<p>OP - You may change your mind about the major later and many college students do so. If that’s true then Yale will make it easier for you. You may fall through a crack at UCB but not at Yale. I would go with Yale CS and some other minor or double major (math, physics, bio, econ,…) then aim for graduate school. You will also have better networking at Yale.</p>
<p>And remember Gates and Zuckerberg went to a low ranked CS school.</p>
<p>Safety concern? 7 people were shot in Oakland yesterday. Crazy people are everywhere.</p>
<p>The 10k extra per year that you have to pay for Cal can be paid off in a maximum of two years work at a company after graduation. If you really want to study CS, Berkeley and Stanford are the places to be. </p>
<p>The opportunites that you get at Cal will not be matched by Yale, at least for EECS. </p>
<p>PICK CAL.</p>
<p>Do people entering the software engineering field typically go on for a Master’s in CS, or enter the workforce with a BS is CS?</p>
<p>Bachelor’s degree is fine; the majority of CS graduates at your three schools under consideration go to work after graduation with their bachelor’s degrees, based on career survey results.</p>
<p>Graduate study in CS is usually funded.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
By funded graduate study, what do you mean? Also, one thing I do worry about at Berkeley is that despite the overwhelming number of internship opportunities, isn’t there also more competition for the same desired internships such as those of Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc?</p>
<p>“Funded” means that you get a fellowship, research assistantship, or teaching assistantship to go to graduate school (any of these covers tuition plus a stipend for living expenses; the latter two mean you have a job of the type described, though such activities are typical or common among graduate students anyway), or you are working at a company that is paying the tuition for you to attend graduate school.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s location and size makes it advantageous in applying and being recruited for internships and jobs at places other than GAFM that everyone knows about and applies to.</p>
<p>@arfiepet</p>
<p>Yale seems like the no brainer here especially for that price.</p>
<p>You asked about CMU. What my son got there, and what you’d undoubtedly get at Berkeley, is the opportunity (because of the sheer size of the department) to go in any direction he wanted. And in as much depth as he could handle. Plus, you have a large cohort with similar interests. Never a problem finding others bogged down in work like you are (if that appeals to you!). The whole tech culture is alive and well here.</p>
<p>You mentioned Microsoft and Google…18 went to each from last year’s CS class of maybe 150. The assumption is of course, Yale more than makes up for a small CS dept in so many other ways.</p>
<p>bwt my son got his master’s but not in CS. It’s common though for CS to go right to a job with just a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>CMU has a Silicon Valley Campus
[Silicon</a> Valley Campus - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“CMU Silicon Valley”>CMU Silicon Valley)</p>
<p>CMU’s Silicon Valley campus offers mainly graduate level programs for computer professionals who presumably already have a bachelor’s degree in CS.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses everyone. Now I have a question regarding finances. If I’m paying ~12-13k a year at Berkeley, and all of it is going to be gathered up through loans by my parents and me, I’ll rack up ~50k+ of debt to repay. How big of a debt is this for me to repay? Should I worry about racking up this much debt for an EECS education at Berkeley as compared to a CS one at Yale? I know statistics say that the average EECS graduate makes a starting salary of 80k, but averages can be misleading so I want a more personalized picture.</p>
<p>Also, how many students are enrolled in EECS at Berkeley? I can’t find the statistics.</p>
<p>The career survey at Berkeley lists 260 EECS graduates and 117 L&S CS graduates for the class of 2011. If you multiply by 4, that comes out to 1508 total as an approximation.</p>
<p>However, just multiplying by 4 may not be completely accurate, since the junior and senior class levels are larger due to incoming transfer students. Also, L&S CS students start out undeclared and declare the major only upon completing the lower division courses.</p>
<p>$50,000 of debt is non-trivial. While someone with an $80,000 per year job living student-like for a few years should be able to pay it off in a few years, remember that $80,000 is not $80,000 after paying Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes – probably more like $54,000-$60,000, depending on state income tax.</p>
<p>Also note that CS is subject to industry cycles – while computer companies and CS employment were not too badly affected by the recent economic downturn, they were affected greatly in the 2001-2003 downturn. In your senior year (regardless of where you attend), if your academic record is good enough to go to graduate school, apply to funded graduate programs so that if the CS job market collapses during your senior year, you can try to wait out the downturn in graduate school instead of the unemployment line.</p>
