I got accepted to both Cal Berkeley and Davis as a transfer student from CC with an EECS major. My focus is more toward electrical engineering rather than computer science.
Would going to one school affect my chances at grad school? I plan on attending grad school after my Bachelor’s to pursue a Masters.
What about employment?
How much does school prestige matter for employment?
How much does prestige matter in terms of salary?
Does prestige matter at the undergrad level or at the grad level? (Does it matter where I got for undergrad school? Does it matter where I go for grad school?)
What can you EE or ECE students tell me?
What are the pros and cons of Berkeley vs Davis?
I have been trying to decide for a long time. I have about 1.5 weeks left to submit my SIR. I’ve been to both campuses and I don’t mind the feel of the campus at either one.
Thank you!
At least among California (high tech) employers both UC Berkeley and UC Davis are very highly regarded. Among such employers where you graduated does not have a significant relevance in terms of starting salary. Three or more years out, assuming you did well in your first job, and assuming you received your degree at a reasonably well known university where you got your degree becomes less relevant. What does matter (degree wise) for your first job is where you get an opportunity to interview. Your chances (especially outside of the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay) area is that a UC Berkeley degree (with good grades!) will open more doors than the UC Davis degree (with good grades!). Good grades are no easier to get at UC Davis than at UC Berkeley. The competition is strong at both universities. You’ll have to work hard for those grades.
And yes, in STEM fields where you went to graduate school matters a great deal. It trumps your undergraduate degree. So generally you’ll want to go to a graduate school who’s reputation is at least as high as your undergraduate school.
So at some level everything matters. Congratulations on having a choice of two great universities.
My recommendation is that you accept the UC Berkeley offer. It will open more doors for you when you graduate.
I would take UCB EECS. I’m sure it depends on the person and not the school. I had one bad hire from UCD, she was a bit of an Eileen Chao from the news recently, took credit for things that were not all hers. So that maybe why I’m not strongly endorsing the school. It’s biased, I admit with one data.
However, EECS at Berkeley is not all cake either. You have to work hard.
Something to consider is how many “catch up” courses you may need at each school if your CC does not have courses to cover the lower division courses at UCB and/or UCD (based on http://www.assist.org listings). These “catch up” courses could delay graduation, or take up schedule space and reduce the number of upper division EE courses and electives you can take.
Even though Berkeley comes off as more prestigious, if you feel more comfortable at Davis, go there. Prestige isn’t really that big of a deal for an undergrad CS degree. Employers will hire you because of what you know, not because of where you went to school.
Two questions: I originally wanted an EE degree, Davis has it but the Berkeley degree is EECS because it incorporates CS and computer engineering. Do you think a person with an EECS degree won’t be much different than one with an EE degree to employers? Davis uses a quarter system and Berkeley uses a semester system. This makes it seem as if I can take more classes at Davis per year and thus learn a broader range of topics for my EE major. Is this true?
EECS is more prestigious, but you can take as many EE classes after the required CS classes. You made about 5 threads and the responses have been almost the same. So you need to just do it. Make a decision and be done with it. It seems that you like Davis over Berkeley, so go to Davis.
Thanks for all of these responses! Final question: How much does GPA matter? For example, would a 3.2 from Berkeley look the same as a 4.0 from Davis?
Actually what’s the equivalent Berkeley GPA to a Davis 4.0? Do grad schools recognize this? Do employers recognize this? Does GPA even matter?
I know the first comment says both are equally difficult schools, but others say otherwise due to different types of competition.
I heard the curves are Berkeley give out A’s to only 17% of students, this is a policy in the engineering department. At Davis, there is no such policy, it depends on the professor?
A GPA of 3.2 from UCB is not a match to a GPA of 4.0 from UCD. For top employers a 3.2 GPA is below the threshold of getting an interview for an entry level job. 5+ years out it may not matter since your employment-world successes would be more relevant than how well you did as an undergraduate. But getting a 4.0 at UC Davis in engineering is very very hard. So I very much doubt that your scenario plays out for anyone.
Choosing UC Davis over UC Berkeley because of anecdotes regarding grading policy doesn’t seem to be a good approach. Whether the program is EE or CS or both it’s a difficult program at any UC and success requires a lot of hard work.
Thanks for responding. I was thinking of it this way: Assuming I worked hard (and I am very dedicated, always one of the top students in my CC classes). At Davis it would pay off because everyone who worked hard will get a good grade, there’s no bell curve policy. At Berkeley, I would compete for hard work to pay off because I expect everyone else to work hard, but only 17% get an A, it’s almost unfair to those who happen to lose for the A just because of the policy.
Have you even looked at the requirements at Cal to understand what those EECS requirements are and how they differ from Davis?
You must be a good student, otherwise you wouldn’t get accepted into EECS. It’s much easier to get accepted to other program at Cal even.
Some top employers ask for transcript before they grant you interview. So GPA matters for internships and first job at least.
I actually want to go to Berkeley. I’m just dreading the cut throat academic rigor! I shall give it a shot, perhaps it’s not as bad as people exaggerate it as?
It’s hard but you can do. Believe in yourself. The plus is you are accepted to the program. You don’t have the stress of keeping a 3.3 GPA like people who are accepted to L&S.
Thanks for all the replies. Submitting my Berkeley SIR very soon!