I graduated on Saturday and I'm open for questions!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I recently graduated on Saturday, and I have a sudden urge to answer any questions people might have about my time at Cal.</p>

<p>Quick facts about me:
- I entered in Fall 2004 (graduated in 4 years)
- I entered as Engineering Undeclared, but eventually decided on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and would be happy to explain why
- I've participated in EECS research since Summer 2006, and would be happy to elaborate
- I've acted in a student group called Theater for Charity since Spring 2006, and would be happy to talk more about that
- I've lived in University Housing all 4 years: Foothill, Unit 3 (Beverly Cleary), and Unit 2 (Wada apartments)</p>

<p>Bring it on.</p>

2

<p>What are your thoughts about pina coladas?</p>

3

<p>what was your emphasize in EECS? I am studying CS, do you have any advice on choose CS classes? How would I go about finding interesting CS internships? My questions might not make sense, try your best to respond :p</p>

4

<p>beardy: Pina coladas? Snow in a glass.</p>

5

<p>domeso:</p>

<p>What classes are you deciding between? Do you have any particular areas of interest? I usually based my choices on what would look best on my resume, combined with what I felt I was most interested in.</p>

<p>Finding internships really depends on what you're interested in, but the career fairs are really a great place to start. I'll elaborate on what I've spent my summers doing:</p>

<p>Summer 2005: Internship at an engineering firm. I worked on a lot of web design.
Summer 2006: EECS research.
Summer 2007: EECS research.
This summer: Internship at a startup in SF.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
I entered as Engineering Undeclared, but eventually decided on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and would be happy to explain why

[/quote]

why? And, how competitive were your classes? Did you have to study 20 hours a day all four years?</p>

7

<p>Good thread.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>How is foothill? Did you ever have any problems meeting people, socializing, having fun, etc?</p></li>
<li><p>How is living on campus all four years? Did you ever regret not moving off campus?</p></li>
</ol>

8

<p>TheIcon:</p>

<p>It depends on the classes. For example, I spent 260 hours on the EECS 150 final project, while I spent a total of 60 or 70 hours on CS 186 during the course of the semester. You can choose how much you want to torture yourself, and you can take very minimal loads if you came in with enough AP units. I took ~12 units a semester for my first 2 years, when I was adjusting to Cal.</p>

<p>I adopted a policy of only studying the day before midterms, and one or two days before finals. That way I rarely had to worry about them! And personally, unless I was studying right before an exam, I didn't have enough incentive to push through a lot of material. Of course, cramming everything a day before a midterm is quite stressful, and your mileage may vary.</p>

<p>Edit: I realize I didn't answer "why"! I have to go, but I'll answer that part when I get back.</p>

<p>ownagerisms:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>When I lived in Foothill, I was a hell of a lot nerdier than I am now. By chance, I ended up with a fantastic (and large) suite, and my social life as a freshman was comprised of hanging out with them. So no, I didn't have problems. However, I would have had problems had I gotten less lucky with my suite. And since the party scene is non-existent on north side, party-goers would most likely be very frustrated in Foothill. And even if you're not that into parties, per se, south side is clearly the social hub of the campus: being on north side would have been an obstacle for me if I had more friends outside the dorms when I was a freshman.</p></li>
<li><p>Living in an apartment would have probably made me feel more independent, but it's also way more of a hassle. Sometimes I've regretted not moving off campus, but I'm sure I would have sometimes regretting moving if I had indeed moved! And in fact, I will now be living in graduate housing this year (Ida Louise Jackson House), making it 5 years of university housing!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>If you're into throwing parties, or just inviting people over for kick-backs, university housing is probably not the way to go. Myself, I'm into going to other people's places and keeping my own place nice and quiet, so that's never been too much of an issue.</p>

9

<p>Could you list all the courses you took, along with some brief words on how you found them topic and difficulty-wise?</p>

10

<p>TheIcon:</p>

<p>To respond to your question of why I decided to choose EECS: I came to Berkeley as Engineering Undeclared because I've always wanted to be an inventor, and engineering is behind most notable inventions. In fact, some might say that being an engineer <em>is</em> being an inventor, but I'd argue that being an inventor involves being creative at the big picture level whereas many engineers are only creative at a micro level. Anyway, I was deciding between Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and EECS. I went with EECS because I realized that I'm most interested in technological inventions, rather than inventions that deal primarily with mechanical or biological mechanisms.</p>