<p>However, if you get good internships or co-op jobs, you may be able to substantially reduce the debt involved.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful input! Currently, I have my financial need covered by Regents for 19k. I’m left with 12.7k, split between me and my parents. On the FinAid website for Berkeley, it states that I would take a Federal Unsubsidized Direct Loan for $5,500 and my parents would take a Federal Parent PLUS Loan 1 for $7,700. How would this work out for me and my parents over the course of the 3-4 years it takes me to graduate? Do you recommend taking out this loan?</p>
<p>Only you and your parents can decide what school to go to. Take in what people have said, but realize that there is no certainty in terms of future internship, job, and career opportunities, nor alternate universes where you attend each school and see what gives the best result for comparison. How certain you are of your major may also play a part in the decision.</p>
<p>If you do attend Berkeley, apply to the [Berkeley</a> Student Cooperative](<a href=“http://www.bsc.coop%5DBerkeley”>http://www.bsc.coop) houses as soon as you can (first come first served within priority groups). This can give you the option of a very inexpensive place to live (academic year costs are considerably lower than the Berkeley student (living off campus) budgets used for financial aid purposes – about $6,700 versus budget of about $9,900 off campus and $15,000 in the dorms), though you may not get into one the first year, and you should visit them before deciding, as not everyone will like all of the houses. At all of the schools, you may want to ask on the school specific forums about money saving tactics, since every dollar saved is one less dollar of student loans you need to take.</p>
<p>Wow, go to Yale! That’s amazing financial aid and an unbelievable school.</p>
<p>^ Again, there is no doubt that Yale is an “unbelievable” school. But that only holds true for the humanities, arts and premed. That’s it. Its engineering school and CS aren’t as good as the other departments.</p>
<p>OP, if you’re bent on becoming a software engineer, go to Berkeley. You’ll get more respect in the tech world coming out of Berkeley EECS than of Yale’s CS.</p>
<p>I’m studying CS at Pomona College. Pomona isn’t Yale, but I suspect that there may be similarities in the experiences of CS students. Very small but well-funded departments that are too unknown to even have a reputation.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about being unable to find a job, assuming you do reasonably well in school (and don’t underestimate the benefits of grade inflation). We’re talking about a small sample size here, but looking at the career survey that was posted, our class of 2011 actually did better than Berkeley’s. If the Pomona name doesn’t get your resume thrown away, Yale certainly won’t. Top tech companies will recruit at Yale. They are, after all, companies, and need non-technical talent. And if a small number of charming coders show up, a large portion of them will get interviewed.</p>
<p>You won’t be surrounded by classmates who know dozens of companies that are offering tech internships. You will need to actively do research to find out what is out there. It would be extremely valuable to get an internship in the valley as early as possible (probably not at a big-name company), because that will put you in the bubble. If you leave a good impression, finding stuff to do for the following summers will be trivial in comparison.</p>
<p>I would recommend finding a current CS student at Yale and sending them a message. At Yale, you’ll be in classes with ten other kids. That’s valuable. The purpose of school is to get an education. But it’s important that the professors know how to take advantage of small class sizes. That’s Pomona’s top priority in hiring, not sure about Yale.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? Evidence please.</p>
<p>No data available for software engineer on this site <a href=“http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=Pomona_College/Salary[/url]”>http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=Pomona_College/Salary</a></p>
<p>Berkeley: <a href=“http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=University_of_California,_Berkeley/Salary[/url]”>http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=University_of_California,_Berkeley/Salary</a></p>
<p>But Pomona’s average salary is below Berkeley’s:
<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp[/url]”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp</a></p>
<p>A greater portion are working at the “big four”, and a greater portion are employed. This isn’t publicly available information, and being any more specific would allow you to infer information about the individual members of the class.</p>
<p>Pomona’s career survey is here:
[Where</a> Do Grads Go? - Pomona College](<a href=“http://www.pomona.edu/administration/career-development/faculty-staff/where-grads-go.aspx]Where”>http://www.pomona.edu/administration/career-development/faculty-staff/where-grads-go.aspx)
but differences in reporting make it hard to see whether Pomona’s graduates “did better” than Berkeley graduates of the same major.</p>
<p>By “big four”, do you mean GAFM for CS graduates?</p>