<p>I was wondering if anyone at Cal has anything to say about the program at this particular school. I'm interested in expanding on to plasticity or cognition and decided to take the psychology path over something like biochem. However, I'm a little worried about how soft sciences might be treated at the Undergrad and + level. </p>
<p>I'm a transfer who got in and am still deciding between this and schools in Socal, such as San Diego. I had a former student tell me that the psych program at Berkeley was "wounded" due to budget cuts and Stanford grabbing up decent faculty, although I do not know the guy well enough to put any faith into his views. Anyone have any good advice? Thanks.</p>
<p>Hmmm, I don’t really get it when students pick a major based on how it’ll be perceived by others… If you’re worried that psych as “soft science” major won’t sound as impressive as something as biochem, then you should really reconsider your reasoning for picking a major in the first place. Choose psychology only because you’re interested in it, and you love learning about the brain, mind, and behavior - and then you’ll get more out of it.</p>
<p>The psych program at Cal is great, and there’s plenty of amazing professors who are pretty well known in their areas of research as well. Personally, I think if you make the effort to connect with those prof’s who do research in cognitive neuroscience, you’ll gain a lot of knowledge from them. Also, the opportunities in research are tremendous in berkeley, and there’s lots of labs here that I think you’ll find interesting (who do work in plasticity, and/or cognitive science). Good luck!</p>
<p>usnews ranks berkeley psych as #1</p>
<p>that’s graduate school, but it still says a lot</p>