<p>It took me another year to decide between EE and CS. I took EECS 150, which I felt was the class that most embodied my desire to invent technological devices, but I found it too low-level for my tastes (and it's essentially the highest level EE class, if you even want to call it EE...it's really a mix). Electrical engineers typically focus on improving existing technology by saving power, improving speed, etc. whereas there is endless room for creativity in software. If someone else can build something for me to build on top of, then I'd rather not bother with the low-level details! I always think in terms of the big picture, and as I said, my idea of being an inventor is being creative at a high level. So I went with CS, and decided that building software is invention at a high level of abstraction. But that's just me! And if that sounded like I'm insulting EE, I apologize! I have a lot of respect for electrical engineers.</p>

11

<p>How was your experience in Foothill? What did you/did not like about it?
Anything you wish you could've brought or thought was a waste to bring?</p>

12

<p>PassionateOpera:</p>

<p>See my response to ownagerisms. I don't really remember what I brought vs. what I could have brought, unfortunately.</p>

13

<p>oh! im in for mechanical engineering. how would you summarize your experience on engineering?</p>

14

<p>Azure326:</p>

<p>Fall 2004:</p>

<p>Note: Overall, this semester was difficult due to adjustment issues. I didn't have a huge workload by any means.</p>

<p>Engineering 92 (Perspectives in Engineering): 1 unit seminar. Essentially worthless.
Linguistics 11 (Writing Systems): Tiny little Linguistics class. The subject matter was interesting and the grading was pretty lenient, but YMMV. I'm not sure why I took it.
Math 53 (Multivariable Calculus): I accidentally missed every lecture and almost every discussion section (including most of the quizzes). I also failed the final. So this was a challenging class for me, and the C+ on my transcript is a nice reminder. But note that this didn't prevent me from getting into graduate school.
Physics 7A (Physics: Mechanics): I had a reasonably tough time with this class, but it wasn't awful. The material wasn't too important for future classes.</p>

<p>Spring 2005:</p>

<p>Note: I was still having adjustment issues this semester.</p>

<p>CS 61A (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs): The material was very interesting and workload wasn't bad. People who have a tough time with this class often have major issues with CS classes down the road. Note: take this class with Harvey.
Math 54 (Linear Algebra and Differential Equations): This class confused me. I didn't end up learning anything, but I wish I had, because my work in machine learning uses a ton of linear algebra that I never learned! Keep that in mind. This stuff is actually extremely useful, whereas I've rarely needed to remember material from Math 53 (thankfully).
Physics 7B (Physics: E&M and Thermodynamics): Once again, this was reasonably tough, but it wasn't awful. Some of the material was helpful for EE 40, but not very.</p>

<p>Fall 2005:</p>

<p>EE 40 (Introduction to Microelectronic Circuits): The workload wasn't too bad (weekly problem sets), but I remember being stressed at the time. I didn't learn a thing in this class, and I didn't enjoy it at all. This was a sign that EE might not be for me.
CS 61B (Data Structure): The workload was larger than 61A, and the material was necessary but not very exciting IMO.
IB 35AC (Human Biological Variation): I got AC credit and learned about evolution, which I find fascinating. Kick ass! Lots of memorization.
Psych 2 (Principles of Psychology): This material has come up very often in other Psych classes. I noticed that the grading in Psych 2 was much harder than the grading in upper division Psychology classes.</p>

<p>Spring 2006:</p>

<p>EE 20N (Systems and Signals): The workload really wasn't too bad (weekly problem sets), although the instructor (Ayazifar) scared me into thinking it would be. I didn't particularly enjoy it, though.
CS 61C (Machine Structures): I thought this class was fascinating in terms of really understanding how computers work, and taking students on a tour very very low-level to very high-level.
Math 98 (Rubik's Cube DeCal): Useless, but a semi-fun waste of one hour a week.
Psych 160 (Social Psychology): This class is very interesting and I found it very easy. I also found it difficult to learn a lot, because I didn't need to absorb anything to do well.</p>

<p>Fall 2006:</p>

<p>CS 70 (Discrete Math for Computer Science): I found this class extremely difficult, although the workload wasn't bad at all. Note: Papadimitriou and Vazirani are excellent.
EECS 150 (Components and Design Techniques for Digital Systems): This was, by far, the most time-intensive course of my college career. I spent 260 hours on the project, hours on weekly problem sets, approximately 30 hours on labs, etc. In the last 6 days of the course, I was in the lab for 90 hours, including a 26 hour stretch. No, this class is not required. Note: Pister is hard!
CS 186 (Introduction to Databases): This class looks good on a resume, but the material worth learning (i.e. SQL queries) comprise only a few weeks of the course. The rest was useless to me (how to make a database).
Psych 150 (Personality Psychology): See Psych 160. Same experience.</p>

