<p>I heard from a HAAS student that Intro to Bus. (Not sure if that's what the specific class was called) was a weeder course for prospective HASS applicants that should probably not be taken during my first semester at college? Is this true?</p>
<p>And what was the name of the course? I dont really remember.</p>
<p>It is graded by a quota system and is not particularly hard so it is very cut-throat. Its mainly doing your work and getting a GSI that likes you from what I can tell.</p>
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Yeah, it's all relative, sakky. But what about the goals of a rhetoric vs. a business major? Do you think there's anything we can do to imagine who's more interested in money, who's less interested, ect? Do you think this matters at all? If some business major went into the business world wanting to make all the money in the world, and made say 50k to start, and some rhetoric major went out into the world not as concerned about money, choosing to do something low-paying over a job with a hire wage, doesn't that matter? Are we dealing with correlation, or causation?
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<p>Drab, I think we can all agree that there isn't a person in the world who doesn't want more money. After all, who has ever heard of somebody wishing that they got paid less? </p>
<p>However, it is a fair point that there is an issue of correlation and causation here. But it's not as serious as you seem. After all, you say that people who really want more money will tend to choose business or engineering. True. But then you have to ask why are they choosing business or engineering in the first place? The answer is because these fields have a long-standing reputation for paying relatively well. If Peace and Conflict Studies were to develop a reputation for paying very well, then a lot of people would choose to major in that just for the money.</p>
<p>The point is, reputations don't just happen 'magically'. They are developed over a long period of time. You may say that money-grubbers have heard that majoring in Haas pays well, so they go to Haas, and they make a lot of money, further reinforcing the Haas reputation for good pay. True. It's a snowballing effect. But something had to get the snowball started on day 1.</p>
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Those are just averages. Engineers that have 3.8's and whatnot do quite well. In general there is a bimodal distribution of income. I'm guessing for a lot of these "top" majors there are a slice of people that make like 70-80k after college and most make around 35-40k averaging out to 50k. The career center numbers are soooo useless without a knowledge of distribution or the characteristics and statistics of those that do well.
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<p>The data also includes 25th and 75th percentile information. So you can draw yourself a picture of the distribution of pay.</p>
<p>For example, take Mechanical Enginering. The data shows that the distribution isn't that wide-ranging. The 25th percentile of CS students get 50k. The 75th percentile get 62k. That's not THAT big of a difference. It's only 12k a year. </p>
<p>Another way you can look at it is to look at the salaries of lesser schools. For example, consider the salaries at San Jose State.</p>
<p>Granted, the SJSU salaries are for 2005, whereas the Berkeley data is for 2004, so it's not perfectly comparable. Nevertheless, I would point out that the SJSU Mechanical Engineers are making an average of 56.7k in 2005. That compares extremely favorably to the average of Berkeley mechanical engineers of 2004 who were making 55.9k. </p>
<p>Let's face it. Berkeley is a much better mechanical engineering school than SJSU is. Yet the salaries of the grads are roughly the same. </p>
<p>What that illustrates is that there really isn't that much 'range' of salaries. The truth is, most people within a given major and a given geographic location are going to get paid about the same, maybe give or take $10k or so. There really isn't that much reward for doing extremely well in school. Those who are academically strong (like the Berkeley engineers) don't get paid substantially more than the less academically strong (like the SJSU engineers), as long as we are talking about the same major.</p>
<p>It just barely misses the honors students. Graduating with honors means to graduate with a GPA in the top 20% of your college.</p>
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I'm guessing the very top students at berkeley are offered great jobs compared to the top students at SJSU. Thats just my guess.
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<p>What I am saying is that the strongest differentiating factor in salary seems to be your undergrad major. The truth is, the engineers at a no-name school tend to make more than the Art History grads of a top-tier school. </p>
<p>As another data point, consider the salaries for Princeton grads. Notice how the SJSU engineers make significantly more than the Princeton Sociology majors. The Princeton data also shows the entire range of salaries offered to various majors. Even the highest paid Princeton sociology major did not make as much as the average salary given to even the lowest paying engineering major at SJSU (aerospace engineering).</p>
<p>So when you say the top person at Berkeley vs. the top at SJSU, you have to define what you mean by top. I would suspect that even the top Berkeley Art History student may not make as much as even the average SJSU electrical engineer.</p>
<p>I'm in a program where I complete my senior year at a community college. I've always wanted to go to haas and I didn't even realize it until a few weeks ago, but all the classes I'm taking are transferable to haas (they are actually what CC transfers need to get into Haas). The haas website says it will take CC credits if you have already taken the CC courses by the time you get into Berkeley. If admitted to Berkeley, I will enter as a freshman, but I will have about a year's worth of undergrad completed. If I can finish the rest of the undergrad requirements, can I apply for haas at the end of my freshman year? Or would I have to wait until my sophomore year like everyone else?</p>
<p>Oh my goodness. Sakky, I was expecting like a twelve page report. What happened! haha Just kidding. Thanks for the tip. I'll check in with the Haas administrators.</p>
<p>For those who are wondering, according to Haas, it is technically possible to apply your freshman year. However, it is highly discouraged because rejection is most likely and you can only apply to Haas once. </p>
<p>I'm kind of wondering what to do now. Because the administrator I talked to said it wouldn't make me look less competitive if I took those lower division courses at a CC, but he also said they carefully look at the Berkeley courses one takes. Won't things look badly if all the courses I'm taking at Berkeley are breadth requirements?</p>
<p>You can only apply to Haas Undergrad once. Sorry, Undergrad. It would seem to make some sense because most people would only be able to transfer as sohpmores. And five or six years for undergrad is a little too long. I don't know about MBA though. I would assume you can apply more than once.</p>