<p>As a life long resident of small-town New York, I'm relatively ignorant to the reputation of UC Berkeley, and am wondering if I could kindly illicit your thoughts.</p>
<p>General Question:
How prestigious is Berkeley for graduate work?</p>
<p>Specific Question:
How does it stack up in Enviro Sci reputation to:</p>
<p>Columbia vs. Harvard vs. UW</p>
<p>I have one or more POIs at each school, all with super fascinating research projects, so I'm not worried about being happy or getting a great education, etc. I am just trying to get a feel for a) the general reputation for Berkeley grad programs and b) the reputation of Berkeley's environmental sciences, especially when compared with those of Harvard and Columbia and UW. I've seen the NRC and USNews grad rankings, but would love to hear your thoughts.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>werd</p>
<p>P.S. I tried searching, but didn't find anything on Enviro programs.</p>
<p>Well, your research probably told you this already, but as far as general reputation for graduate programs, UC Berkeley is well-recognized as at or near the top of the heap. </p>
<p>All of those colleges have excellent reputations for environmental science, but each focuses on something slightly different. You won’t find a true environmental science program at Columbia, as it focuses on ecology and geology with Lamont-Doherty. The same is even more true of Harvard, though it does have a forestry program. UW is the most focused on natural resources and has good offerings in conservation, fisheries management, wildlife management, etc. All three are very strong for environmental policy, if that’s your interest.</p>
<p>Berkeley is an all-around good program and the most flexible. The downside, of course, is that the UCs are broke, and funding has gone to hell in a handbasket. Still, it’s one of the better funded departments, and I’ve heard of decent funding on the science side of the department (less so for policy).</p>
<p>The reputation will depend on what you want to do…few would pick Berkeley over UW for an MEM program in coastal/marine management, for example, and Columbia is tough to beat for climate-related studies. If you have a POI at each, though, I would worry less about overall fit and rather fit with those particular labs.</p>
<p>(Drat. I deleted and reposted while editing, and now the above post appears to be foreseeing the future.)</p>
<p>@ Warblersrule-- hah, I wondered about the prescience of anothercollegemom.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your thoughtful responses! </p>
<p>My foci are on air pollution exposures and climate as they relate to environmental health.</p>
<p>Without having actually visited my PoI at UW yet, I suppose my greatest fit is at Berkeley. But Harvard and Columbia are very close seconds, and my worry (as an outsider from Podunk, NY… which, for the most part, is notorious for having sub-par state school resources) is that the UCs are so broke that the quality of research and education will drop in the next 5-50 years, affecting not only my in-program research potential but also my post-doc potential. Though I hate to admit that it concerns me, I also wonder about how such funding issues will affect the marketability of a Berkeley degree in 15 years (or more).</p>
<p>At the same time, it’s clear that Harvard will continue to have phenomenal resources (a $32 bil endowment can take some serious hits before quality starts to go downhill), and with great PIs at both, I’m not sure if I should take the “risk” by going to Berkeley-- especially since I’ve been told student funding is tight by my PI.</p>
<p>Again, I am an ignorant E. Coaster, and looking for any thoughts whatsoever on this (e.g. “You’re an idiot; Berkeley is pure gold because X,Y, Z” or “Yeah, legitimate concern and here’s why.”).</p>
<p>I graduated from berkeley undergrad, and it’s definitely one of the top places you could go to for environmental science. You’ll definitely LOVE the city, the weather, and definitely the close proximity to SF (which is as good as you’ll get to a west coast New York). </p>
<p>I love berkeley, and was definitely sad to move on. But in terms of prestige, there are very few universities that can match the international prestige of Berkeley and the program you’re interested in…Berkeley’s solid in as well</p>
<p>@Werd, I also graduated from Berkeley for undergrad. Environmental Science is a good program at Berkeley, but I couldn’t say if it’s top for the field or not. You should really check the NRC data spreadsheet.</p>
<p>But for someone who knows nothing about Berkeley, it is a top ranking school, especially in graduate education. I believe it’s still considered the #1 public school in the world. They are particularly high ranking in Engineering, Chemistry and MCB. </p>
<p>The city could be better. I got bored of it after a couple years and without a car it’s difficult to access San Francisco for nightlife. You’ll want a car for sure if you’re planning on living in Berkeley. It’ll also give you easy access to the rest of the East Bay.</p>
<p>Although the budget crisis will not be as big a problem for a grad student as for an undergrad, you may feel some of the pressure still given you’ll probably be made to TA . In terms of research funding, this is dependent on how much the department relies on undergraduate education to pay it’s professors. For Environmental Science, I highly doubt this is an issue. Berkeley gets tons of funding from NSF, DOE, Defense and private sources (BP to name one of them). I don’t foresee these resources drying up all that soon. If you’re in a department like Literature or Language studies… well… I might be more worried…</p>
