<p>Why does Berkeley force you to choose the college and major you wish to pursue? Right now I'm interested in both physics and engineering. What if I choose one and decide to pursue the other later? Is it possible to switch between colleges or majors? I'm pretty confused. How does it work?</p>
<p>well engineering and physics in different colleges. Engineering is way harder to in than L S. If you apply engineering and decided that you want to go to physics instead, the switch will be easier ( i think). However if you get into physics and want to do engineering, it's a much harder switch. (it's possible, but just harder) So it really comes to your stats and everything. If you have good stats, just apply engineering and switch out later on if you don't like it.</p>
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Why does Berkeley force you to choose the college and major you wish to pursue?
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<p>Ha! This can easily degenerate into a long and formidable philosophical debate about the proper role of undergraduate education and the value of academic free choice. </p>
<p>But in a nutshell, the root cause is the sheer size of the Berkeley undergrad student population, combined with the lack of spare capacity in undergrad academic resources. Hence, Berkeley has to use a suite of restrictions to regulate the ebbs and flows of students that are switching majors. The fact is, nobody ever really knows exactly how many students are going to end up wanting to declare a particular major. For example, every year, Berkeley allots a certain amount of academic resources like lab-space, classroom space, TA-ships, etc. to teach the expected number of EECS undergrads that it expects to have. But what if one year, just by luck of the draw, a flash flood of double the expected number of students want to study EECS? Then the EECS department will be left scrambling to procure enough academic resources to handle these students. A bureaucratic and budgetary mess would inevitably ensure. Hence, Berkeley has to implement policies to ensure certain some sort of regularity and certainty in the enrollment in certain majors. </p>
<p>The other factor is that, even apart from year-to-year fluctuations in enrollment, let's face it, certain majors are extremely popular. Lots of people want to major in bus-ad. Lots of people want to major in engineering, more than the number of people that those departments can or want to accomodate. For example, I think that if enrollment were truly open, the number of students who would declare EECS or Bus-ad or certain other majors would multiply by several times, and either those departments don't have the resources to handle that number of students or just don't want to graduate that number of students (perhaps to maintain the scarcity and value of people with that degree). For example, quite frankly, I don't think the Haas School really wants every Tom, Dick, and Harry to have a Haas BS degree as that would decrease the perceived specialness of the degree (it's the same reason why all elite schools, including Berkeley, reject plenty of applicants who could do the work, because they want to maintain the scarcity and specialness of the degree). Hence, those oversubscribed departments set high barriers for taking in more students. </p>
<p>Now in answer to your other questions, it is harder to switch from L&S to the CoE than vice versa. It is not free choice. You can't just decide one fine day that you want to declare engineering. Hence, I agree with soloboe that you are probably better off getting in as an engineer and then switching out later if you find you like physics better. Of course, getting admitted to the CoE is more difficult than L&S, and you only get one shot at getting into Berkeley. So you take a risk if you apply to engineering that you might not get into Berkeley at all. Just keep that in mind.</p>
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Now in answer to your other questions, it is harder to switch from L&S to the CoE than vice versa. It is not free choice. You can't just decide one fine day that you want to declare engineering. Hence, I agree with soloboe that you are probably better off getting in as an engineer and then switching out later if you find you like physics better. Of course, getting admitted to the CoE is more difficult than L&S, and you only get one shot at getting into Berkeley. So you take a risk if you apply to engineering that you might not get into Berkeley at all. Just keep that in mind.
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<p>So what determines whether you can switch if you decide to later on? Your GPA? I'm pretty sure I have the stats to get into Berkeley Engineering, but I am also out of state...</p>
<p>Mostly GPA in lower division coursework, especially the prereqs for the major you ultimately want to get into. If you do well enough, that would bolster your chances of switching over. </p>
<p>I should also add that while transferring from the CoE to L&S is easier than vice versa, it is also far from automatic. I know people who started as engineers, got mediocre grades, and tried to switch over the L&S... and were denied and hence are still stuck in engineering. That's one heck of a Catch-22, don't you think? If they were doing well in engineering, they probably wouldn't want to leave. It is precisely because they are not doing that well that they want to leave, yet ironically that is also precisely why they are not being allowed to leave. Hence, because they are not doing well in their major, they are not allowed to go to another major. While there is no hard and fast rule, generally you need a 3.0 in order to switch colleges. And believe me, because engineering is a tough major, a lot of engineers do not have anything near a 3.0.</p>