Hi people! So I was lucky enough to be admitted into both UC Berkeley and Brown University. In my applications for both schools, I chose to major in Chemical engineering. Right now the things that draws me towards UC Berkeley is that its engineering and chemistry schools are top notch and that I have many high school friends who are choosing to attend the school. The selling points for Brown is its much smaller class sizes and the open curriculum, which makes it easy to switch majors and try new things. However, I am pretty sure that I am going to major in engineering or something related to chemistry or biology. I live in the bay area so I have been of the Berkeley campus many times and am really familiar with it which is nice; however, a part of me also wants to go to the east coast and try something new. Which school do you think is the best choice? How much superior is the Berkeley’s engineering than Brown’s. Does getting a bachelors in engineering from Berkley or Brown play a large impact in my future career?
Brown won’t have budget cuts. Return to UCB for grad school and enjoy attending an Ivy League university 
I can’t think of a situation where a degree from Brown would be a negative for a career.
Thanks! Yea that is a good point the uc schools are getting rough budget cuts right now. Also I forgot to mention, the tuition for both schools are about the same for me. Brown gave me a very large sum of financial aid.
Brown’s open curriculum does not apply to ABET-accredited engineering majors, since ABET requires that schools require some humanities and social studies course work for ABET-accredited engineering majors. However, Brown’s humanities and social studies requirements for engineering majors are lighter than those at most other schools.
Changing majors to other engineering majors at Brown looks a lot easier in an administrative sense ( https://www.brown.edu/academics/engineering/undergraduate-study/concentration-declarations ), since most or all engineering majors at Berkeley are filled to capacity and require students to apply with high GPAs to change into ( http://engineering.berkeley.edu/admissions/undergrad-admissions/change-college ). Changing into chemistry or biology should not be an issue at either school, although the job and career prospects tend to be significantly worse than for chemical engineering.
Bump
Hi, I hope this reply isn’t too late… I’m a current freshman at Brown, I’m majoring in biochemistry/molecular cell biology but about half of my friends are chemical engineering majors. I also have friends at Berkeley, and I was considering going there myself. I’m from northern California too, so I can safely say that we would have pretty similar experiences at Brown haha. Going to the East Coast is a really big difference, don’t kid yourself. The food and weather suck, and it’s kind of a drag to fly back home (you probably won’t go back for Thanksgiving after freshman year). But don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with my choice. It really is a very different place, there are all kinds of small cultural differences that are really cool to pick up on. I definitely want to live in California when I’m an adult, but I’m really glad to be able to get to see the East Coast for four years (Brown students go to Boston and New York ALL THE TIME). Other than locale, the academics really are top notch. In STEM fields especially, the school you go to doesn’t really matter as much as the degree-- having “Berkeley” or “Brown” on your resume won’t really matter. What does matter is the experience you have (and the internships, etc you do). And so far I’m having a great time at Brown. The chemical engineering major is actually a little more restrictive than you might think, and certainly more than a BA here, but still not nearly as bad as Berkeley. To be be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t want to go to Berkeley and get lost among the thousands of freshman. You’ll have to fight really hard for classes, housing, and advising, and even the city setting is fairly impersonal. Brown has easy to get into classes (small too, even freshman chem.eng. classes are <200, compared to a UC’s <500), solid housing (shitty food though, but PLEASE don’t pick a school because of food…) and amazing professors. But the best part is the community, Brown is large enough (6400 undergrad) that you won’t know most of the people you see on campus, but you’ll be good friends with your floormates and will know a couple people in all your classes (this is especially true for eng, as everyone takes basically exactly the same classes for a while). You’ll quickly get a group of friends that you’ll do homework with and study with; the academics at Brown are very cooperative and supportive, not competitive. It’s definitely not easy, but you got in for a reason. The campus is gorgeous and actually seeing rain and snow is really nice, plus it’ll make a nice contrast with California weather so that you appreciate both to their fullest. If you have more questions I can message you my email, you should definitely check out the campus at ADOCH.
Side note about financial aid: if you currently have a sibling in college, your package will drop A LOT when they graduate. Or it will get way better if you have a younger sibling.