<p>As stated in the General Catalog entry for Computer Science (Engineering), "In addition to a CS major through the College of Engineering, which confers the B.S. degree, the Computer Science Division also offers the major through the College of Letters and Science, which confers the B.A. degree. An essential difference between the two majors is that the EECS program requires a greater number of math and science courses than the CS program, which requires a greater number of non-technical, or breadth, courses. The computer science major under L&S is not accredited."</p>
<p>Previous posts in this forum on the subject have pretty much said that a bachelor's in CS is more or less identical in the eyes of employers, schools, etc. However, if L&S CS is not even accredited, how can this be possible?</p>
<p>It’s possible because CS majors take the same number (or more) of CS classes, which are the only courses that really matter to employers in that field. Both EECS and CS majors have the exact same CS courses available to them, so why should employers/grad programs view EECS majors as more competent at computer science?</p>
<p>The accreditation in question is [ABET[/url</a>] accreditation. Major at UC Berkeley with ABET accreditation include CE, ChE, EECS, IEOR, ME, MSE, and NE. Note that engineering majors at UC Berkeley that are not ABET accredited include the Engineering Science majors and Bioengineering (although ABET accreditation does exist for these majors).</p>
<p>ABET accreditation is essential in some engineering majors (particularly civil), where a Professional Engineer license is often essential to advance one’s career. It is also a validation of the baseline quality of a lesser known engineering degree program.</p>
<p>However, in computer science and engineering, ABET accreditation is usually not an issue; employers are not likely to care that much whether a computer science degree is ABET accredited (although it is at least theoretically possible that some employer may make that a criterion).</p>
<p>Another supposed reason why CS doesn’t need to be accredited is that a lot of employers don’t require a CS degree. In fact, a lot of listings say something along the lines of ‘Degree Requirements: BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or closely related discipline’ where related discipline could be physics, math, IT, etc. Berkeley even lets CS minors apply to the graduate program here. haha</p>
<p>I think Software Engineering, more than any other field of engineering, doesn’t actually require formal training. Rather, employers want to see your hacking skills/potential.</p>
<p>Would you think it unwise to pursue CS in hopes of going into software engineering, rather than majoring in another field and pursuing CS as a minor, or as a side interest? I have heard that many people in that field are informally trained, picking up programming as a side project and becoming proficient–but formal schooling wouldn’t hurt, I assume?</p>
<p>Also, when degree requirements are specified it usually is a B.Sc that is called for… Berkeley only offers a B.A. if one chooses to go down the L&S path. How much of a detriment would this be?</p>
<p>Employers generally won’t care that your Berkeley degree in Computer Science (or Math or Physics etc.) is a Bachelor of Arts degree.</p>
<p>As far as people without CS degrees doing software development jobs, many of them are self-educated in the needed CS concepts, often from a background in some other math type of subject (math, physics, engineering, economics with math). Self education in CS and acceptance of such does seem to be relatively common compared to other fields.</p>
<p>However, someone wanting to major in some other field but get a head start on possible industry software jobs may want to take at least CS 61A/61B/61C, and perhaps do a CS minor with CS 162/170/169 and EE 122.</p>
<p>What bugs me is that there exist many jobs which do specifically request a B.Sc in Computer Science (or a related field, etc.), rather than a B.A. If I am dedicated to the idea of pursuing a CS degree, is switching from L&S CS to CoE EECS for the singular sake of graduating with a B.Sc over a B.A. a justifiable (i.e. wise) move?</p>
<p>I think it’s justifiable. If you switch into EECS, you’d need to take EE 40 and 20N rather than EE 42. Aside from those two courses, you can pretty much take all the same courses you would’ve taken as an L&S student. Of course, you could take more EE courses if you want, but instead, you could choose to take all of your upper div techs in CS. Also keep in mind that the CoE has a much more lenient general ed requirement than L&S.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to take EE 20N or 40, then stick with L&S CS.</p>
<p>If you’re good enough to get the grades required to transfer from L&S CS to EECS (3.8ish in the weeders), you won’t have any problems getting a high-paying job with just a BA in CS. </p>
<p>I have two friends that just finished their second year as L&S CS majors. They both have roughly a 3.8 GPA, and they both have fantastic internships for the summer. One is at Amazon, the other is at Google. It doesn’t really get much better than that; the fact that they’re pursuing a BA did not hinder them in the slightest.</p>
<p>You definitely do not need a 3.8 to transfer from LSCS to EECS, but yeah if you’re good, you’re good. Having a BS in CS versus a BA is not very significant</p>
<p>They may say they want a “BS in CS” because most bachelor’s degrees in CS are BS rather than BA degrees, and they do not want to write out “Bachelor’s degree in CS”.</p>
<p>Here are the career survey results for L&S CS graduates:</p>
<p>Look at the web sites of the various companies and go to the jobs/careers/employment sections. Chances are, many of them say that they are looking for people with BS degrees in CS for computer software and hardware jobs. But since they hired L&S CS graduates, they obviously did not care that the L&S CS graduates had BA degrees instead of BS degrees.</p>
<p>EECS also requires Physics 7A/7B and another science course (not one of the joke ones) and Math 53 that L&S CS do not require.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This isn’t true for all students. CoE does not let students use AP credit to fulfill R&C B, and requires that some of the humanities and social studies courses be upper division.</p>
<p>The biggest reason to switch to EECS instead of L&S CS is if you want to concentrate on EE and do not want to take at least six upper division CS courses.</p>
<p>L&S: R&C A/B + 5 courses in specific H/SS categories
CoE: R&C A/B + 4 courses in H/SS, at least 2 upper division, and a series</p>
<p>Maximum H/SS AP credit:</p>
<p>L&S: 5 courses in specific H/SS categories
CoE: R&C B + 3 courses in H/SS, at least 2 upper division, and a series</p>
<p>So CoE might let you have one fewer H/SS course, but requires two of them to be upper division. It requires a series, but does not specify the categories within H/SS. And only R&C A (not B) can be fulfilled with AP credit.</p>
<p>Yeah, this is another definite pro I am taking into consideration - the L&S seven course breadth honestly seems like a pain. On a second note, I have both semesters of R&C fulfilled by IB credit, not AP.</p>
<ul>
<li>Physical science – automatically fulfilled by CS 61C</li>
<li>Biological science – can be fulfilled by an easy course for non-majors</li>
</ul>
<p>In contrast, EECS majors are required to take Physics 7A and 7B, and one other science (the only non-major ones allowed are Chemistry 1A, 1B, 3A, and 3B, but those are still considerable work and filled with pre-meds fighting for A grades).</p>
You’re right, I guess I wasn’t entirely accurate in saying that CoE has a more lenient policy than L&S. Looks like it depends on how many AP credits OP has and which/how many H/SS courses he’s already taken.</p>