<p>soo this is pretty nice and welcome news.. considering I'm thinking about applying to computer science... The other day, Harvey announced in 61a lecture that they had decided to drop the impacted status of CS because enrollment has dropped to half of what it was when it first got impacted... He said he didn't know if this was gonna be permanent, because CS is supposed to be back on the rise, but at least in effect for the next couple years...</p>
<p>That is good news.</p>
<p>Of course the next question is, when is EECS no longer going to be impacted? I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that one, as EECS has been impacted for as long as I can remember.</p>
<p>That's great news, considering how CS is one of the harder majors to get into. Hopefully this is a trend that will spread to other L&S impacted majors (like sakky said, I don't have high hopes for engineering...yet).</p>
<p>By the way, are there any online articles about it? Links?</p>
<p>There aren't any articles about it as far as I know.. Harvey just said it was a decision that they made over a faculty lunch.. If you wanna hear him say it yourself, watch the beginning of the 12/04 lecture.. <a href="http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/archive.php?seriesid=1906978342%5B/url%5D">http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/archive.php?seriesid=1906978342</a></p>
<p>Great. Thanks for the link.</p>
<p>Yeah, there has been a handful of good news about Berkeley lately . . .</p>
<p>what other good news has there been? thats aweome though, woo hoo</p>
<p>I had to speculate, but I can't help but wonder if the horrible treatment a lot of programmers have received at big companies has anything to do with the drop in interest?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I had to speculate, but I can't help but wonder if the horrible treatment a lot of programmers have received at big companies has anything to do with the drop in interest?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, horrible treatment of programmers had been going on for many years, and enrollments kept going up. For example, the comic strip Dilbert, documenting the semi-fictional frustrations of programmers, came out in 1989. </p>
<p>I think what has happened is that outsourcing has gotten far too much hype, such that people are being foolishly deterred from CS. Never mind that CS and EECS are still 2 of the highest paying majors at Berkeley. If outsourcing is so prevalent, then why are employers paying new Berkeley CS and EECS grads so much? Are they being stupid? </p>
<p>But I would reiterate - if they can 'unimpact' CS, then why not EECS? After all, Option 3 of EECS, which is the computer science option, is by far the most popular of the EECS options. So it stands to reason that if if CS can be unimpacted, then at least Option 3 of EECS can also become unimpacted. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I think this is a good thing anyway, provided that it is officially confirmed. I don't count an oral commitment as a true confirmation. I have heard many proposals before that never came to be. So let's wait for an official announcement when Berkeley removes CS from the impacted list of majors lest we jump the gun.</p>
<p>There is likely a number of factors contributing to this change related to how the industry is viewed:</p>
<ol>
<li>Since the dot com bust, there are less people viewing the industry as a place to make a quick and easy million $$ by age 30.</li>
<li>Our culture has accepted outsourcing as a normal part of our lives, and hence we have less fear of it.</li>
</ol>
<p>Having been in the industry for almost 30 years, I can attest to longstanding programmer abuse. Note it is not limited to large companies In fact, startups are probably the worse transgressors.</p>
<p>Can you guys elaborate these abuses? I'm curious.</p>
<p>so does this mean that it will be easier to transfer into CS after your sophomore year (will it simply require you to pass the pre reqs)?</p>
<p>This means it will be easier to declare CS as your major (usually at the end of sophomore year/beginning of junior year) because it will simply require you to pass the prereqs instead of having a certain GPA, yes.</p>
<p>do you think that it would be possible (as far as not graduating too late, difficulty of classes, etc.) to double major in CS and econ at berkeley</p>
<p>definitely. econ only requires 6 upper division courses the last time i checked. i'm sure u can use all your electives to dmajor in CS (though you'd have to check how many classes u need for that).</p>
<p>ya.. its very doable.. thats what I'm actually planning to do too.. I planned it all out and I still will have room for other electives / fun classes, and even possibly a Chinese minor..</p>
<p>^ are you currently a senior? Becuase im pretty sure about my chances at berkeley and i think i would also really like to dmajor in econ and cs!</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore right now. I applied Econ this semester and will do CS either in the spring or summer.</p>
<p>Was it difficult to complete the pre reqs for both majors and still fulfill the GE reqs?</p>
<p>Well econ is impacted, so there will be competition.
The good news is that 70% of those who apply will get accepted, the bad news is that you may be one of the 30%</p>