<p>Prior to the tech bubble crash, CS was a capped major. The lower division requirements included the same CS 61 series courses (which were probably harder due to slower computers back then).</p>
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<p>Well, English is ranked #1 according to USNews (at least as far as graduate rankings are concerned), yet English isn’t impacted. </p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know that I would call them ‘arbitrage opportunities’ - as that implies an opportunity to generate profit without assuming any risk - for you still have to actually complete the L&S CS major, which is not exactly a risk-free proposition. In fact, EECS students may actually benefit from the ‘cannon fodder’ of L&S students who view the CS program as a merely an arbitrage opportunity, as those students are likely to be inherently less talented and less interested in CS and hence be relegated to the lower tail of the grade curve, hence reserving the higher grades for the EECS students. </p>
<p>Besides, there surely must be some value of EECS students having an easier path to switching to a less popular major (say, MatSci) within the CoE relative to somebody from L&S who wants to switch to MatSci. The CoE also tends to offer stronger advising to its own students than L&S does (although, granted, that’s not saying much). </p>
<p>If you nevertheless want to call it a major arbitrage opportunity, that’s fine, but I would prefer to call it a legacy of selectivity at the CoE. Personally, I think the ultimate solution is to eliminate all impaction for all majors and hence allow any student to switch to any major at anytime, in the same manner that Stanford and MIT do.</p>
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<p>Easier said than done, as it would require increasing capacity in the current impacted majors, and maintaining unused reserve capacity to accommodate major changers and changes in the popularity of different majors over time. Such things cost money, so the money needs to be found if such a thing (which would certainly be desirable for many students) were to be implemented.</p>
<p>@ballpointpen: If you’re still wondering, I think it’s fairly easy to switch from CoE to L&S. It’s highly unlikely that CS would become impacted again in the near future. Click around here: <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm;[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm;</a> the amount of CS/EECS grads is actually lower than before so it’s not like everyone is trying to do CS (also, it’s not the case that CS has become more difficult in the past few years).</p>
<p>Personally my advice between CS/EECS is that if one is set on doing CS it doesn’t really matter; if they’re undecided between CS and humanities they should do CS and if they think they might do some sort of engineering they should do EECS (or Engineering Undeclared). It’s very easy to switch from EECS/CoE Undeclared to almost anything.
But I doubt there’s a large employment benefit from being in EECS; from what I’ve read here it seems like any technical degree from Berkeley is as good as any other in terms of getting hired.</p>
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<p>Well, I think the problem has more to do with institutional inertia and bureaucracy rather than strictly money. </p>
<p>As a case in point, how is it that MCB can remain unimpacted despite being by far the most popular major on campus? Indeed, about as many students graduate from MCB every year than from the three most popular majors in the CoE (EECS, ME, CivE) combined - all of which are impacted. The need for lab space doesn’t seem to be a differentiating factor as MCB requires labs that are just as extensive as the engineering majors do. Nevertheless MCB welcomes all students who want to join. </p>
<p>Why can’t engineering do the same? If the issue is that the MCB department somehow understands how to allocate its pedagogical resources more efficiently, then perhaps the engineering administrators need to call a meeting with the MCB department to learn how to improve the management of their programs, as the MCB department apparently knows something that the engineering administrators do not. If the problem is that the MCB department somehow has more money than the engineering college does (which would be somewhat shocking if true), then we have to ask the question how the MCB department garnered such lavish funding and why can’t engineering do likewise? {For example, if MCB largesse stems from donations from wealthy graduates, well, the Berkeley engineering college - one of the most eminent in the world - surely has plenty of wealthy graduates to tap as well. If MCB largesse stems from lavish government research funding, well, surely the Berkeley engineering college ought to be no slouch in that area - and if they are, then they need to improve right quick. Or, if the real problem is that the MCB department simply has been more successful in winning the internecine academic battles over office politics to be allocated greater funding from the university administration, then the engineering college needs to figure out how to step up its game.} </p>
<p>I suspect that the answer is none of the above, but rather that the Berkeley CoE simply doesn’t want to lower its selectivity. Even if they did obtain more money, I suspect that they wouldn’t use it to abolish impaction.</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know about that; different technical majors seem to exhibit wide starting salary disparities. EECS graduates made a starting salary of around $73k in 2010. Compare that with, say, BioEngineering grads who made only $51k and Physics grads who made only $58k. The worst of all (of the tech majors) was MCB, coming in at $40k. Yet these are all technical degrees.</p>
<p>Oh, what I said wasn’t clear. What I mean is that given a certain technical job, I think (on the basis of anecdotal evidence, I don’t have any hard data) that it’s usually not too important which Berkeley technical degree has in getting hired, as long as they have relevant coursework in the area, not that the different technical fields are equally lucrative/promising.
