<p>I'm currently in my first year of Community College and majoring in Engineering (either Mechanical or Aerospace). My grandfather went to Cal Tech with a degree in Physics, so Math definitely runs in the family (at least for me). In high school I wasn't a spectacular student. I'm not dumb at all, I just wasn't motivated. Late in my Senior year I put serious thought into what I want to accomplish in life. I'm going to become an Engineer and return back to school later and get a Ph.D. My biggest goal in life is to become an Astronaut and I'm really going hard towards it. I've changed a lot since high school; all I think about is engineering, technology, how things work, space, etc. I'm VERY motivated about my direction in life and I'm doing great in community college so far.</p>
<p>I expect to have a 4.0 GPA when I'm ready to transfer, I'm not settling for less. I was originally looking to transfer to Cal Tech, Stanford, MIT etc. but it's not really likely for a CC student to get into those schools. I'll still apply, but I know my chances of getting accepted are very low regardless of grades. UC's were really my last resort, but I've heard Berkeley has a great Engineering department. Unfortunately they don't have Aerospace so I'd have to do Mechanical if I went there, but they're pretty similar.</p>
<p>My college has a program called Honors Transfer where basically, if you complete 5 honors courses before you transfer and maintain a 3.0GPA you can get guaranteed admission into any UC. I know it doesn't apply to USC, but does this apply to Berkeley?</p>
<p>I'm really aiming to get into Berkeley. What are my chances of getting in? Not that it really matters, but I'm mixed with african american and white, my family always tells me that colleges really look out for the minority. Would that help at all? Is Berkeley's engineering school comparable to the other top schools out there? How about UCLA or Cal Poly, are they comparable as well? It sucks that the private schools are so hard to get into. I just want to make sure I go to a well respected Engineering school and have a chance to work with the top companies.</p>
<p>Are you certain this “Honors Transfer” program your CC has isn’t TAP or TAG? I’m not aware of any guaranteed transfer programs for Berkeley, except for something where you come from UCM.</p>
<p>Sorry, should I repost it there? Yeah, it’s actually TAP/TAG, but apparently the TAP for UCLA doesn’t apply for Engineering. That sucks big time. It also looks like TAG doesn’t apply for Berkeley either.</p>
<p>While Berkeley doesn’t do TAP/TAG or other honors transfer programs, if you have a 4.0 or very high GPA (3.7+), you have an excellent chance of getting into Berkeley. The thing to note for Berkeley is that they do NOT recommend following the IGETC path for engineers because they really want their transfers to have all the <em>pre-reqs</em> for the engineering/cs first two years done instead. This get tricky mostly in that if a student tries to finish both IGETC (to use for applying to other UCs) <em>and</em> the engineering/cs requirements that it gets difficult to A) finish at CC in a timely fashion and B) not accumulate too many extra units.</p>
<p>Shoot for Berk if that is what you want, you have a good shot of getting in with a 4.0 transfer GPA.</p>
<p>Thanks annika. Do Berkeley, UCLA, and USC really compare to the top Engineering schools out there? Would I be able to get a job at a powerful company with a degree from those schools?</p>
<p>How can I find out which prereqs Berkeley wants for Engineering?</p>
<p>1) Under “Explore Transfer Information” on the home page, find either your community college or UC Berkeley in the drop-down list. </p>
<p>2) If you selected your CC, find “To: UC Berkeley”. If you selected UCB, select “From: XXX College”</p>
<p>3) Now find your major in the drop down list, and it redirects you to
an articulation agreement with your major pre-requisites. </p>
<p>You can also use ASSIST to find lists of classes that satisfy general eds, that are UC/CSU transferable, and so on. I recommend you play around with it. Good luck!</p>
<p>Is it hard to complete both IGETC and all prereqs for transferring? Berkeley recommends that Engineering students don’t follow IGETC too closely, but if I don’t get into Berkeley I need a backup plan.</p>
<p>For Engineering, in some ways it ends up being how “smart” you are that gets you a job in a “powerful company”. The schools you listed are all top-tier. The difference at job interview time will NOT be between the actual colleges of the applicants, but how bright they are, if they have social skills to work in teams, and probably most important, previous work experience.</p>
<p>Get an internship. Work part-time using your programming or other related tech-skills. Jump up a few notches in your career ladder. If your first job as a teenager was flipping burgers, make the next working at the library and helping out with the computers, and the next writing small computer scripts, and the next an unpaid internship, and the next a summer job at a company doing the kind of work you are interested in, etc. Or what have you. College grads who have WORK EXPERIENCE, esp in their field, are far more likely to get hired.</p>
<p>About 2 years after you graduate, your college degree (whether it was Cal, UCLA, whathaveyou) is almost completely ignored other than a “check! dude has a college degree” and 99% of the recruiter/interviewer’s focus will be on your job history, skill set, and whether or not you have a personality that can fit into their team structures. Old, grumpy dudes don’t get hired at Google and young green-behind-the-ears college grads tend not to get hired by IBM. Those are generalizations, but still largely true. You have to fit the corporate/techie culture of the particular company. They will hire a <em>person</em>, not a “brand name” college degree.</p>
<p>You are asking if Cal compares to the top engineering schools out there… IT IS a top engineering school year in and year out along with MIT, Stanford, CalTech (in terms of both ranking AND prestige). UCLA and USC while very good engineering schools in their own right, not so much.</p>