<p>What is student life like at Cal (especially for EECS or CS or CS+Math majors). Do they have any free time at all or is it just mostly work, and what do students usually do for fun? And is SF frequented a lot, or do most students just do stuff on campus? </p>
<p>Trips to SF are possible (BART is easily accessible), but not as common as you’d expect. I probably went 2 or 3 times a semester. Most people stay around campus, plus the rest of the East Bay.</p>
<p>My first roommate at Cal was an EECS major. Yeah, he did a lot of work, but he would also go out to frat parties maybe once a week or so and have a good time. It’s all about time management. He didn’t have much wasted time (i.e., Facebook browsing, aimless Reddit browsing, etc).</p>
<p>My friend is a double in Stats and EECS. She still had time to go out for weekends and drink. She also participated in many club activities, rushed for a community service frat, and etc. So student life at Cal for EECS majors , CS+Math majors is not just study study study despite the stereotype. They still have social lives. What students do for fun depends on your interests. Do you like volunteering? Join a community service club. Do you like martial arts? Join that. People who major in EECS are in all sorts of extracurricular activities. People also go to SF, but they also go to other places like richmond and oakland to play </p>
<p>Oh okay that’s good to hear.</p>
<p>Also, I know this is a really vague and subjective question, but what is the level of happiness at Cal like? Are you able to make great friends, do you genuinely enjoy going there and taking the courses that you take, etc? </p>
<p>Happiness is subjective. It depends what makes you as a person happy. </p>
<p>It varies from person to person. You do see posts from people who say they can’t make friends, but honestly, you do need to put in effort to find that specific niche of friends you are compatible with, maybe join clubs with your interests. </p>
<p>For me, I never had trouble. I have a bunch of close-knit friends, and they’re people I hope to stay friends with even after I graduate. I guess it might be strange how close we are, but I’ve been to my friend’s houses during breaks, hung out with them and their parents, and we even go on trips together during school breaks like to Monterey or Las Vegas. </p>
<p>Class-wise, I don’t like my major (I’m Econ), but I take mostly Haas classes, many of which I really like. I mean there’s going to be classes you hate, and classes you really like, so that’s pretty subjective. However, we do have very renowned professors that teach undergraduate classes, so it’s pretty cool when you can see someone like Robert Reich (secretary of labor under bill clinton) and there are very many inspiring peers and instructors. </p>
<p>Did you perhaps ever find that some students are overly competitive? (either in your major, or in others like CS)
I don’t mean that they’d try to sabotage your work etc because I don’t think the majority of people would do that… but is the environment just one where everyone’s trying to beat each other in the next test vs collaborate/study together? (I dont think I’m describing what I’m trying to ask perfectly but hopefully you understand what I mean).</p>
<p>No, EECS/CS is a very friendly, collaborative environment. Assignments being hard pushes people to work together and help each other out, not to compete and try to be the best. There’s also group projects in many classes, and lots of professors actively encourage study groups on homeworks. That said, there’s a lot of smart people here, and some will go above and beyond on assignments. But it’s rare to find someone with a “I won’t help you because you might beat me” attitude.</p>
<p>Thank you! That’s what I was looking for.</p>
<p>Also, if you had a chance to do it over, would you choose a college with smaller class sizes, or do large classes not pose a major problem? And does breaking up the classes into groups of 20-30 that GSIs manage really substitute for a smaller college environment?</p>
<p>I would have chosen the same school regardless. I was deciding between UCI/UCSD and UC Berkeley since I heard about the competition. Yes, I’m not the smartest in my class anymore, but it’s a good lesson in life to learn that you’re not the best. High school versions of us are so weird… I also feel like I learned so much during my time at Berkeley since the bay area in general is just very diverse. I came from a bubble in southern california, so it has definitely been very eye-opening for me. Yes, there’s hobos around. Yes, that’s part of life that exists and not something we read in textbooks. Berkeley does force you to be more proactive and more independent if you need things done. It also has an environment that encourages you to go beyond your own interests such as volunteering or learning about important social issues. </p>
<p>The size of the class never really affected me or my learning. You still have access to the professor if you desire through email or office hours. Most people don’t really go though. Many intro classes have hundreds of students packed in one lecture room, but the class sizes shrink when you go to upper division classes; plus there’s also discussions, which are separate, but complementary to lectures that are a lot smaller (40 students to a TA). In my current upper-div classes, they’re 30-40 students to 1 professor, but I still have one upper-div class that has 200 students. </p>
<p>It has its pros and cons. Cons are you don’t get as much interaction with the professor and you don’t get a tight-knit class environment, but there are many classes you could take to fulfill that need if you want to. Language classes are pretty good at meeting people since its only 20-30 students a class. If you wanted more interaction with professors or even making friends, you just need to be proactive about it. </p>
<p>EDIT: have you gone to tour both colleges? it might give you a feel for the environments before making your decision…though it might be a little too late to plan trips right now . You might want to make a topic in the Brown University subsection to get opinions from Brown students as well</p>
<p>" he would also go out to frat parties maybe once a week or so and have a good time." “My friend is a double in Stats and EECS. She still had time to go out for weekends and drink. She also participated in many club activities, rushed for a community service frat, and etc.” </p>
