Hi,
I am at a California community college right now, and I plan to apply for transfer to the C.S. program at UC Berkeley. I’m not sure if I want to apply to the BA program or the BS. My current thinking is that the BA program and the BS program would be exactly the same, except that the BA would have more humanities courses vs. the BS which would replace the humanities with Electrical Engineering courses. Are there any other differences besides this? Since the two are in different colleges, are the classes which are included in both programs taught together or separately? Do the EE students learn to code from a different philosophy/perspective? Please include all differences/pros and cons for each program (For example I know that the BA program is not as hard to get in as the BS). I would also love to know (I’m a beginner in the field) what advantages there are in learning EE along with CS because I’m presently not so interested in doing EE over humanities. Also two side questions: 1) Will taking side courses that don’t count for the major hurt me if they take me past the 80-unit cap? and 2) I’ve heard that De Anza College students have a priority for getting admission at Cal, and I plan to take 18 units (12 semester) there. How much would I need to take advantage of this “priority enrollment?”
The main differences in curricula are that EECS has more math and physics requirements, and the breadth requirements differ. L&S CS accepts IGETC in place of L&S breadth requirements, but EECS does not, since you need to take two upper division humanities or social studies courses after transfer (along with English R1A-R1B equivalents and two more humanities or social studies courses that can be taken before transfer). You can compare at http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/education/degrees.shtml .
In terms of applying, EECS is generally thought to be harder to be admitted to, but you will be in the major if admitted. For L&S CS, you must complete CS 61A, 61B, and 70 with a 3.30 GPA (in courses taken at UCB only) to declare the major after transfer (see http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/#petitioning ). This means that if you go for L&S CS, you should have a backup plan for a non-impacted L&S major in case you do not get into L&S CS. You can also consider taking some of the CS courses at UCB during the summer to pre-load your prerequisite GPA (or, if you do not do well enough, you will know early on not to pursue L&S CS at UCB). However, courses taken at UCB or other UCs may affect you in terms of the unit limit, according to http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/uc-transfer-maximum-limitation-policy-chart.pdf (if you take only community college courses, you will not be counted as having more than 70 semester units = 105 quarter units).
De Anza is not the optimal community college for targeting EECS or L&S CS at UCB, since it has none of the CS and EE prerequisites (other than partial CS 61B), so you will have to take all of them after transfer. This could delay graduation or limit the number of upper division courses and electives you can take after transfer to the bare minimum.
OK, thanks. Do you know where in California there is a community college that offers those prerequisite classes? I was only able to find CS61A at Laney CC in Oakland. Also, my second option aside from CS is psychology; I was wondering that if I took the BA program, how deep would I be able to go in psychology?
Among CCs, it looks like Laney is the only one with CS 61A. Some do offer CS 61B (e.g. Laney and Diablo Valley). CS 61C is very rare (Diablo Valley has it), and CS 70 appears to be non-existent at CCs. EE 16A and 16B also appear to be non-existent at CCs.
In theory, you could double major in L&S CS and psychology, but it may be difficult if you need to take a lot of “catch up” courses for one or both majors after transfer. It may be worth considering majoring in one and just adding electives of interest in the other. Or consider the cognitive science major (possibly as a backup major if you get into Berkeley but are not able to get into L&S CS or psychology).
The psychology major is also an impacted major; it requires a 3.2 college GPA to declare and a large list of prerequisites:
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/undergraduate-program/about-major
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/undergraduate-program/lower-division-requirements-fall-2014-freshmenfall-2015-transfers
Cognitive science does not appear to be an impacted major; only a 2.0 college GPA and C or higher grade in each prerequisite course are needed:
http://cogsci.berkeley.edu/transfer-students
For psychology and cognitive science, you may want to ask the department whether the GPA includes only courses taken at Berkeley or all prerequisite courses from all colleges.
I am a transfer applicant of Fall 2016 Berkeley, and my major is also computer science. I see berkeley website and it posts cs GPA is 3.0, that 3.0 GPA is only for uc transferable gpa? Are there any other requirement for cs major? for example: what is preparation major gpa?
Thanks for the info; Strangely I found a full equivalent to the CS61B class (without need to repeat anything after transfer) at my local CC (Evergreen Valley College) which is considered to be a lower level college.
To declare L&S CS after admission to L&S, here are the requirements according to http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/#petitioning :
It is likely that you need a GPA much higher than 3.0 to get admitted as a transfer student. Once admitted, you must complete the remaining prerequisites with a 3.30 GPA to enter the L&S CS major. Prerequisites previously taken at Berkeley (e.g. in summer sessions) count toward that GPA, but those taken elsewhere do not.