UC Berkeley v. UCLA with Regent's (engineering major)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

Hi everyone,

I was a candidate for UC Berkeley’s Regent’s scholarship, so I already heard I was offered admission. I applied for Electrical Engineering in the EECS department.

I found out last week that I was offered admission at UCLA with a Regent’s scholarship, and earlier today that I did NOT win the Regent’s scholarship at UC Berkeley (yet am still admitted).

Now, I’m faced with a tough choice as an EE major — Berkeley, with a higher ranked (and frankly, seemingly more robust) engineering department without Regents (which I’ve heard greatly helps with networking, class registration, etc. in addition to $$$), versus UCLA as an EE major with the Regent’s scholarship.

I feel that, given proximity to Silicon Valley and engineering strength, UC Berkeley is a better choice for tech career prospects; however, I have a slightly better “fit” with UCLA, along with being one of only 50 people per class with the Regents.

Does anyone have any advice? Finances aside, will UCLA engineering be up to par with Berkeley’s? How beneficial is the Regent’s scholarship? Has anyone faced a similar choice?

Any help is appreciated!

2

Ok so I was facing the exact same problem 2 years ago. I would like to stay in CA and ruled out a couple other schools. I was down to Cal and UCLA after deciding not to go to USC. I am also an EE major.

Let me give you my reasoning at that point:

  1. Undergrad education at Cal is not as good as Cal spends most money doing research. It’s actually the same at UCLA but not as much. The ranking difference is mostly and more significant for grad school.
  2. The curriculum at Cal is more CS and less EE (it’s EECS after all). I didn’t like coding so I tried to avoid CS.
  3. Quarter system at UCLA makes GE requirements easier to satisfy. And you “suffer” less from a bad professor or a bad class.
  4. The environment at UCLA (campus-wise and city-wise) is better.
  5. UCLA’s EE curriculum is more flexible as there is less CS required. This gives you a lot of options from different branches of EE to explore.
  6. an EE degree from UCLA is just as good as one from Cal with similar GPA in California. However, Cal is definitely more prestigious in the east coast and worldwide. Since I want to work in the bay area this isn’t a problem.
  7. The chance of getting into a good grad school is very close from both school. UCLA’s name is good enough.

So I chose to go to UCLA. And I actually regret the decision some times. The reasons are:

  1. The education at public university is probably just not as good these days. It’s sometime difficult to get into the classes you want to take (due to not offering) and that delays graduation.
  2. Quarter system is very intense for engineering classes as 10 weeks is short when there are two midterms and a final.
  3. Westwood is too expensive to live in and traffic sucks here.
  4. They changed the curriculum last year, and I have to follow the old curriculum, which makes choosing classes really difficult.
  5. While entry-level CS professors like Smallberg and Nachenberg are great, I have not had any good EE professors yet. In fact, I had three terrible EE professors. One doesn’t care about the topics (since he doesn’t usually teach that class and doesn’t want to either) and spends most time talking about how great he is. Also there is a professor that has lots of cheating problem in his class and the curve ended up extremely high and he chose not to take any action. And most EE professors and TAs are not accessible as CS professors and TAs at entry-level.

So I don’t really enjoy my time as an EE major here. And I enjoyed CS a lot more than I expected so I am probably changing my major to CS soon.

Also here is a possible reason why EE isn’t as good at UCLA now:

  1. They plan on decreasing the size of EE while increase the size of CS departments.
  2. This means EE department will mostly have senior professors who much prefer doing research than teaching. While CS department gets a lot of young professors who still actually care about teaching and his students.
  3. This also means less EE grad students available as TAs and more CS grad students as TAs.

So does this mean I don’t recommend you coming to UCLA? absolutely not.

  1. EE is difficult, and you are expected to depend on yourself in a research institution.
  2. I am biased talking about UCLA’s EE, as i)I am one of the last students to follow the old curriculum. ii)I learned better doing actual projects than solving problems on paper, which is very important in EE. iii)I like using different online sources or books if I have a problem. This is difficult in EE as problems are not always straight forward, especially circuits. iv) all the non-engineering classes are extremely easy, I didn’t study at all and still got As. This made me underestimate the difficulty of engineering classes and didn’t put in enough efforts. v) I just realize I enjoy CS better

So my conclusion is:
Go to Berkeley if you:

  1. If you want to work outside of California
  2. Don’t want to live in a crowded city -->smaller apartments, more roommates, traffics, higher rents, etc
  3. Actually like CS as well

Go to UCLA if you:

  1. Don’t want problem enrolling in classes (class size is still the same, but being Regent scholars really helps enrolling in classes)
  2. Like to have access to entertainments, clubs, bars, good food, etc
  3. Enjoy a lively campus (in a good way)

It’s really down to i) mostly pure EE or a good mix of EE and CS, ii) college town or big city
Don’t worry about jobs or grad schools. These shouldn’t make a difference and affect your decision.

Anyhow, good luck at either school and stay motivated! This is like a decision you can never be wrong, so don’t stress yourself just be cool.