<p>This may not be possible to answer, but in your opinion, all things being equal, who would be hired, the Cornell Eng grad or the Berkely eng grad right out of college.</p>
<p>The one with more work/research experience, a higher GPA, and good interviewing skills?</p>
<p>I always thought Berkeley is a much better college for Engineerign than Cornell. It's ranked much higher than Cornell in every engineering.</p>
<p>But so is Georgia Tech, but I dont think someone from from Georgia Tech would get a job over someone from Cornell, assuming everything else was equal.</p>
<p>I know an employer who said he would never hire someone from Berkeley because of the political atmosphere over there. That's stupid, I know, but just trying to pass on some information.</p>
<p>West coast: Berkeley.</p>
<p>East coast: not sure.</p>
<p>They'd both get hired. There's room in the job force for graduates from both programs.</p>
<p>If you took two candidates, one from each program, and plunked them down in front of an interviewer at, say, Sandia National Labs or Raytheon or Microsoft or whatever top employer you'd like, and the interviewer has to choose exactly one candidate to hire, there's pretty much no chance that the determining factor between the two candidates is going to be whichever of those two programs they chose to attend. It'll come down to interviewing skills, interpersonal skills, references, research experiences, special interests in a certain subfield, salary requirements, and other random factors.</p>
<p>When an employer looks at your resume, it's like a checklist. They're not getting out their US News & World Reports for this year and saying, "Oh... hmm... Berkeley has eight more points on the scale than Cornell, this candidate must be the superior candidate." The employer's going to say, "Hmm... Cornell. That's a good program." Or they're going to say, "Hmm... Berkeley. That's a good program."</p>
<p>Making a new hire is like choosing apples at the grocery store. There are the obviously bad apples that you can rule out for sure, then there are a ton of pretty good apples that you might disregard because there's a bruise, or its skin is broken in one spot, and then there are the good apples. You'll end up with a small number of apples that look really good. So what do you do? You only want one apple. So you take the one that has two stickers on it, because you like stickers. Maybe you take the one with the nicer stem, or something. You're not going to call the apple orchard and see which apple's tree had more branches, or something. </p>
<p>I think you guys think that there's a lot more research involved in hiring an employee than there actually is. Most of the times I went on interviews, the interviewer couldn't find my resume in their stack (I always carried extra ones, and extra reference sheets, and I made up CDs with writing samples and mpegs of presentations I've done and my transcripts and such, which made a good impression and helped a lot) or if they <em>did</em> have my resume, they read it aloud to me, giving their general impressions sotto voce as they went along ("Hunh... Rice... good school... You from Texas? There's a really good Tex-Mex place that we went to at the last company happy hour...") and not once did someone say, "Rice... Did you not get into Duke or Stanford? They're higher ranked than Rice," or anything of the sort.</p>
<p>Both programs are good. Best to spend time networking, or getting involved in public speaking, or prepping for your interviews and getting good grades once you get to college, than using rankings or job opportunities to choose which school you go to. Develop yourself as a person at whichever university you feel you'd be a more well-rounded person at, and that will be the better program choice for you.</p>
<p>cornell's quality of education > berkeley's
berkeley's weather and social life > cornell's</p>
<p>does anyone know which school has smaller class sizes?</p>
<p>I know berkeley's is probably bigger but is it that significant to matter at all? If both schools have freshman classes with like 100+, then there's no difference between a 100 and 300. It'll be a lecture class either way and you won't get personal attention.</p>
<p>Cornell has about 3,000 freshmen and Berkeley has about 6,000.</p>
<p>aibarr: one of the best posts ever!!!!</p>
<p>yes, aibarr. A terrific imformative post.</p>
<p>Are you a California resident? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>See I'm trying to decide if I like Berkeley or Cornell better.</p>
<p>At Berkeley I have instate tuition, great engineering, and close to home, however I think the education wont be as good
At Cornell I have to pay a lot of money and probably go into debt, live far away, however I think I'll get a better education and my personality would fit better. Im from a small town and I like to live where its a little more laid back and quiet.</p>
<p>Answers:</p>
<p>Laymen: Cornell
Engineers : Berkeley</p>
<p>(Why, thank you.)</p>
<p>Sounds like the only real things Berkeley has going for it from your point of view are 1) tuition, and 2) close to home. From your post, it sounds like you want to go to Cornell a bit more.</p>
<p>When you're away from home, 100 miles vs. 3000 miles makes very little difference, aside from the cost to go home for breaks. You'll be busy with college stuff when you're there, whether "there" is Berkeley or Cornell.</p>
<p>Money's just money, when it comes down to it... It costs money to do stuff, no matter where you go. Yeah, debt bites, but pretty much everyone has student loans when they first get jobs. Interest is low and you don't have to start paying until you quit going to school. Student loans are made to be manageable, it's not like credit card debt. So evaluate your finances and see whether Cornell's a possibility. Don't forget living costs... I've got some friends at Berkeley and living costs are eating them alive. Realistically, either college is going to cost you money.</p>
<p>If you can swing it at all, from what you've said, it sounds like you think you'd feel more comfortable at Cornell.</p>
<p>aibarr,</p>
<p>Do you study at Uni High??</p>
<p>I'm a grad student just down and across Mathews from you guys, at Newmark Civ Eng Lab. =) Too old for high school! I'm 24.</p>
<p>Speaking of student loans, what are the interest rates generally? Is it (or can it be) profitable to not pay them off right away, even if you can? Also, how do outstanding loans affect short term and long term credit scores? I should probably go find out on my own, but I'm too lazy. Help me!</p>
<p>From what I've read, the federal student loans are 6% interest, and are capped at 9%. Just a side note. My cousin, who is in the naval academy gets a $30,000 loan at 0.5% interest along with everyone else in the academy. And remember the government pays for tuitition, room, food, everything. I guess most guys there go out and buy a sports car or invest the money and make a huge profit.</p>