<p>S got into EE for fall 2010 and was initially ecstatic!
He is now having second thoughts; he is concerned that the "workload" will prevent him from having a great overall college experience. He has been accepted into several very good engineering programs (including UCLA) and is starting to wonder if Cal is the place for him.
He has visited Cal and likes the campus a lot.... We would appreciate thoughts, input and advice from any current EE or engineering students. Also how have the cutbacks impacted the engineering program? For what it is worth we are OOS so will be paying OOS tuition.</p>
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Actually, UCLA’s Engineering program is, in my opinion, nowhere near Berkeley’s EECS program. EECS is the program (together with Haas) Berkeley is famous for and is ranked 2nd (or 3rd?) nationally. Especially if he pays OOS tuition I think that UCLA may not be worth the money for Engineering (academically that is). Then he could as well go to an in-state schools which offers a reasonable good program, just as UCLA does.</p>
<p>Upper-division EECS courses don’t seem to be affected by budget cuts at all, at least I haven’t noticed anything. Maybe somebody else can comment on lower-division.</p>
<p>I was not a EECS major but a ChemE major. I imagine the workloads are similar. Sure, it was tough and I was super busy. However, I did have plenty of time to socialize and party with friends, go to football games, etc.</p>
<p>One thing I liked about Berkeley was the semester system. It allowed you to kinda catch your breath vs. the quicker pace of classes in the quarter system (UCLA is on quarters). I also liked starting school in late August and getting out in May vs. late September to mid-June on quarters. (Important for me because football games are played on-campus starting a week after school gets back in session).</p>
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Great! Glad he visited and enjoyed the campus…Berkeley can be an acquired taste for some.</p>
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Yes, some of the EECS students who post on here have said they haven’t been impacted by the budget cuts.</p>
<p>College of Engineering requires you to graduate in 4 years…if they’re cutting classes for undergrads, it would pose a problem for this requirement.</p>
<p>Also, Berkeley is very generous with AP credits. If your son scored high on the tests, he can waive out of some required initial coursework.</p>
<p>Thanks Thomas and ChemE-we appreciate the input</p>
<p>any more input from current Cal engineering students–</p>
<p>Thomas and UCBChemEGrad are spot on. As an EECS major, I have not noticed the effect of budget cuts at all in my EECS classes.</p>
<p>Yes, there are going to be long nights in Cory and Soda, but electrical engineering is going to be hard at UCLA as well. While there’s some truth to the antisocial EECS major stereotype, my experience was that a large part of it rests on the students’ pre-college personality.</p>
<p>The cachet of being able to claim that you’re a Berkeley EECS grad is immense. And as far as I was able to tell, they do less work than the ChemE majors ;)</p>
<p>There aren’t any of the protests on the engineering side of campus, the EECS (especially CS) internship and job market is doing well, and EECS is one of the majors you’d probably be justified paying the OOS tuition for. From a financial perspective EECS is a good major provided you’re both adept in the subject area and have decent interpersonal skills to land jobs.</p>
<p>(I don’t mean to say that you should choose EECS if you want money. You’ll be dead miserable if you don’t enjoy spending hours programming or building robots. But! if you find this interesting then you can enjoy real sense of accomplishment, something I can’t say about most other classes. Plus you can often use what you’ve learned to build real systems (and being brutally honest, that’s not something that I can say about other classes either).)</p>
<p>EECS is also quite flexible since there are nearly no requirements set in stone aside from the lower-div classes. After you finish those, you can basically take whichever EECS classes you’d like, whether they’re intensive (read: project-based) classes like Operating Systems or Computer Architecture, or much lighter (theory, easy projects) ones like AI or Signals and Systems. They’re all around the same in terms of difficulty, but the time commitments are totally different, ranging from maybe 2~3 to ~30 hours per week for each class. You can make EECS as easy (to a point, of course) or as hard as you want. These are all decisions you’d make in your second or third year after you know where you stand, so there’s no need to worry now.</p>
<p>It’s a versatile major and can pay itself off, but your son needs to like EECS and like Berkeley.</p>
<p>How tough and busy was Chem E, for those who majored in it?? Or how is it for those are majoring in it right now? Is it time consuming due to labs?</p>
<p>thank you keep the info coming we GREATLY appreciate it</p>
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The chem e labs weren’t as big of a hassle. The biggest thorn in my side was organic chemistry 112A and B…and their 3 hour lecture, 1 hour discussion + 5 hour labs…it’s not fair its only a 5 unit class!</p>
<p>Yes, it was tough…not terribly time consuming…I still had downtime. Enjoyed the experience immensely.</p>
<p>Hey, </p>
<p>I’m a current Cal engineering student, also OOS. I passed up a full ride to UMich for OOS tuition at Cal, and don’t regret it at all. Cal’s engineering program is too prestigious to pass up.</p>
<p>Most engineers will take ~20 hours of class a week, a combination of lecture, discussion and labs. Personally, I don’t find this to be too time consuming; I feel that if you want to be an engineer, you’re gonna enjoy your classes, enjoy learning and all. My classes have never really affected my social life. I’m very active in Greek Life as well as intramural sports and campus clubs.</p>
<p>Many people worry about whether engineers are competitive vs cooperative; so far, I’ve had to trouble finding a group of friends for studying, working on hw assignments, doing projects. If you need help, you’re gonna have to be assertive to utilize your resources - class mates, GSI’s and professors.</p>
<p>I think the cutbacks have affected me, but not in a way that I can’t deal with. They’re making classes larger, cutting sections (2 sections of physics, as opposed to 3), limiting when classes are offered (only fall, only spring, or both); so far, I’m on track, even a bit ahead, of our 4 year plan. The best way to combat this is to be cognizant of what classes you have to take, having a plan, and a back up plan. </p>
<p>Cal has been a great experience so far. Your experience is what you make of it.</p>