Yeah, but one is a de facto double major and one isn’t. BIG difference.
An EECS major can choose his/her upper division major courses all in EE, all in CS, or some mix. An EECS student who chooses to emphasize CS may choose to take no upper division EE courses. His/her CS course selection could be similar to that of an L&S CS major (though within CS, both EECS and L&S CS majors can emphasize different subareas of CS).
The idea that an EECS major necessarily means that the student knows more CS than an L&S CS major is one that has no basis in reality. On the EE side, the minimum number of EE courses is 2 lower division for EECS, 1 lower division for L&S CS – a one lower division course difference.
I think it has more to do with selectivity. EECS is more selective, and difficult to get admitted.
In other words, you are saying that you care about the distinction because it is a signal of accomplishments when you were in 12th grade?
Would you expect the average GPA for classes that have both EECS and L&S students to be the same? Probably not.
btw L&S > all other UC’s except UCLA
So I am just talking relative.
and I am a UC Davis Alumni.
Is the “EEng part” really much worse than the CS part in terms of the job prospect?
One of an interns (actually two of them) at my company told me so recently.
An interesting event that I once heard of, from a CSer many decades ago: A CSer was leaving a company that I used to work for. His manager asked this CSer what kind of person he should hire to replace him and continue his work. His reply: Whoever you hire, do not hire one of those EEers to do this line of job. More likely than not, he will not be qualified for this kind of job.
Those CSers with “chops” really have their “styles”. BTW, I later had a chance to read this arrogant person’s code. He was pretty average (maybe even slightly below average – just some one who had taken 4-5 undergrad core courses for a CS major and nothing more than that. A lot of flaws in his design – including a serious memory leak problem (if you know what a memory leak is.)
The best algorithm developer who produces solid and elegant code who I have ever met in my life is neither an EEer nor a CSer. (Maybe it is because I have never been at a place where I can work with a CSer with a lot of “chops”. LOL.)
But to this CSer’s credit, I indeed have met many coworkers with an EE background who were poorly equipped to pick up some CS stuff (when needed) that is required for a job that requires some decent exposure to some CS topics. (Never try to explain to these EEers why a class in, say, Python, is also a “first class object” just like Python’s function! A topic like metaclass will confuse the heck of these people as well. It is not that they can not learn. Some of them do not want to learn.
Recently, an EEer who self-claims that he is very good at programming said he did not see any value in learning and using any data structures as taught in a computer science course. It is appalling.
However, I am near my retirement age, How would I really know how much and what the young college graduates from these two majors would know any more?!
There are no lack of the EEers who think the computer age started from the Wintel boxes with the Windows OS from MS and the x86 cpu hardware from Intel. If we old timers mentioned DEC in computer industry or Multics (which is a prequel to Unix) in academic, they would totally be lost and think we are talking about dinosaurs in a museum - these could indeed be dinosaurs in this fast-changing computer age.
Irrelevant when hiring new graduates or interns. If you care about your new graduate or intern hire’s GPA, you ask that of each candidate, rather than assuming anything about the candidates based on whether they are in the EECS or L&S CS major. Of course, technical questions are common in job interviews.
Alright man, I don’t totally disagree with you, but don’t totally agree either. You are saying there is no difference, and neither will change the other’s mind.
I also believe someone from Chico State can do better than UCB or MIT in the real world, if he is really good, and did not have good guidance early in life. But gets responsibility later on. But in previous discussion I am referring to averages.
All I can say is that if I went to Berkeley to recruit CS majors, I would not exclude L&S CS majors. Would you?
of course i would not exclude them.
@drawinrain
What about UW? It is super hard to be a direct admit into its highly ranked CS department (10% for direct admit!) I think UW CS > UCLA. Congrats to your son – he has excellent options. Let him mourn Cal, and then he’ll see the light. He will land in the right place.
Thanks @hideinplainsight for your suggestion. I know these schools i listed are all very good in CS. I didn’t list other schools even though he got scholarships. We decided to visit UIUC and UCLA for final decision. Thank you all.
My daughter (currently a junior) is very interested in CS. We don’t live in CA so she’s not considering the UCs (too expensive for OOS). I’m curious what other schools your son considered for CS, if beyond the ones you originally listed? Thx.
Look at this link
http://www.computersciencedegreehub.com/50-innovative-computer-science-departments/
- Top 50-innovative-computer-science-departments
1 MIT
2. Stanford
…
No 7 - UC Berkeley
No 9 - UC LA
…
No 13 - Caltech
Hope it helps your son…
Just for clarification, my above post was in response to the very first post on this forum… UC Berkeley vs. UCLA…
“My son is rejected by Berkeley EECS (he didn’t apply for L&S), all his friends got accepted by Berkeley L&S. Right now he is depressed since he could not go to Berkeley. I am trying to cheer him up since he got accepted by UCLA, UCSD, UIUC, UT Austin, U Washington, all majors are CS. But he told me UCLA CS is much worse than Berkeley. Is there really a big difference between Berkeley CS and UCLA CS? I’m try to help him out.”
Good Luck everyone… You will do fine wherever you go.
@hideinplainsight, he also applied for CMU scs where he got wait-listed. I also know U of Wisconsin—Madison, Georgia Institute of Technology are good, for sure MIT, CalTech, Cornell.
Also thanks @reddy1.
My comp sci kid applied to CMU, Harvard (because he was a legacy and I made him), Stanford, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and for safeties RPI and WPI. In retrospect he probably should have looked at UIUC. We weren’t instate for California public schools and ended up nixing them, though we did visit and consider them.
@mathmom
If you don’t mind revealing, where did your student get accepted? My D '16 does like Mudd, Caltech and WPI. Where is your kid going? Thx.
He got into CMU, Harvard, WPI and RPI. The latter two with merit scholarships. Rejected from MIT and Caltech after being deferred in the early round. Rejected from Stanford and waitlisted at Harvey Mudd.
My husband was a grad student at Caltech, and I spent a couple of happy years in Pasadena, including one with a job on campus and loved it. Both my kids even the non-science kid loved Caltech. In retrospect I don’t think Harvey Mudd was the best fit for this particular kid - he applied without visiting. WPI seemed very small to me, and not intense enough for him.