UCB vs. UCLA Computer Science

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

Hi everyone! I’m admitted to UC Berkeley’s L&S with an intended major of Computer Science and UCLA"s COE for Computer Science. I’m currently trying to decide between the two and was hoping to hear some of your opinions!

What I like about Berkeley is their CS curriculum–it is more software based and also because it is in the L&S, there is still room to take humanities classes which is pretty important to me. (UCLA’s curriculum in comparison is said to be more theoretical and has many more STEM requirements such as Chemistry that I’m not a particularly big fan of.) I do realize that with Berkeley I am not guaranteed the major because of the GPA cap, but I’ve embraced the idea of (worst case scenario) minoring in CS and majoring in something similar to CS because I’ve heard that employers care more about your demonstrated knowledge than the actual degree title.

However, what I like about UCLA is the overall student life–the campus, weather, food, and social life all generally appeal to me more. (It’s not that I dislike Berkeley’s environment–it’s just that I’m much more of a sunny/social/LA type.) I’ll be visiting UCLA this weekend, so maybe my opinion will change, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear what you guys have to say!

Thank you so much!

2

Congrats on the acceptances! I just had a question, how did you score on the ACT/SAT to get into the engineering school for UCLA?

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Many employers limit those who can interview on-campus with them to those with CS degrees. And when you submit a resume online to companies that don’t recruit on-campus, realize there isn’t a person doing the 1st-pass screening, its a software program that is likely set up to search for a degree in CS. So, sure, employers care about what you actually can do, but the road to being able to show it to them isn’t easy if you don’t have a degree in CS.

It’s worth thinking about fallback plans, too. A lot of kids start college with the idea of a major in CS or engineering but then switch out. Probably 1/2 or more nationally. So its worth considering which you’d rather be at if you were not in CS.

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@sling269 I was admitted this year to the College of Engineering at UCLA with a 2210 SAT (750M/740CR/720W).