<p>I want to major in computer science. Which school has better job prospects and which seems more respectable when applying for an MBA or MS in CS at big shot schools like Harvard and Stanford?</p>
<p>Cal has a better program that offers better internship prospects due to its location in Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>The “prestige” of a school does not matter to adcoms of MBA and MS programs, however, and many grad school hopeful students pick the university that will hand them the higher GPA. The Cal/UCLA name will not be an advantage or disadvantage on your grad school application.</p>
<p>Hey youcrazyboy,</p>
<p>I made this same decision (CS: Berkeley vs LA) and ultimately chose LA. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. I’m pretty much echoing sentiment here but… I think Berkeley likely offers better job prospects because CS there is a top ranked program near the Silicon Valley. I’m not so sure the Cal name will help you get an MBA or MS at any particular place though. I don’t think that will make any difference between Cal and UCLA. </p>
<p>If you find you like the schools equally, then I would go to Cal for CS. In my case, I really favored UCLA, hence the decision.</p>
<p>
I can’t speak to MBA prospects, but I’ve heard those are based mostly on GPA and experience, which you can really get anywhere.</p>
<p>I can say that Berkeley has one of the top CS graduate programs in the country, and going there for undergrad would help you get in for MS (which would otherwise be an insanely difficult program to be admitted to) since they have a 5 year program for that. They also have a larger amount of research opportunities, which CS graduate programs love. At the same time though, I go to UCLA and will attend Stanford next year, and have friends who are doing the same. It’s totally doable.</p>
<p>I’d say that the job prospects are probably not that different, maybe with a slight edge to Berkeley because of its location. Tons of recruiters come to both, and students from both schools often compete with each other for the same positions. The coursework from both Cal and UCLA probably both prepare you just as well for the interviews and the work.</p>
<p>The only problem with UCLA is that i got accepted to a different major. How hard is it to switch to computer science?</p>
<p>Were you accepted into L&S or HSSEAS?</p>
<p>I was accepted to L&S</p>
<p>You better go to Berkeley in that case.</p>
<p>Appreciate the advice</p>
<p>You could still switch majors into engineering, but… you’d be behind since CS majors start with CS 31/32 right off the bat if you can’t get transferred in before school starts.</p>
<p>The big difference between UCLA and Cal is that UCLA’s comp sci major is only offered in their engineering department while Berkeley has a LS comp sci major which practically has the same perks as the EECS major in their engineering department minus the engineering prestige. But if you’re majoring in comp sci only, there shouldn’t be any difference for you between LS and EECS comp sci since you will take 90% the same classes minus the engineering courses which some even argue is better since it will help you keep a higher GPA with a comp sci degree from Berkeley. Personally I applied to Berkeley LS wanting to go for the LS comp sci because it’s a slightly better program in my opinion because I don’t plan on being an engineer so EECS isn’t really my cup of tea and I wanted to be in Cal’s great comp sci department. </p>
<p>UCLA is a different story because they do not offer dual comp sci majors meaning that the only comp sci offered at UCLA is in the Samueli department so if you didn’t get admitted to engineering already you will be in one big headache in trying to transfer into Samueli and as the poster before me said you will be behind if you try to play catch up by doing this route. </p>
<p>If you aren’t in Samueli already and got admitted to Berkeley LS, personally I think it’s a no brainer as Cal offers a CS major in LS and is already better than UCLA’s samueli CS major.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Is it hard to switch major within HSSEAS?</p>
<p>
No, within HSSEAS, it is quite easy.</p>