<p>I see a lot of interest in this forum towards the CS path even in EECS while very little discussion is around the EE paths. I would like to get a some opinions on EE like (not limiting to):</p>
<ol>
<li>Class sizes</li>
<li>Grade deflation</li>
<li>Research opportunities</li>
<li>Internships - local labs and private companies</li>
<li>Graduation in 3 years Vs converting to integrated MS Vs regular 4 yr completion</li>
<li>Graduate school preferences after that</li>
<li>Integration of EE skills with other engineering majors</li>
</ol>
<p>Appreciate any comments even if you don't have specifics on the above.</p>
<p>No response at all. Should I assume Non-CS EE path folks have absolutely no time for anything other than their course? Or are they almost extinct in this software fascinated era?</p>
<p>For class sizes, check [Home</a> Page - Online Schedule Of Classes](<a href=“http://schedule.berkeley.edu%5DHome”>http://schedule.berkeley.edu) . Most upper division EE courses are under 60 students, except for 120 (signals and systems), 122 (networks), and 143 (microfabrication). In contrast, most upper division CS courses are over 60 students, except for 172, 174, and H195.</p>
<p>Regarding grade inflation or deflation, the old 1970s-1980s policy that is sometimes thrown around appears to not be followed, since average grades are well above that according to both Hilfinger’s 1999 grade study and UC StatFinder.</p>
<p>Some of us EECS students plan on taking a balanced number of EECS courses, I personally intending on taking 6-7 upper-div EE and 6-7 upper-div CS courses for my junior and senior years. Yeah most kids in EECS choose CS, but I know a lot of the CS focused EECS kids who still take a significant number of EE courses, especially the signals, robotics, and systems classes. This is a bachelors degree, and thus I don’t see any problem in having a balanced interest in both EE and CS as long as you take the important classes from both fields so you aren’t at a disadvantage job wise and graduate school wise. I’m glad Berkeley has an EECS program as opposed to splitting them up as they do in other universities. It gives EECS students the ability to learn any part of the EECS “stack”.</p>
<p>Thanks, ucbalumnus, for the summary and the link. Very helpful. Searching the catalog now. I read your pointer about the grade deflation study which shows improvement over time while maintaining the gap (deflation) with the private schools.</p>
<p>Remember that the private schools with the highest grade inflation also have the most selective admissions, so they may have the greatest competition. Conversely, the less selective CSUs have low average grades, but not as strong competition.</p>
<p>Regarding Hilfinger and the UC Statfinder data, I continue to ask the question: exactly what happens to all of the engineering students who dropped the class before final grades were assigned? Surely we can all agree that not only is course-dropping pervasive within the lower-division weeders, but is almost exclusively concentrated among those students who are performing poorly. Let’s face it - if you’re getting an A, you’re not going to drop the class. What grades did the dropped students “receive”, or would have received had they stayed in the class? Shouldn’t the grade distribution therefore reflect a large chunk of students who ‘failed’, or at least never reported a final grade? </p>
<p>As an illustrative example, consider a class where the final grade distribution contains 100 students, all with A’s. Pretty cushy, right? But what if I then tell you that the class actually started with 200 students, but 100 of them dropped because they were performing poorly, and perhaps would have failed if they had stayed. The class doesn’t seem quite so cushy now.</p>
<p>Do you have any proof of a higher rate of course dropping among lower division engineering courses, and that such drop rates are due to poor performance? Or that such drops indicate dropping out or flunking out of engineering, as opposed to typical changes of schedule?</p>
<p>Remember that 80% of freshmen in the Berkeley College of Engineering eventually graduate with engineering degrees ( [Forefront</a> Fall 2011](<a href=“http://issuu.com/shawnm/docs/forefront_fall_2011/5]Forefront”>Forefront Fall 2011 by UC Berkeley - Issuu) – column on the right). Since overall graduation rate is 90%, that means that attrition away from the Berkeley College of Engineering is not actually that high.</p>
<p>Proof would consist of simple experience. But don’t take my word for it: I would simply ask any EECS student how many students were with them, taking the first exam/quizzes of CS 61A or EE40 class, vs. how many students were still there during the final days of CS 61C. All of these classes are required for EECS and L&S CS majors. Such an analysis would eliminate students who were simply ‘changing schedules’, as anybody lingering in CS 61A or EE40 long enough to take the first quiz or exam probably intends to stay in the class. But many of them will perform poorly and hence drop. </p>
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</p>
