<p>Hello, I'm an undergraduate in UC Berkeley who's considering going to an engineering graduate school. The problem is that I'm intending for a physics major. According to different sources, the fact that I'm majoring in physics itself isn't too much of a problem for getting accepted to the graduate school program.</p>
<p>My question, (rather like a concern), is on the admission criteria for engineering graduate program. Since I'd apply with physics degree rather than engineering degree, would there be a kind of different treatment by the graduate admission office? I'm more worried about whether there will be a preferential treatment for engineering bachelor's than physics degree. </p>
<p>Also, while I was reading some admission criteria for some engineering schools, they require other engineering majors like physics to take extra engineering courses after admitted to the graduate program. Would this requirement affect badly towards students with physics degree? If it does, would taking the required courses before applying help my chances?</p>
<p>Finally, how does the engineering school look at GPAs from different majors in general? Is physics GPA considered more harshly than GPA of a person graduated from engineering degree, considering that both applicants fulfilled the courses and other requirements by the program? </p>
<p>I know these are a lot of questions, but I'd love to hear responses from a part of my questions. thanks!</p>
<p>I’m not really used to using college confidential, but I got a notification for a question from Batllo… So about my research. I’m currently doing a research yes, and the research combines physics and electrical engineering with bit of material sciences</p>
<p>What engineering field are you interested in? What do you want to do research in? Certain disciplines are more likely to accept students with a different undergraduate major. Materials Science and Engineering has lots of students who majored in physics as undergraduates.</p>
<p>You have to look at the specific requirement of each program. Some require an undergraduate engineering degree. Other recommend courses (they aren’t very common though, in my experience). Some would say any science or engineering degree. In general, I don’t think it’ll be a problem to go from undergraduate physics to graduate engineering.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your helpful response. That was the general impression I got from various colleges’ requirements. So if I can apply for engineering grad schools like say Material Science, Meche, or Electrical Engineering, would the degree that I receive as an undergraduate put me in a different standards? I understand that some universities would require me to take some more courses, but other than that, would the universities in general give preference to majors in engineering over physics? I’m wondering about this since I was getting some mixed answers from that as well from various forums. Most of them don’t mention this directly, but just wanted to make sure. And also, do you know some information about what kind of degree I’ll need to Applied Sciences graduate program? Thanks for answering my previous questions!!</p>
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would the universities in general give preference to majors in engineering over physics[\quote]</p>
<p>It depends whether physics would complement your intended research path. Take electrical engineering. If you want to study semiconductors or photonics, coming from a physics background would be excellent. If you want to study digital circuits or communications or signal processing, physics wouldn’t be very useful so graduate schools would prefer an engineering undergraduate student. </p>
<p>It’s really hard to answer your question unless I know what field of engineering/research area you are targeting. Certain programs prefer engineering undergraduate students; other programs do not.</p>
<p>Thank you for answering a rather tricky question! I realized that it’s a rather tricky question, an yet it is still annoying. And relating to your example of electrical engineering, I have little intention on going into fields that prefer electrical engineering. However, I still don’t really know on what fields that prefer physics then. Could you maybe give me an idea of what kind of fields prefer physics undergraduates, or maybe suggest me a link to find that information. And thanks again!!</p>
<p>Also, would minoring in the engineering field that I’m applying will give me some bonus for admission? And have you heard of applied science graduate school? Apparently Berkeley has one, and I’m not sure what the degree criteria or anything like that is after finding all over the web.</p>