<p>Spring 2007:</p>

<p>CS 160 (User Interfaces): I am very interested in design, so I thought learning about GUI's would be fun! But in my opinion, this class was extremely boring. I was going to focus my M.S. in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), but I strayed away from that after taking this class...
CS 170 (Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems): I thought I'd hate this class, but it turned out to be <em>very</em> interesting and also <em>very</em> useful! Knowledge about efficiency and different types of algorithms is <em>crucial</em> to developing any kind of software, and has come up repeatedly since I took this class. I strongly advice taking this class if you are interested in software development.
Engineering 190 (Technical Communication): I learned some cool grammatical rules of thumb and such, but otherwise this class was essentially useless. Unfortunately, it's required.
IEOR 190A (Engineering Entrepreneurship): Take this class if you're interested in entrepreneurship. It's essential. The main take-away: if you develop a product, ensure that you are solving a customer pain. The structure of this class is unique and highly participation-based, which makes sense but the grading can get annoying (although it's not difficult, per se). The final project is time consuming.</p>

<p>Fall 2007:</p>

<p>CS 162 (Operating Systems): This wasn't as much work as EECS 150, but it was getting there. I probably did spend at least 150 hours on the project. It was a very interesting overview of many different topics, such as networking, security, abstraction, etc. And it looks great on a resume! Although I do believe this class has changed to be an advanced OS class, so take this advice with a grain of salt. Another class should/does take it's place...I think.
CS 188 (Artificial Intelligence): This class is very interesting, although it wasn't as amazingly awesome as I had hoped. I am focusing on AI for my M.S., so it's not surprising that I was interested in the material. Klein is a good professor: he definitely cares a lot, is better than most, and supposedly teaches you way more than other professors would. He requires (or at least hopes) that students who take his graduate course have taken <em>his</em> version of CS 188. Note: as I mentioned, take this with Klein! That's important.
History of Art R1B (Visual Experience): I hate reading. I didn't have to read a lot in this class, and I got my R1B credit. It was also interesting! Score.</p>

<p>Spring 2008:</p>

<p>EE 126 (Probability and Random Processes): The material is very hard, and I was behind for the majority of the semester due to senioritis. Bad idea. Don't do that. It wasn't as killer as I'd been warned of, though...but I should have probably spent 15 hours on each problem set instead of the ~6 hours that I did spend. Whoops.
CS 294-34 (Practical Machine Learning): This class was a very interesting overview of machine learning topics, and as a 2-unit course it was not very time-intensive.
Psych 164 (Social Cognition): I think I went to lecture twice, and I did well. That's because 75% of the class got A's, and 60% got 100% on the final. He curved the average of the final from 85 to 95. The grade inflation of this class was absolutely astonishing...</p>

<p>gokitty4:</p>

<p>I'm not sure how to answer that. Hopefully my responses to others than give you a sense of my experience.</p>

15

<p>Wow. Post #14 is amazing. Good to know.</p>

<p>How'd you accidentally miss every lecture? Did you think the class was the wrong day?</p>

<p>To clarify: was History of Art R1B your Reading and Comprehension requirement? I'm assuming you passed out of the first half of the requirement?</p>

16

<p>ownagerisms:</p>

<p>Thanks :). It was a b!tch to write, so I hope it helps someone.</p>

<p>I had major issues waking up to my alarm clock. I would always wake up, turn it off while half-asleep, and go back to sleep. Whoops.</p>

<p>Yes, History of Art R1B fulfilled the second half of the R&C requirement. I satisfied the first half with an AP class.</p>

17

<p>Did you room with another engineering student?</p>

<p>Do you know where I can find the curriculum for ME online? I'm trying to make a course plan but I can't find the link.</p>

18

<p>If you don't mind, could you tell us where you're going to grad school? Also, what option within EECS were you?</p>

19

<p>TheIcon:</p>

<p>I roomed with a mechanical engineer my first year, and with a CS major my last 2 years. As for the ME curriculum, I can't help you there.</p>

<p>compSciBeast:</p>

<p>I'm going to Cal to get my M.S. in CS. I was option V (general), which basically means nothing. Options are just for guidance.</p>

20

<p>Congrats on getting in Cal's MS program! If you don't mind me asking, what was your GPA?</p>