If L&S's Computer Science is same in usefulness as Engineering's EECS, why is EECS...

<p>If L&S's Computer Science is same in prestige and usefulness as Engineering's EECS AND is no longer capped, why is EECS one of the most competitive majors?</p>

<p>"Some students choose EECS because they feel that a B.S. degree is more prestigious than a B.A. This is not a good reason; any CS degree from Berkeley is prestigious enough! If, in addition to CS, you're also interested in philosophy, or literature, or mathematics, or music, you should probably choose the L&S CS curriculum. If, in addition to CS, you're also interested in physics, or electrical engineering, or biotechnology, then EECS may be the better choice. "</p>

<p>The average salary chart at the page shows CS higher than EECS. I did some CC searching and many said that the job opportunities are equal.</p>

<p>When applying as a freshmen undergrad, EECS is in the extremely competitive Engineering college while CS is in the much easier Letters and Sciences.</p>

<p>Am I missing something as to why EECS>CS? Or is CS=EECS.</p>

<p>Thank you CC</p>

<p>it is because many people that do eecs, do it as an EE major, because berkeley does not have plain EE. And EE majors make less than CS majors. So that is why EECS majors make less than CS majors. But if you major in EECS for CS then you will just have a broader range of job oppurtunities.</p>

<p>Some students want to study EE but not as much CS. However, the enrollment in upper division EE courses seems to be pretty small compared to upper division CS courses, so that may apply to only a small number of students.</p>

<p>For those who want to study CS, either EECS or L&S CS is fine; differences in admission difficulty apparently do not seem to be that well known.</p>

<p>Actually, most people in EECS stay on the CS side. </p>

<p>Most people in CS are much more interested in Math, Physics, etc than the humanities or social sciences. Also, getting into EECS/CS is really easy compared to doing well in them, which is of course much more important.</p>

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<p>Physics is in L and S - ask people if they think it is much easier than engineering classes.</p>

<p>Engineering is competitive because there is perception, based at least partially on reality, that engineering leads to a fairly good career after school. Also, Berkeley engineering is very good.</p>

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<p>“Easier” in this thread means easier to get admitted to, not easier courses to take.</p>

<p>It is easier to declare your major as Physics than it is to declare your major as Business Administration, Media Studies, or Psychology. But you will find few people who say that Physics courses that Physics majors take are easier than the courses that those other majors take.</p>

<p>Thanks ucbalumnus, I guess I should’ve made myself more clear.</p>

<p>So Post #2 says the reason EECS is > than CS in terms of popularity and admissions difficulty is because of the lack of EE, but post #3 says that only a few go into the higher EE courses.</p>

<p>I still do not see why most people try to squeeze into EECS when CS seems just as prestigious and useful? Perhaps a few more clarifications would help.</p>

<p>Thank you</p>

<p>It’s just one of those dumb reputation things. Everyone will say that CS is fine (the advice they’ll give you is “don’t do EECS instead of CS just for the prestige”) but in other situations people will say stuff about CS not being as legit because it’s harder to get into EECS, thus causing people to want to go into EECS.
So essentially they both offer an equally good academic experience but EECS “looks better”, and not even that much to employers (I think).</p>

<p>It doesnt matter at all for graduate school, based on (now) graduate students who did CS at Cal.</p>

<p>Doing well is what matters, not which one you are in as a teenage high schooler</p>

<p>I still do not see why most people try to squeeze into EECS when CS seems just as prestigious and useful? Perhaps a few more clarifications would help.</p>

<p>People like to squeeze into things perceived as more prestigious. Realistically, to get top CS jobs, I am going to go back to my mock statement about ‘easy physics’ … Who really cares how much more you had to do as a high schooler? CS at Berkeley is hard, and it is more important you do well at it.</p>

<p>There still seem to be a few people who believe that a Bachelor of *Arts<a href=“as%20opposed%20to%20Bachelor%20of%20Science”>/i</a> in Computer Science is somehow automatically unworthy (see post #9 of [this</a> thread](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1111353-bs-vs-ba-computer-science-uc-berkeley.html]this”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1111353-bs-vs-ba-computer-science-uc-berkeley.html)).</p>

<p>But (fortunately) they seem to be in the minority (as indicated by the responses).</p>

<p>However, it is possible that such opinions may have been formed due to familiarity with a school where both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science were offered, where (unlike Berkeley) the Bachelor of Arts degree had significantly less or weaker technical Computer Science content than the Bachelor of Science degree.</p>