<p>Bottom line, Berkeley is still in a position to recruit some of the top professors in the world and as long as you can work with a good one, the reputation of the school 20, 30 years from now will probably not affect you.</p>
East coaster here as well…I think there are some differences, yes. Classes (sometimes graduate and certainly undergrad) will be a bit bigger, libraries are more reluctant to spend money on books and journal access, grad student offices will be more at a premium, a lot of the events on campus cost money, there will be some extra fees that may or may not be covered by your TA/RAship, etc. Most of the differences are fluff, though – perks nice to have but that won’t make or break your education. There may be some more important differences in funding, like a 1 year renewable fellowship vs. a multiyear guaranteed funding package, a smaller vs. larger stipend, or being expected to TA as a first year grad student, but those shouldn’t prevent you from choosing one school over another provided it’s affordable. </p>
<p>I had to choose between a UC and several wealthier universities (Chicago, Penn, Michigan, Brown, Yale, and a couple others). The others definitely had some nice perks due to their money, but UCLA fit me best given my research interests, so I picked it. I’ve been really happy with that decision, and I think it was the right one. </p>
<p>I think greenertea’s point about the difference between science and humanities departments was a really good one. Some of the smaller/poorly funded departments are definitely struggling a bit, since they’re lacking in the research and financial support they need and can’t always afford to replace professors when they die or retire. The better funded departments like the sciences and business/econ are doing much better.</p>
<p>@werd814: The Headquarters for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is walking distance from your program at UW. I don’t know anything about the program, so I cannot speak to it other than that. I wouldn’t make up my mind until I visit the program.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a fantastic reputation for everything academic. Don’t worry about funding, it’s not going to affect you at all. It hasn’t affected me as an undergrad either. People just enjoy talking about it and protesting.</p>
<p>And I love living in Berkeley. As a grad student you probably will want to have a car so you can easily drive over the bridge to SF for more shopping/nightlife options.</p>
<p>Depending on the program, Berkeley’s graduate students are simply exceptionally strong, and almost certainly it attracts the best due to its departmental rankings (and actual evidence to show for those rankings). A lot of its best-prepared students hail from the top undergraduate schools at least in mathematics (MIT, Princeton, Harvard, …) and I imagine it’s the same for any field it’s well known for.</p>
<p>If you seek to know how strong it is in a specific field, I’d not consult the US News or any other ranking without also consulting faculty knowledgeable about that area, and conversing with them about who does what. It helps to actually get a picture for why the work coming out of Berkeley or any other great school is so significant.</p>
<p>It is probably slightly easier to get acceptance to Berkeley for graduate school than at some schools of similar tier though, because it is larger in size than many such schools, but it’s definitely very hard to get into. This just means a few slightly weaker students squeeze past the bar, but the number of extremely strong students is always high.</p>
<p>In fact, I like to joke that between letting a fields medalist leave and losing a department that contributes less to the university’s prestige, they might choose to dissolve the department instead :D</p>
<p>Can’t speak to the Environmental Science program. </p>
<p>Some programs Berkeley will be better than Harvard, some vice versa.
The big one is who and how many faculty would you like to work with as
a PI in what interests you; some programs might have only one, others
might have three, giving you more flexibility in the long run.</p>
<p>Those that I know, past & present, have not found being a GSI (TA) to be
particularly onerous. Berkeley does not let first years work. Oh good.
(Otoh, you might have to scramble for first year funding. Don’t know
how much that varies by program.)</p>
<p>You can go long stretches of time without a car. BART will get you to
San Francisco and the BART station is right around Shattuck & Allston(?).
(memory cramps) If you’re in a PhD program, you’re not going to have
very much disposable time for at least a while. First year in some fields
is brutal.</p>
<p>I apologize if I misunderstand, but what program are you referring to? Most certainly, it’s common for mathematics students (in the PhD program) to TA even in their first year, and they are almost always fully funded (their funding package is made clear when they first are admitted).</p>
<p>I think some schools require a bit more of students than Berkeley, since they don’t have an overabundance of TAs (smaller graduate program with still a pretty big undergraduate program). There are, however, programs which simply have better funding to offer students. Harvard comes to mind as a very wealthy school also with a terrific program.</p>