<p>I am a senior from New York and was accepted into Berkeley (College of Letters & Science), UCLA and UC San Diego to study computer science. I am going to visit all 3 schools in the beginning of April. I know all these schools have top notch computer science programs with Berkeley's being the most well known and renowned. </p>
<p>My question is are any one of these programs a lot better than the other by a significant amount? I am wondering if I should just go visit the schools and make my decision based on which college I think I'll be the happiest at. Or is one of these schools computer science program, most likely Berkeley's, so much more prestigious that I should just go there even if I don't like it the best? Any opinions and feedback is appreciated.</p>
<p>berkeley will easily have the best recruiting because of its proximity to silicon valley. However, UCLA gets a good amount of recruiting too (plenty of people from here get jobs at microsoft, google, etc.) so it really all depends. I heard that one semester berkeley science class = two UCLA quarter science classes, but i’m not sure if that applies to CS as well. </p>
<p>unless you completely hate berkeley and SF, it’s probably the best place. But if you fall in love with LA or SD, you’ll probably be fine doing CS at either school.</p>
<p>Berkeley hands-down has the best graduate CS program of the three. In terms of advancing the field as a whole, it is considered equal to Stanford, MIT, and CMU as a leader in CS research.</p>
<p>At the undergrad level this matters less since research will not be your focus. You will still probably do some research and professors (researchers) influence the material. On average, the courses will be conceptually more difficult. A lot of other schools will make a project hard by assigning a lot of “practice” work (write a bunch of C++. write a bunch of assembly.). Berkeley is more interested in challenging students with a range of foundational concepts. Of course there is hard work too, but there is a sense that once you’ve covered a topic, you can figure out all the details and grunt work on your own time should you need it, let’s move on.</p>
<p>If you want a job then Berkeley is a great place to be. There is a career fair dedicated to EECS (L&S CS welcome too) and the general engineering career fairs are full of people looking for software engineers. Take a look on LinkedIn to see the academic background of people working at various companies.</p>
<p>How well you do is more important than the school you choose. If you feel more at home at UCSD or UCLA then go there. It’s better to get all A’s at UCSD than a string of B+/A- at Berkeley (but if you can pull off great grades at Berkeley that would still be better). All three school have good professors who are well-known in the field, so you can get strong recommendations wherever. Pick the place you want to be for four years. (if you don’t pick Berkeley, take a good look at UCSD unless UCLA really appeals to you)</p>
<p>depends what you want to do. CS is one of the best fields because smart work + hard work => good job environment + good salary + doing something worthwhile. You don’t need a phd unless you want to be a research director or a professor. Even then you don’t need one, but you need to be capable of getting one.</p>
<p>one of berkeley’s goals (more than most other places) is to instill the foundations that facilitate forward thinking. The best do not only know how to use today’s technology, but they also know how to build tomorrow’s.</p>