MIT vs. UCB EECS: the educational/social/growth experience

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Any MIT students, Mollieb@MIT, MITChris, or anyone knowledgeable: how big are class sizes in the core and in course 6? access to professors? access to faculty advisors? what types of opportunities are pretty easy for most students to access vs. must be aggressive about chasing down?</p>

<p>Many folks on CC and in research studies say that any MIT/Ivy caliber student could get similar top notch experiences if they pursue them aggressively enough at their large public flagship, especially good caliber ones. So I'd like to know what opportunities are just easier and more accessible to everyone (not just the most aggressive) students at MIT? </p>

<p>I already get that research opportunities appear to abound and are easy to get by sophomore year. </p>

<p>What else makes MIT -- as a private school in general and as MIT in particular -- distinctive?</p>

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<p>GIRs and introductory course 6 classes tend to be pretty big - on the order of hundreds. With course 6, they’re typically broken up into a few sections. I found professors to be pretty easily accessible - for some reason, very few students go to office hours, and professors are generally willing to meet outside of these times anyway ;)</p>

<p>As for faculty advisers, a lot of people don’t utilize this outside of getting forms signed. Mine was always available to me, though.</p>

<p>I’m a little confused as to whether you want to hear about research opportunities or other opportunities. Here is what I’ll say about research opportunities:</p>

<p>The UROP program is easy and accessible to everyone. MIT gives funding and has a program set up to ease student access to research positions, as well as listings for a lot of opportunities. My friends at other universities had to be very aggressive to get positions in research labs – I basically walked up to (or emailed) professors and asked if I could research with them, and filled out a form. </p>

<p>What other sorts of things do you want to hear about?</p>

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<p>

This is basically true, but it’s a bit like saying that an athlete doesn’t need a coach for an individual sport, because any highly talented athlete could train himself if he pursued the training aggressively and with purpose. It’s true, but, still, most top athletes find it necessary to have a coach.</p>

<p>Lowering the activation energy necessary to find a research job, or take the classes you want to take, or develop a relationship with a professor – these aren’t trivial things, and they have a real impact on career aspirations and trajectories.</p>

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<p>This is not really true. MIT is a different place–the curriculum is unparalleled and some of the research almost sounds like science fiction compared to research at many top universities. However, if you want to do something more traditional research-wise, this might not matter as much. There are other reasons that a top-flight science/engineering student may be better off choosing another university. The workload is so high at MIT that it might not be good for people that like to spend their time daydreaming about the material. </p>

<p>Berkeley is maybe the #2 engineering school in the country, so describing it as a “good caliber large public flagship” does it a bit of a disservice. It is, however, notorious for large classes and is not known for its attention to undergrads. You might actually get more attention at MIT. </p>

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<p>CBM, One big difference, having known people at both schools, is that your lecturer at MIT will be an amazing, accomplished professor, while at UCB you might get a grad student. My son is a freshman and is in one of the marvelous learning communities just for freshman where he takes two or three of his classes with 10 students per each! If your student got accepted, go to CPW and see for yourself. There are excellent fb groups for parents and my husband and I have made friends with some of the other parents over Family Weekend, etc and we have helped each other out. In that spirit, feel free to message me.</p>

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<p>@CalBearsMom: You are sort of right.</p>

<p>When it comes to text-book learning, you learn basically the same stuff at MIT as you do at any other school.
Calculus, physics, computer science… all schools teach the same fundamentals. MIT, for its part, has students who take courses at other colleges and universities during the summer that are accepted for MIT credit, fulfilling the MIT equivalent for those classes.</p>

<p>However, MIT does offer certain opportunities that most other schools don’t.</p>

<p>It’s one thing to take classes in a field of study. But MIT gives undergraduates the opportunity to do research working under a professor, work with PhD students in a lab, and get paid or receive credit for it. Many other schools are more classroom-oriented and do not have such opportunities for research.</p>

<p>Another example…
So, MIT has a Theory of Computation class. That classes uses a book written by Michael Sipser.
This book is pretty much the standard text for this topic, and is used by many schools. If you Google around, you may notice that some schools even copy MIT’s course’s problem sets, slides, and handouts. </p>

<p>So, if many schools are using the same textbook and even using the same materials as MIT’s version of the course, what is the difference in them? Well… here at MIT, the course is actually taught by the author of the book, Prof. Sipser. And his course is quite popular, due to his engaging teaching style and his expertise in the topic. So, do you want to learn the subject from someone who is the authority on the topic, or someone who is rehashing said authority?</p>

<p>Prof. Sipser denotes errata that were identified after the book was published… some of these errors were found by students. Imagine yourself finding such an error and discussing it with the author face-to-face and being recognized for doing so. At other schools, the teacher of the class may not even notice such errata. </p>

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<p>If you are looking to choose between MIT and UCB EECS, you may want to look at this report.<a href=“Which College&mdash;and Which Major&mdash;Will Make You Richest? - The Atlantic”>Which College&mdash;and Which Major&mdash;Will Make You Richest? - The Atlantic; According to their analysis a CS degree from UCB is worth more than a CS degree from MIT with a Stanford CS degree being the most lucrative.</p>

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<p>…based on self-reported income surveys.</p>

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<p>

This point resonates deeply with me. </p>

<p>I went to a flagship state school; two, actually. The first one was hard and I didn’t like the culture so I transferred after freshman year. The second was easy and cheap and I made more friends so I stayed. </p>

<p>I was a very good student at the latter by any of the various metrics (graduated summa cum laude from the honors college, was a TA for six courses in three years, standout undergrad research, etc). But I was not pushed very hard <em>because</em> I was near the top of my class in everything I did. So I didn’t grow very much. </p>

<p>At MIT, for grad school, I came in near the bottom of my class in terms of academic prep <em>and</em> personal/professional skills. I had been so good, for so long, that I had an easy and untested confidence. MIT took that from me right quick and replaced it with a hard won and cautious confidence which has served me much better. </p>

<p>I did not attend UCB and I was not an engineer so I can’t talk about this precise decision. I do think, however, that I grew much, much more at MIT because I was pushed by the people around me to achieve at a higher level than I would have been capable to push myself on my own. Not because I wasn’t capable of pushing myself, but because, in a less challenging environment, I had no idea that I <em>could</em> push myself further. </p>

<p>Self-improvement never develops solely within the self, but only ever in relation to external standards. If your friend can keep an eye on those standards at UCB then they can develop a lot. But MIT will make it so they can’t miss those standards. That’s the value prop w/r/t this specific question I think. </p>