I have been admitted to both Cornell Engineering and UC Berkeley Engineering. I plan on either studying Bio Engineering or Computer Science. At Cornell I do not have a declared major, but at Berkeley I am a Bio Engineering major. However, I have talked to an adviser at Berkeley and she said that she will help me create a schedule that would allow me to switch into EECS, if I later choose to. I would like to know the differences between the two schools.
In addition, I live on the East Coast, so I would also like to know how it is to attend a school that is far away from home vs a school that is closer to home.
I need to make my decision soon, so all help would be appreciated.
Find out how difficult it would be to enter your desired major at each school. For CS, both schools offer it in the engineering and the letters/arts and science divisions, which may have different admission thresholds.
Berkeley because it’s so close to Silicon Valley companies visit all the time to recruit, much easier to network and interview.
Cornell is quite isolated and it’s hard to get to (flights expensive, bus ride from NYC is 5+ hours). You can still get great internship/job offer at Cornell but I would say takes more effort.
Weather-wise, Cornell winter can be very harsh. Berkeley weather is so much nicer.
If you care about US News rankings, Berkeley is ranked #3 for US Engineering Schools , #3 for Global Engineering Schools, and #3 for all Global Universities.
If you don’t care about rankings, look at the major qualitative differences between the schools.
Both have well known national reputations, but one is a small private school in remote upstate NY and the other is a massive public school in an urban center. They are as different as can be culture/location/weather wise. They have different tuitions. They also have different programs that they are industry leaders for.
My boyfriend is currently at Berkeley doing mechanical engineering (their program is usually ranked #2 or #3 in the world for ME); he’s specifically interested in control systems, and his professor is a national figure in that field and wrote the textbook that most schools use for that subject. The professor invited my bf to work for his lab, and now he gets to be involved in really important research in a subject he wants to develop his career in. Cornell has programs they are industry leaders for too. Find out what those are.
Cornell is not exactly small, since it has about 14,000 undergraduates and about 7,000 graduates. Berkeley is larger, with about 27,000 undergraduates and about 10,000 graduates.