<p>That’s how you get Bs and Cs. You will know what it (EECS) is like when you take EE140/141/142.</p>
<p>I’ve never been bothered much by the class sizes. That said, apart from a seminar class I took (~8 people), I think the smallest class I’ve had here was 80 students. So even though classes get smaller, they don’t necessarily get small. Compared to 61A’s 1000+ enrollment though, upper div classes aren’t that big. :P</p>
<p>The biggest downside of large classes is that the professor will probably have no idea who you are, unless you attend office hours often or are really interested is that professor’s research.</p>
<p>There’s also a bit of a misconception that giant lectures mean you’ll never make friends in class or recognize anyone, but most students sit in the same space each class so people’ll start looking familiar after a couple weeks. And for a given discussion section, it’s usually the same students again and again attending those, which makes it a good place to find project partners and study buddies.</p>
<p>The best thing about large classes is that you can always find help. The bigger a class is, the more GSI’s it’ll have… and that means office hours every day of the week, sometimes every hour of the day. If there was just one professor for the class, there’d only be one or two hours of office hours per week total, but having more staff means there’s more help available. There’s also Piazza, which is an online discussion forum-ish thing for class… all the CS classes use it. It allows instructors and students to post and answer questions, which means you’ve got hundreds of people who can help answer your questions, and you get to benefit from seeing all the questions asked by others. But for the most part, classes here have figured out how to handle having hundreds of students, and there are systems in place to deal with that.</p>
<p>And section can help make classes feel a bit less gigantic. Technically there’s ~30 students per section, but in reality it tends to be 5-15 who show up. So you get personal attention from your TA (yes they know the material, and they really want you to succeed) if you go to section.</p>
<p>@BearFacts well doesn’t it just depend on your capabilities? My friend has a 3.5 gpa…so definitely not Bs/Cs…and there’s some guy doubling in EECS and Business who is taking language classes as well with a 4.0 gpa…so it is possible </p>
<p>EDIT: whoops my bad didn’t notice you were mentioning EE classes…nevermind haha</p>
<p>“some guy doubling in EECS and Business who is taking language classes as well with a 4.0 gpa…so it is possible” totalcaprice, stop trolling.</p>
<p>Um…no need to be so rude wow. Yes, there are average people here, but there are some incredible people here. Just look on Linkedin. Not that hard to find </p>
<p><a href=“05.05.2003 - Innovative engineering and business graduate Ankur Luthra named University Medalist”>http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/05_ankar.shtml</a>
and since you probably wont believe, here is one person that has done it and he is not the first… he even founded a non-profit and was in several honor societies</p>
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<p>Unfortunately I live outside the US at the moment, so visiting would have been expensive. It’s great that it’s possible to make a lot of friends in your classes and there isn’t nearly as much competition as I thought there was… however, I’m still stuck. I don’t know if i’ll enjoy going somewhere with 20,000 other undergraduates since I’ve never had a similar experience anymore. But other than the number of students, I love everything else about Cal… so I just don’t know. AND I love everything about Brown (except its location) so there’s that too.</p>
<p>Hm, what about your parents input? Do they prefer you going to one school over the other? Honestly, no matter your decision, I think you will have a good experience at both schools in terms of academic life and social life (though brown may be more fun in terms of social life…but yeah location sucks haha). You should also ask around on the Brown University subtopic to see if you can get closer to a decision. Too bad there’s no Emma Watson at Brown anymore lol </p>
<p>well here’s a link about someone that was choosing between the two
<a href=“Brown vs UC Berkeley for Computer Science - Brown University - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/1483967-brown-vs-uc-berkeley-for-computer-science.html</a></p>
<p>Haha, believe me, I’ve looked at every single Brown vs Cal thread on CC. I don’t feel it’s necessary to post on the Brown forum though since I’ve been talking to 4 people (2 freshmen, 2 upperclassmen) about their experiences… and they all absolutely love it there. The CS major I talked to also mentioned that most of them go out to the valley/bay area for internships and jobs, even during frosh/sophomore year.</p>
<p>My only problem is that if I wanted to start a company or anything like that, Cal is perfect because it’s right where I need to be, and there’s presumably all sorts of access to venture capitalists in the area. Providence doesn’t give me that.</p>
<p>As for my parents, my mom thinks either is fine, and my Dad (who himself is in the software industry) thinks Cal is the better choice because of the networking I’d be able to do there, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit of the area in general. He is fine with me choosing Brown however, if I feel that it is a better fit for me.</p>
<p>"<a href=“05.05.2003 - Innovative engineering and business graduate Ankur Luthra named University Medalist”>http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/05_ankar.shtml</a>
and since you probably wont believe, here is one person that has done it and he is not the first… he even founded a non-profit and was in several honor societies "</p>
<p>Everybody in EECS heard of Ankur Luthra. I doubt that he ever spent more than 20 hours/week in a lab as an undergraduate researcher or a GSI… or did he ever take challenging courses such as Feedback Control and RFIC. So, totalcaprice, tell us more about “your” some guy “doubling in EECS and Business who is taking language classes as well with a 4.0 gpa.” if not ■■■■■■■■.</p>