<p>I'm at a small LAC right now. I'm either doing a 3-2 combined plan with Columbia in comp sci or comp engineering (guaranteed admission) or transferring to UC Berkeley L&S next semester.</p>
<p>Any thought on this in terms of jobs/grad school after undergrad?</p>
<p>How's the track program at Fu? Any thoughts on CS vs. CE?</p>
<p>I'm also in at U Mich for Comp Engineering (though I think I've ruled that out) so I guess I'm choosing between big schools with TOP ranked departments and a small school with a RESPECTABLY ranked department.</p>
<p>Cal for sure… </p>
<p>Columbia is also great, but if you want to go into engineering, go to Cal or UCLA or Stanford… not only their research is more recognized, but Cal is just 40 miles away from Silicon Valley (as you know Silicon Valley is the hotbed for computer technology industry)… </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you are talking abut finance / business, I’d advise you to go to Columbia…</p>
<p>Columbia has a very strong CS dept, with lots of cutting edge research. So even if it’s not ranked as high overall as Berkeley, it’s definitely a top department with great faculty and students. Ignore comments about going to Columbia primarily only if it’s for finance/business. That’s a red herring – there’s actually hardly any connection between the CS dept and business. Financial engineering, I believe, is in the IEOR dept.</p>
<p>Computer engineering, however, is quite a different beast – for that I think Berkeley would be the place to go.</p>
<p>Columbia has great engineering school, probably the best among Ivies, but in CS / EE, Cal is much better than Columbia… This is not a knock on Columbia, very few schools can compare Cal’s CS / EE (In fact, none of Ivies can compare with Cal’s CS / EE)…</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>Do either of you have first hand experience with the departments? Any comments on how hard it is to maintain a good GPA or specifics about the differences between these programs?</p>