley. In general, though, I've heard that most of the science/engineering departments do go by this principle, while other humanities departments aren't that rigid about it. I may be wrong, but this is the impression I've gotten so far.</p>
<p>anyone think about transfer to Berkeley since it may save two years' money and the acceptance rate for transferrin to College of Chem is about 50%? and you can also get some harder courses done in a easier school before going to Berkeley, GPA, GPA~~~</p>
<p>Here is where I get the numbers: <a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Transfer04.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Transfer04.pdf</a></p>
<p>Hey, what does MCB stand for?</p>
<p>molecular and cell biology</p>
<p>It's a major offered within the College of Letters and Science, and is highly popular for pre-meds.</p>