<p>But we’re not talking just about students who started within the CoE: many, perhaps even most, of the dropouts, seem to consist of students who want to be in the CoE and are taking the lower-division engineering courses in an (unsuccessful) quest to switch into engineering from another college. </p>
<p>But they nevertheless still count as students for the purpose of grading. If 200 students start an engineering class and 100 receive A’s while the rest of them drop because they would have otherwise failed, I would still classify that class as harsh, regardless of whether those dropped students were students within the college of engineering or not.</p>
<p>I am guilty of starting this thread and then realizing that number crunching and baseball scoring has become a major part of why one is choosing a college for studies. {sigh}</p>
<p>In other words, you believe your anecdotal evidence over verifiable evidence.</p>
<p>Plus, your supposed observations over sequences of courses is something very different from what you claim about dropping out of the actual courses. In addition, CS 61A observations are confounded by undeclared L&S students who may (but may not be sure) that they want to major in L&S CS or Cognitive Science. But then that is not so different from undeclared L&S students sampling courses in Economics, Psychology, Math, English, History, etc. and then not continuing on to more advanced courses in those subjects.</p>
<p>Since you seem to insist on making “grass is greener elsewhere” arguments about engineering, if you had to do it all over, what major and courses would you take, leading to what post-graduation goal?</p>
<p>Which is why I also proposed having other (current) engineering and CS students report their experiences. That evidence is clearly better than Hilfinger or Statfinder which seems to contain precisely zero verifiable evidence regarding the dropped students - and it is precisely the lack of that evidence that is the problem. Like I said, if Hilfinger or Statfinder were to exhibit a large pool of students in a ‘dropped but would have failed’ or ‘no-grade-assigned’ category, then this would not be an issue. </p>
<p>I would submit that a collection of anecdotal evidence, from myself and others, is clearly far better than Hilfinger and Statfinder zero verifiable evidence. </p>
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<p>And again, that is why I recommended that current students take a rough count of students who stayed long enough to take the first quiz/exam. I think we can safely assume that anybody who stays that long is no longer ‘sampling’ a course but actually intends to complete it (unless they begin to fail). </p>
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<p>Um, what does that have to do with the topic at hand? I am simply pointing out that engineering and CS have a large attrition rate, something that I doubt that anybody seriously disputes, and also something that is not reflected by looking at final course grade distributions alone. Like I said, if 200 people start a class, assuming that they all actually intend to complete the class, but only 100 students actually do complete that class, then that’s a pretty harsh class.</p>
<p>If I may butt in, Ladies & Gentlemen, I seem to get a feeling that I have lost track of what we are arguing about. Appreciate a little enlightenment.</p>
<p>Are we saying that
the engineering curriculum is unfairly graded?
the curriculum is tougher than it should be which forces many to drop out?
the Hilfinger & Statfinder use a methodology that results in calculating higher average grades compared to what the real picture is?
the reporting process is different between public and private schools resulting in public school grades looking deflated?</p>
<p>You are not exactly making a convincing argument for that at Berkeley, by speculating about the motivations of people taking CS 61A or whatever but not taking more advanced CS courses, or speculating about students who may want to switch into engineering but do not for whatever reason (the freshmen intending engineering most likely marked it on the application; those who did not are likely to be less “decided” to begin with).</p>
<p>Now, you may have more of an argument at universities in general (particularly less selective universities), where the attrition rate is known to be much higher.</p>
<p>As far as the UC Statfinder numbers go, we can look at freshman GPAs by intended major, which conveniently captures the undeclared L&S CS hopefuls (“Computer and Information Sciences”, presumably by what they marked on the application) separately from the EECS majors (“Engineering”). However, the sample size is relatively small, so there is considerable fluctuation in freshman year GPAs for the undeclared L&S CS hopefuls (3.08, 3.16, 3.43, 3.05 for recent years), compared to a more consistent slight inflation overall (3.24, 3.24, 3.25, 3.25 for recent years). But it is not like they are doing enormously worse than the overall student body.</p>
Or are they almost extinct in this software fascinated era?</p>