<p>So I just got into Cal for Chemical Engineering, but I'm in sort of a dilemma. I realize Berkeley has a #2 ranking in Chem Engineering and UCLA is around #20-30. </p>
<p>What does the ranking really mean? Is there such a big difference between #2 and #30? </p>
<p>Berkeley engineering has a reputation of being notoriously hard, and since ChemE is one of the harder engineering majors, I'm really worried about the competition and how hard it will be.</p>
<p>UCLA's environment and campus is amazing. I know I will probably have a better time in LA but I don't know if it's worth turning down Berkeley. </p>
<p>I'm not super smart so I think UCLA will be better for me, but since I got into Cal, it's hard to simply turn it down, when I know I can graduate with a Berkeley engineering degree and get a job much more easily than if I graduate with a UCLA degree. Is this true?</p>
No. My son and his engineering friends have had NO trouble finding good jobs. Typically, for internships and jobs, northern Calif companies recruit at Cal, and southern Calif companies recruit at UCLA. </p>
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Engineers are typically paid for their degree, not their school. Companies that hire them keep salaries in equitable brackets having to do with type of degree and years of experience.
UCLA has a smaller engineering dept than Berkeley, but the graduating class is large enough to fill Pauley Pavillion, so there are actually quite a lot of students attending. Which means plenty of competition. And the classes WILL be hard, don’t think that it won’t.</p>
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<p>My son turned down Berkeley and he has never regretted it. He is currently on a full grad school fellowship at UCLA Engineering. I don’t know if he would have gotten that at Berkeley.</p>
<p>Sorry but this is no brianer. Berkeley all the way. Berkeley is ranked top for engineer school. It is the university where all the amazing discovery happening along with MIT, Stanford, Caltech. If you truly want to be in top tier engineer, go Berkeley, prepare to to settle down in library and shoot for your goal.</p>
<p>I have to agree with the last two posts; Berkeley is top notch in engineering for a reason. If you’re confident that you have the intellect, which you should seeing as you got in, then you should be good, providing that you work hard (that’s a given for engineering anyway). However, if you think you’ll be miserable at Berkeley, then by all means, screw it and go to UCLA. I think bigtrees or someone’s motto is, ‘better have a #20 engineering degree than no engineering degree,’ which is a pretty good statement in this case.</p>
<p>But if you like Berkeley also, I would say there’s no way you should pass it up. There are only a handful of universities in the country that are notable for their accomplishments, Berkeley is definitely one of them.</p>
<p>I’m graduating from UCLA in June in as an undergrad in Civil Engineering (and my roommate is a graduating ChemE). It seems like 1) you’re worried about suffering at Berkeley, and 2) you’re worried about job security at UCLA.</p>
<p>1) I’m not sure about how tortuous Berkeley really is - I’ve heard it IS pretty tough. But i also know some people that do well in it. At ucla, it’s tough and you gotta study, but I also have a lot of fun here and love it. So, that’s my experience at least.</p>
<p>2) The economy is pretty bad now, but in my opinion, what helps or hurts you w/ respect to job searching is your grades, as opposed to your school. Companies that recruit at ucla seem to respect it enough, so it’s really more a question of how well you’ve done here. Granted, a 3.4 is much more respected at Cal than at a community college…(so there’s some adjusting), but if you have a 2.5 at Cal, it’ll still be hard for you to find work, or goto grad school.</p>
<p>That said, I’d encourage you to do your best and study well wherever you go. [As a life principle], It’s really more about the quality work and effort that you put into things, as opposed to where you’ve graduated. </p>
<p>Anyways, since nobody goes to forums for life advice… That said again… my roommate says that if he had the chance, he probably would have gone to Berkeley. Afterall, it’s supposed to have a better program. =P</p>
<p>do you know what companies recruit at UCLA? </p>
<p>And @cjdoor, I’m supposing your roommate didn’t get into Cal, right?</p>
<p>That’s the thing, I haven’t heard of anyone who got into Berkeley engineering and actually turned it down. </p>
<p>I know UCLA is still hard, but how much easier than Cal? I doubt if I worked as hard at both schools I can get a 3.0 at UCLA and a 2.5 at Cal. Is there that much difference?</p>
<p>1) you shouldn’t worry excessively about not finding a job - both are good schools. Just work hard, do your best, and you should be okay. Usually people that flunk are ppl that don’t try.</p>
<p>2) personally, i think you should go to Cal, since it’s an extremely top tier school. Don’t be afraid of working hard. =) hopefully this helps a little.</p>
<p>another consideration is the startup scene. uc-b is one of a few key incubators across the nation for startups (in terms of founders, networking, graduate students, business, location, etc). i think you would have much better opportunities (possibly second to only Stanford) out of UC-B than UCLA in that domain.</p>
<p>Our program here at LA is great in all major engineering disciplines, but as far as Chemical Engineering goes, we are no Berkeley. </p>
<p>You’ll get a good opening job if you graduate out of Berkeley or LA regardless. Even in this economy, it’s tough to find a chemical engineering grad out of a school of LA or Berkeley’s caliber. </p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, UCLA’s engineering is HARD as well. Go for Berkeley, you’ll be working HARD either way, so might as well work a bit harder and end up in a chemical engineering program that is on par with Caltech and Stanford.</p>
<p>Your decision should come down to what area of california you want to work in.
Northern Cali, go to Berkeley.
Southern Cali, go to UCLA.</p>
<p>When you do the opposite, (ie go to UCLA but want to work in NoCA, or go to Berkeley and want to work in So Cal), you’ll basically be on your own. You won’t have the benefit of your school’s career resources to help you out as much as if you had attended the school that is in the region you want to work in. I think you’re over stressing the matter of employment. You’re majoring in Engineering, not in Classics! I’m currently at UCLA, not for engineering, nor for any pre-professional type major. In the emails that career services send out, a majority of them usually consists of internships or career fairs from companies looking specifically for the “pre professional majors”. In ucla’s case its econ, business econ, engineering, etc…</p>
<p>One advantage I see of UCLA is that I can switch majors within engineering fairly easily compared to Cal. I didn’t really research chemical engineering before I selected it for my major. I basically said to myself “I like chemistry. Why not chemical engineering” </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure it’s nearly impossible to switch from chemE to EECS or even mechE at berkeley, but it’ll be easier at UCLA right?</p>