<p>So these schools have the same ranking in math. But what makes MIT math better (or not better?)</p>
<p>I'm really having a tough time deciding.</p>
<p>The environment of MIT and its caliber. MIT gives emphasis on teaching students "how to think" whereas, on other hand, Berkeley teaches students the "course material."</p>
<p>Believe me, I have taken math courses at UC Berkeley and tried MIT opencourseware too. There is A LOT of difference. MIT is better (my opinion).</p>
<p>hmm, could you explain "teaching how to think."</p>
<p>I guess you mean MIT gives you skills not just knowledge. But could you elaborate a bit more (any specifics?)</p>
<p>MIT problem sets and tests are designed to teach concepts, but also critical thinking skills and the ability to generalize the work you're doing in that problem or test question to other problems you've never seen before.</p>
<p>For example, in biology classes, tests were almost always open-book and sometimes open-note. This didn't actually make them any easier, but it made it so that you weren't tripped up by factual errors. The factual information wasn't really the point of the test, but rather the point was your experimental design and your ability to think about the general kinds of biological processes at work in the system.</p>
<p>In general, MIT classes teach you both the course material and the ability to generalize the concepts you're learning beyond the actual facts you learned in class, which is tremendously useful if you plan to become a scientist or engineer, when you will be learning new things every day of your career, and static knowledge is somewhat less useful to you than the ability to synthesize and comprehend new information.</p>
<p>berkeley courses are pretty intense. i wouldn't just dismiss them as "just teaching the course material"</p>
<p>yea, berkeley's grad department is ranked up there with MIT. but does anyone know their student faculty ratio?</p>
<p>or better, what's the average class size of an upper division math course at MIT vs. Berkeley</p>
<p>If you're talking about the graduate departments, there are cases where MIT beats Berkeley, and cases where Berkeley beats MIT. It depends what <em>kind</em> of graduate level material you are interested in. I'd say MIT is hard to get into as a graduate program, but definitely there are some subjects I think I'd stick to Berkeley for.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, upper division classes can often be like 30 students large. Though, the harder courses (such as honors courses) tend to be small, and quite, quite hard. Some are REALLY too hard - some of the Russian professors slaughter students and will hand out a distribution of 1 A, a handful of B's, bunch of C's and below...and teach really intense material.</p>
<p>Other upper division courses by other professors are a joke. I think, though, I have seen easy upper division course material at MIT too. Though there is the share of tough stuff. </p>
<p>All in all though, I think I like, say Harvard's math undergrad curriculum a lot...among many schools I've looked at. For grad departments, I think all these schools are super top caliber though.</p>
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Believe me, I have taken math courses at UC Berkeley and tried MIT opencourseware too. There is A LOT of difference. MIT is better (my opinion).
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<p>Which math courses have you taken at Berkeley? It is my understanding that Berkeley has a comparable program in terms of how challenging and sophisticated it is.</p>
<p>To get an idea of what first-year Berkeley graduate math students are expected to be able to do, see </p>
<p>I think maybe they were contrasting undergrad programs more...</p>
<p>The grad program at Berkeley is highly strong, and the resources are absolutely fantastic. Where you prefer can actually depend on your preferred branch of mathematics.</p>
<p>I based my statement upon the undergrad program and not the grad program.</p>
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I based my statement upon the undergrad program and not the grad program.
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<p>Berkeley undergrad math courses are prerequisites to Berkeley grad math courses, so my point still holds.</p>
<p>I don't know much about Berkeley but I imagine there are a lot of math geniuses at that school (given it's a top public). If the school has a strong grad department, I imagine that Berkeley can easily accommodate these math whizzes.</p>
<p>Well I think at almost any big name school a grad math course will demand much more than the official prereqs...and a higher level than offered in most undergrad curricula.</p>
<p>"I don't know much about Berkeley but I imagine there are a lot of math geniuses at that school (given it's a top public). If the school has a strong grad department, I imagine that Berkeley can easily accommodate these math whizzes."</p>
<p>I don't toss the word lightly, but yes a few REALLY REALLY dedicated math majors exist.</p>
<p>well, lets say im thinking of doing pure mathematics. what would u guys say about berkeley?</p>
<p>i know MIT is amazing for applied and princeton for pure...</p>
<p>MIT, Princeton, and Berkeley are all amazing for pure. You will not run out of things to do at any of these schools, I guarantee it having done my homework about all of them.</p>
<p>It is really genuinely fair to choose based on other factors than strength of math program. </p>
<p>Princeton and Berkeley have faculty specializing more in the number theoretic + algebraic realms. But it's WAY too early for you to think about what you want to specialize in. I'd genuinely choose based on fit, etc, etc. </p>
<p>I can't help you with specifics for Princeton and MIT, but can with Berkeley, and am happy to answer questions.</p>
<p>are u a grad student there? or an alumnus?</p>
<p>Haha, I wish. Undergraduate at Berkeley! Some day....hopefully graduate of either of these schools or something comparable ;)</p>
<p>I've certainly heard of MIT math classes, even upper-division classes in which professors "taught the material" instead of "how to think". One person who graduated a few years ago complained that a topology class required memorization of proofs, for example. I'm sure that there are cases like this at Berkeley and other top math schools. This doesn't take away from my point. Generally speaking, anyone who selects an undergrad math major at any of the top-ranked math research schools should expect a rigorous, challenging program.</p>
<p>Yeah, bottom line -- gross generalizations tend to fail. There are math classes run in a way that doesn't seem useful, and classes run brilliantly. It really depends on the professor.</p>
<p>I noticed one thing -- grad students, far more than undergrads [likely due to the freedom they have], tend to take courses based on how much they like the professors, very strictly speaking. Sometimes if a professor they like is teaching subject apart from their specialty, the students will still come to that class. I know in a number theory course I took here, the grad students who took it the previous year did again this year...because they liked the professor. </p>
<p>So I think same goes for either school -- the professor makes a big difference. Think about it -- anyone can buy a good book, but if you want a good class, you need both a good book and a good professor.</p>