<p>So I've narrowed it down to these two but I still don't know know what to choose. Feel free to add your own input!</p>
<p>Berkeley
PROS
- I'm undecided right now so it'll be easier for me to go into CS
- closer to home, nicer weather, better food
- parents want me to go here</p>
<p>CONS
- the surrounding neighborhood
- huge class sizes/school
- cutthroat
- not that great representation - students wise - ie drugs, always protesting</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon
PROS
- if I get into CS, it's one of the top in the nation
- I already got into Tepper so if I find I don't like CS after a few classes, I can stay in business
- smaller school - easier access to professors, smaller class sizes, get to know advisers better</p>
<p>CONS
- I got into Tepper but I'm not sure if I want to do business. I want to do CS more but I don't think it's easy to transfer into SCS
- farther away, cold/erratic weather, apparently the food is not that great
- I want to work in California after graduating
- no school spirit
- when I went to visit, all people talked about was studying and that's it - so less of the college experience</p>
<p>I’ll just put in my two cents and say that I heard somewhere to transfer into CS all you have to do is take a certain class (forgot which one) and do better than 50% of the class.</p>
<p>Also, I’m going to CMU this fall and I have tons of school spirit! and I’m under the impression mostly everyone at CMU got in because they showed passion for their major, so they study lots for their major cuz they want to. and everyone on the facebook group seems SUPER nice and actually reallyreally social and not /only/ focused on studies. Like some people are already planning parties lmao</p>
<p>This might have been due to the particular week you visited. I hosted sleeping bag students a few times, and it seems CMU always planned them during the heaviest weeks of the semester. So, while I’d like to be able to take the student out and show them around Pittsburgh, I really had to spend a few hours extra studying/homeworking in order to be where I wanted in my classes. On the other end of the spectrum, I know people that visited during Carnival and thought that’s what the school would be like the rest of the year.</p>
<p>The only real part of the “college experience” I’d say you miss out on by going to CMU would be a Division I sports team on campus. That said, we do have the Steelers and Penguins (and Pirates…) which have massive support within the community, and, in general, on campus. And, heck, if you want to go to some college football games, it’s free to attend a Tartans game, or you could go watch a Pitt game.</p>
<p>Have you looked at the Info Systems major? My son was initially thinking CS, but he really is a great people person, and when he was at CMU for their game accademy last summer he was project manager on a big project. He loved it. His teachers told him to consider IS because you get both the business side and the computer science side, although certainly not as in-depth in either as you would if you went straight SCS or Tepper. </p>
<p>My son will be entering in IS, is very excited after visiting again last Monday, meeting some of his potential classmates, the IS adviser and some of the profs.</p>
<p>I think the CS class you have to do well in is Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science (15-251), it was posted in another thread. They were saying it’s pretty tough class, but if you can do it, and show early interest to the SCS adviser, transfer to SCS is a very good possibility. </p>
<p>One question though, where did you feel more at home? Which atmosphere was the most appealing?</p>
<p>I’ll try give you a balanced picture of the academic differences between Berkeley EECS and CMU CS. I only have first hand experience with CMU CS, but as a Californian I have many friends who do EECS at Berkeley. Both are excellent schools in their own right, but which one you want to go to heavily depends on your CS interests.</p>
<p>Berkeley EECS from what I hear is very computer systems oriented. This isn’t too much of a surprise given Berkeley’s history with Bell Labs. CMU does have a strong computer systems program, but Berkeley is the place to go if you really want cutting edge research in this field. Of course, you should be aware that this means you’ll be competing with one of the largest population of EECS students for limited research positions, so consider yourself warned. Perhaps the one thing we do have over Berkeley when it comes to systems research is in the field of parallel computation and compiler design, which mainly comes from our top parallel algorithms and programming language theory groups.</p>
<p>CMU CS, on the other hand, prides itself in being one of the leading departments in theoretical computer science. We hold the top spot in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Programming Language Theory (My research area!), and we are considered very strong in complexity theory as we have Manuel Blum, the Turing Award winner who thought of the entire theory in the first place.</p>
<p>Some extra info: EECS in berkeley means you do have to take some EE classes (circuit analysis, etc). CS at CMU means you might never have to touch a soldering gun in your life.</p>
<p>tl;dr - Berkeley = systems, CMU = theory, but both are good at systems and theory.</p>
and I’m under the impression mostly everyone at CMU got in because they showed passion for their major, so they study lots for their major cuz they want to. and everyone on the facebook group seems SUPER nice and actually reallyreally social and not /only/ focused on studies. Like some people are already planning parties lmao</p>