<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I put down mechanical engineering as my major when I applied to Berkeley. However, in the event that I wish to switch majors within the College of Engineering, how difficult would this be? In particular, how difficult would be be to switch to EECS?</p>
<p>I do not anticipate switching majors, but am curious as to how difficult such a maneuver would be in case I have a change of heart.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>They will be looking for strong grades in your EECS classes, and you should take the EECS lower-divs over the MechE ones. For example, you’d want to do CS61A instead of E7. I believe 61A is considered to be harder but it’s really a gamble because E7 is much much more useful if you are going to take a non-programmer’s route at the end of the day like most ChemE, MechE, CivilE students who just need a computer to do computation. </p>
<p>Regarding the difficulty, well, that’s largely dependent on the individual. If you’re international or out-of-state (well… before the boost in OOS admissions this year, being OOS was a pretty good indicator of success), that’s good. Same if you did well in a high school that tends to send its students to top institutions. Was Berkeley Engineering more of a reach or a safety?</p>
<p>I can try to tell you which classes are easier or harder but it really boils down to your personal skills, work ethic, and potential. After a semester or two most people figure out where they stand and then you can decide if you have a good chance of transferring or if you even want to transfer at all.</p>
<p>So if a person got A’s/A-(Maybe a B+) in their first year classes, would they be guaranteed transfer from bioengineering (or any other engineering) to EECS? My first year cirrirculum for my Bioengineering Imaging track would be identical to the Electrical Engineering Option IIB: Bioelectronics track (and so would my second year actually), so I was wondering if the switch would be guaranteed if I got good grades.</p>
<p>Nothing’s guaranteed of course, but I believe you could expect a positive response if you had those grades. It’s also important to get the good grades in the EECS classes - a B+ in history doesn’t help but a B+ in EE/CS certainly might hurt. Also, the department often likes to scare students by saying you need a flawless transcript but that’s not the case. Aim high nevertheless, but that goes without saying.</p>
<p>Actually, you only need like a 3.2 GPA to transfer to EECS within the engineering department. I’m also planning on transferring and my counselor said the minimum is around 3.2. Nevertheless, they don’t want to see a C in CS61A.</p>