I was recently admitted into Berkeley, JHU, and UMinnesota for the class of 2019, and am interested in studying either cognitive science or psychology. I was wondering about potential pros and cons of attending these schools from the perspectives of UCB students or alums, mostly based on the strength and rigor of the cognitive science and psychology programs offered. I’m also interested in seriously delving into CS as part of the cogsci major, although I’ve only dabbled with it in the past. Also, I would appreciate any general information about these campuses (such as student/academic life, job/internship opportunities, competitiveness, student happiness) that I should consider in making my final decision!
It depends which state you’re from. UMinnesota has a very competitive cogsci/psych program so it’s not a downgrade by any means if you decide to attend there instead of JHU or Berkeley.
It also depends if you actually want to study CS or not and pursue that as a career instead of cogsci or psychology.
I’m from Texas. Also, Minnesota is offering me only about the same amount of money as JHU, so I feel like Minnesota is pretty much out of the question, unless I choose to have a less rigorous courseload (I don’t feel comfortable saying that Minnesota may not be as hard as UCB or JHU- I’ve just heard that UCB and JHU programs are incredibly rigorous and difficult, whereas I haven’t heard the same kinds of sentiments from UMinn). And I want to pursue Cognitive Science, but have CS as one of my concentrations, since Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary major.
Okay, we can leave UMinn out.
I do realize CS is part of the concentration of cognitive science. I was asking if you are pretty firm with sticking w/ the cognitive science path (which involves CS) or a possibility that you jump ship and do CS-only later.
I attended JHU a few summers ago and took some courses there, and Berkeley is much better place to be - a lot more researches and classes offered which means you’ll have a better chance to find what you want, and the faculties are just excellent. I think there is a pretty good reason that Berkeley is the top program in both cogsci and psychology and it is our pride that a lot of theories and experiments mentioned in textbooks are developed from the basement of Tolman hall.
If you are concerned with learning the most you can with the rigor and variety, Berkeley will certainly deliver it. You might dread a little bit early on when you have to take CS61A and Math 55 which majority of the people in the class are engineers and they are just weird and intense, but it is something that every prospective cog sci majors have to go through.
Math 55 is mainly for math majors now, since CS 70 has been split off for EECS and (prospective) L&S CS majors. The cognitive science major allows either, according to http://cogsci.berkeley.edu/requirements .
Well the majors you’re applying to aren’t the U of M’s best I’d say- now if you were an electrical engineering major that the U of M would be great. But then again- if you’re out of state in MN and Cali the U of M would be a much better choice as out of state tuition in MN is less than half of Berkeley’s OOS tuition.
Have you toured all three of your schools? Each one are amazing choices, but being a Uminnesota student, I think its campus is kinda ugly and if you don’t like it being in the city it might not be for you anyways. In contrast, I absolutely love UCB’s campus not to mention a boba place is pretty much on every block xD I haven’t been to JHU so I’m not sure how it’s campus compares!
I’m interested in going to berkeley, but I heard that the CS department is considering raising the gpa cap. Also, JHU is offering me very generous aid whereas I am hardly getting any contributions from UCB. I’d love to go, but my parents don’t want to have to face a greater burden of debt.
To be honest, I’m not completely sold on cog sci. I wanted to go into school on the pre-med track, but I don’t know if I can major in cog sci while preparing for the mcat and taking difficult hard science classes. Perhaps I should major in a related medical field, like Neuroscience?
If JHU is offering a generous aid to the point that it’s actually less expensive to attend there, then certainly go for it. College is about finding what you (really) like and testing your limit, so it’s okay that you don’t have to be sold on cog sci. You’ll have much better idea what you want to do after you take some intro cog sci courses while also taking the pre-med courses. I’m pretty sure you have your reason to study cog sci for a reason, so keep that dream alive for now.