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Well, Sakky, my point was simply pointing out the fact that if ones career goal is to become a professor/researcher in an academic environment, Berkeley is not a bad choice, as evidenced by my example.
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<p>I don't think anybody here ever said that Berkeley was a bad choice. </p>
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Just to further show the dominance of Berkeley in academic world, lets look at the different schools</p>
<p>MITs chemical eng. Dept:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/cheme/people/facu...ulty.name.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/cheme/people/facu...ulty.name.html</a></p>
<p>Again, Berkeley-educated professors are the majority of the entire ChemE department faculty of MIT, arguably the best ChemE dept. in the world!!!</p>
<p>While I am at it, how about the Chemistry dept. of MIT?</p>
<p>Berkeley-under:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/fac...ovassaghi.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/fac...ovassaghi.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/jamison.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/jamison.html</a></p>
<p>Berkeley-PhD:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/stubbe.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/stubbe.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/ting.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/ting.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/fac...anvoorhis.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/fac...anvoorhis.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/ceyer.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/faculty/ceyer.html</a></p>
<p>Lets go for another state
.</p>
<p>The Aero eng. dept. of the flagship university of MD:</p>
<p>The world-renowned professor Pines, the expert in smart material/structure, Berkeley-under, MIT-phd:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aero.umd.edu/facstaff/fac...s-darryll.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.aero.umd.edu/facstaff/fac...s-darryll.html</a></p>
<p>and Professor Yu, one of the few forerunners in the world in the area of the active control theory in combustion, Berkeley all the way (BS-PHD):</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aero.umd.edu/facstaff/fac...u-kenneth.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.aero.umd.edu/facstaff/fac...u-kenneth.html</a></p>
<p>I can go on and on
but you get the point.
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<p>Uh, actually, I don't get the point. Nobody disputes that Berkeley's PhD programs are top notch, and hence you would expect to find people getting Berkeley PhD's being quite well represented at the top levels of academia. But, by context, we're not talking about PhD programs in this thread. </p>
<p>The issue is undergrad. What you need to do is normalize Berkeley's undergrad program for its size. Berkeley has 23,000 undergrads. So obviously if you have that many undergrads, you ought to have some that achieve great success by virtue of sheer numbers. The REAL way to measure such a thing is to examine the PERCENTAGE of undergrads who go on to achieve great success. </p>
<p>
[quote]
In a nut shell, my point is this: If he wants to continue his academic pursuit beyond four year college (i.e., PhD) and want to become a professor, Berkeley may provide a better educational environment and more favorable career connections .
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<p>See, your argument doesn't really prove that either. For example, I see that you listed a bunch of people who got their PhD's in chemistry or chemical engineering at Berkeley. Yet, how does this jive with the fact that both of those departments at Berkeley do not allow, by virtue of policy, their own undergrads to apply to their PhD programs? Both of these programs basically have "anti-incest" rules (for lack of a better term) in which you are actually barred from returning to Berkeley to get your PhD if you already have a bachelor's degree in that subject. </p>
<p>So you talk about how Berkeley has great PhD programs in chemistry and chemical engineering. I agree. Yet, because of the anti-incest rule, you could say that going to Berkeley to undergrad actually HURTS your chances of getting into a top PhD program, because you're now prevented from going to the corresponding PhD program at Berkeley itself. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Even if we forget their prestige for research, their top graduate and professional programs, research universities provide a VERY differerent undergraduate experience from that in the LACS. If you want your lectures to be delivered by well-known faculty at the cutting edge of research (yes, they do teach, and include research advances in their lectures), if you want to start undergraduate research early, and join one of many groups doing exciting work at some of the frontiers of science, then you want to attend a research university. Moreover, their faculty, because of their (inter)national reputation, will be able to open many doors for you later on, anywhere. You just won't have these opportunities, on such a high level, at LACs. This is not their strength. If these are not your priorities, then you may very well be happier at LACs, and they might be more appropriate for you. It depends on what you want
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<p>I disagree with the dichotomy that was laid out here. As has been stated numerous times, grads from the top LAC's seem to enjoy high rates of success in getting into the top PhD programs. How does this jive with the notion that the LAC's don't offer top opportunities. </p>
<p>Take a gander at the commencement data for new PHD grads from Caltech, and you will see plenty of people who had formerly done their bachelor's degrees at LAC's. In fact, when adjusted for the number of students at the LAC's, the LAC"s are clearly overrepresented. </p>
<p>For example, in 2005, 4 people who got PhD's at Caltech had formerly gotten their undergrad degrees at Williams, Amherst, or Swarthmore. That's an very high rate of success when you consider the fact that all of these schools are small, that many of their grads tend to be humanities/arts grads and hence wouldn't be interested in going to Caltech for grad school, and that all of them are East Coast schools, and hence the grads probably prefer to stay on the East Coast. In fact, of that same group of Caltech PhD grads, only 5 did their undergrad at Berkeley, as you don't count the people who got master's degees at Berkeley (because we are just looking at undergrad). So, these 3 LAC's, with far fewer students and being far away, produced almost as new grads who later got Caltech PhD's as Berkeley did.</p>
<p><a href="http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/05/phd.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/05/phd.pdf</a></p>
<p>So you have to ask - if LAC's don't produce cutting-edge research opportunities and chances to work with big-name profs, then why did Caltech admit these students for PhD studies? Was Caltech being dumb? I'm quite sure that there were some Berkeley grads who would have loved to have gone to Caltech for his PhD, but didn't get in because Caltech decided to admit somebody from a LAC instead. Was Caltech dumb to do this? And even if Caltech was being dumb - so what? All that matters is that you got in, and whether the school admitted you because you were worthy or because you were dumb is irrelevant, as at the end of the day, all that matters is that you got in.</p>