Also I didn’t know MCB counted as a technical. I thought technicals were engineering+CS,Econ,Math,Physics.</p>
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<p>Certainly I agree that, once you have a certain technical job, it matters little which (undergrad) technical degree you have. </p>
<p>But the problem is that many technical recruiters demand certain types of degrees before you will even be considered in the first place. For example, many recruitment postings available through the Career Center - especially the engineering/CS postings - specifically state that they will only consider engineering/CS majors, and sometimes even specific engineering disciplines (for example, petroleum refinery process engineering jobs may consider only ChemE’s). Without such a major, you can’t even apply for an interview for those jobs, regardless of the coursework you took. </p>
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<p>Fair enough, so then let’s strike MCB from the list. We would still have wildly divergent starting salaries amongst the remaining majors.</p>
<p>{Heh heh, so you consider economics to be technical, but MCB not to be? While I certainly agree that economics is more mathematical, I believe that the better question is whether the mathematization of economics has proven beneficial in allowing the discipline to produce the body of reliable, precise, non-obvious predictions anywhere comparable to what the MCB discipline has. Granted, this is a digression.}</p>
<p>Wait Econ counts as a technical? I thought only Science, Math, and Engineering courses counted as “technicals”.</p>
<p>and I guess by Science I mean…sigh I don’t even know how to say it. Everyone adds the word science or engineering to their fields now it’s so confusing.</p>
<p>@indiscreetmath: Yeah, that is my plan at the moment because I am interested in double majoring. However, I’ve heard from people that EECS courses are becoming severely impacted right now, and they raised the minimum GPA to transfer majors (to EECS) within COE from 3.2 to 3.6, so I’m a bit wary of L&S CS becoming impacted once I transfer next semester. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>@sakky: Yeah, perhaps I’m overestimating the liquidity of engineering. Perhaps there is mostly leeway between Material/Mech/Civil or Mech/EE or EE/CS or CS/Math/Stats, etc, but not all that I suggested earlier.</p>
<p>Also by no means does my classification of Econ as a technical mean I respect the field. My description of an economist is “somebody who apparently has all the answers, except in their own field”. :P</p>
<p>@ballpointpen: From your other posts you’re a freshman BioE and have completed 61a&b? If you did well in those/do well in 61c I think you should be fine in terms of getting the major. What’s the major besides CS that you want to do?
If you get in the major you should be able to get the classes you want most of the time, though for some (161, 162 off the top of my head) you’ll likely have to wait until you’re a senior to get in, unless you have extra units.
Anyways I’d be pretty surprised if CS became impacted.</p>
<p>Econ is kind of a strange one here. IMO, it COULD be classified as technical, or it could be classified as a heavily liberal arts subject. It all depends on how much math you take, and at the most technical level the math gets pretty intense. This is one of the biggest reasons why I like Econ, which is that it’s highly flexible and open to just about any type of person. </p>
<p>But that’s besides the point.</p>
<p>uh…to the OP’s q, I think it’s because most people who can, will choose to do EECS if they can help themselves, and of course EECS is highly impacted.</p>
<p>There has been some speculation and rumors that L&S CS will be impacted soon enough. I’ve talked to Christopher Hunn who is the CS adviser and he told me that they were planning on putting a GPA cap sometime soon.</p>
<p>will it be simply raising the gpa cap and still allow anyone above the cap to go in, or might they even reject qualified applicants?</p>
<p>Last time I talked to the CS adviser, he said that they plan on putting a 3.0 GPA cap. It sounded though if you have at or above a 3.0, then you’re in.</p>
<p>[College</a> of Letters and Science to implement computer science GPA requirement - The Daily Californian](<a href=“http://www.dailycal.org/2013/06/21/college-of-letters-and-science-to-implement-computer-science-gpa-requirement/]College”>College of Letters and Science to implement computer science GPA requirement)</p>
<p>Following a record number of applications this spring, the computer science major in the College of Letters and Science will implement a minimum GPA requirement that will take effect in either spring or fall of 2014.</p>
<p>Enrollment in the major will be limited to students with a 3.0 or higher GPA in the seven prerequisite classes, as approved by the college’s executive committee in May. Last semester, more than 150 UC Berkeley students applied to the major — an all time high and about 70 applicants more than in the previous semester.</p>