<p>so obviously being an engineer at berkeley is very very challenging. most of my friends who went on to be engineers at berkeley were very smart but seem to get hammered in class at cal. however, they are mostly in bioE, chemE, and EECS, which are obviously very competitive majors.</p>
<p>my question is are all engineering majors at berkeley as hard as they say? or is it mainly just the "upper" level engineering majors such as EECS/chemE/etc. I'm thinking about going into environmental engineering, or maybe even civil. any feedback?</p>
<p>Psh, eecs is overrated. I applied as a civil major. Also considering ME too.</p>
<p>I’m currently a BioE and it really isn’t that bad. I think with engineering it really varies for individuals based on their backgrounds. Also, you really can’t expect to do really well on tests since a lot of the times the material is just way above you. I’ve seen a lot of people in engineering stumble over math (1A, 1B, 53, 54) and physics (7A and 7B) since these are basic lower division courses that are required for engineering. Math at Berkeley is a bit more theoretical than computational so a 5 in Cal AB and/or a 5 in Cal BC doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll do well in math at Berkeley. As for physics, well, I’m taking that right now, but from what I can tell, success lies in being able to apply the right physical principles, setting up equations, and fluent algebra (which is something many people think they’re very good at but may find out that they need some practice in this area).</p>
<p>ah i see.</p>
<p>so dill_scout, you’re saying it depends entirely on the person? the difficulty of an engineering major is totally subjective and is based on the individual? there’s no general consensus of “oh major A is a lot easier than major B.” </p>
<p>obviously any engineering will be difficult. i’m not trying to find some easy, freebie major. more of a relative to other engineering majors question.</p>
<p>thanks for the response.</p>
<p>When people say the easier major is the one you like, they’re not kidding. When you feel motivated to actually do the work and learn, it becomes much easier. Generally, the difficulty of X class compared to Y class depends mostly on the person taking the class. </p>
<p>I’m an EECS major and when I see what some of the other engineering majors are doing (Mech e, Chem e,Civ e) it honestly looks very unappealing and difficult, and rightly so because I’m not very interested in those courses. All of the EECS classes I have taken, I’ve found them to be the easier compared to pure Math/Physics just because I’m more interested in that sort of stuff.</p>
<p>And likewise, I was an EECS major once and had to brutalize myself to actually get A’s on those tests. Am much happier doing pure math, and it comes easier to me. I think basically though, if you’re really into a field, you’ll push yourself to do greater things in it, and make it hard for yourself in a different way.</p>