Well, I was going to pole vault in college before tearing my acl last year, so I could potentially walk onto the track team. I just don’t really want to spend all of my time and energy doing a sport in college, but I’d feel pressured to at Williams.
Where I live (northeast of the US) people do know Williams. They also know UC Berkeley of course. Apparently US News and World Report also knows what Williams is, because they have ranked it as the #1 Liberal Arts College in the US.
These are both great schools. However, they are quite different. The most obvious difference is size. Being much larger, UC Berkeley will have more majors, and much larger classes. Being a lot smaller, Williams College will have fewer majors, but smaller classes that will in most if not all cases be taught by professors (rather than for example graduate students acting as TAs). The smaller classes at Williams will make it easier for you to get to know your professors. This can be useful both for getting internship options, and for using them as reference later (when you graduate and either look for a job or apply to graduate schools).
Of course the location is also quite different. Williams is in a rural situation, near mountains with plenty of outdoors activities.
I would say no. One school is not significantly better than the other. They are however quite different. If you can afford to attend either one of them without taking on debt, then this will probably come down to which school you think would be a better fit for you.
If you go to UC Berkeley, I must warn you that Stanford is determined to get the Axe back! (I am kidding, I got my master’s at Stanford).
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The cost is around $65k a year. Are your parents able to pay that much without saddling you with $100k plus in loans? If so, then GREAT. If not, then DON’T. You’ll regret it, I promise. Being a programmer myself, I can say that prestige doesn’t matter. I went to a regional state university and I’ve already interviewed at Amazon and Google, and worked for several fortune 500 companies. Trust me when I say this, big corporate jobs are not what you think they are, especially entry level jobs.
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UCB. Provided you get into CS.
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Would you recommend CS or just working in tech in general though?
How high were you vaulting before your injury? If you have recovered and want to PV in college, that will be more feasible at Williams than Cal.
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Best to get a CS or IT degree, because it gives you a foundation of knowledge. You don’t necessarily have to do it as a major though. You could minor in it and still land a decent job, as long as you have some proficiency in a programming language. I recommend you take a level 1 and 2 course of a widely used programming language, like Java, C#, .NET, SQL, etc.
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It depends a bit on what you want to do in tech. I’ve read a few of your posts, but have had a hard time discerning whether you really want to go into the engineering side of things or not.
If you really want to be an engineer at a tech company, then CS is the way to go. But if the goal is broader (I think so far you’ve just said you want to work at Google, or similar) there are tons of roles in tech that are technical-adjacent, but that aren’t engineering. Product Managers always benefit from having some engineering classes, but don’t necessarily need to go full-bore CS. Perhaps, like @coolguy40 mentioned, a minor (CS minor at Berkeley; non-major info at Williams). In tech there’s also Design, UX Writing / Content Design, UserResearch, etc., and one of those might speak more to what you’re hoping to do, career-wise. If you can flesh out what’s appealing about a career in tech or a career in medicine, that’d probably help folks with making recommendations.
Although it’s probably possible to delay this choice a bit, and I would love to hear from people with more experience than me in considering the two tracks, but I suspect that you’ll need to figure out pretty soon whether you want to go the pre-med route or the CS route. Both are pretty demanding, and probably require pretty full commitment from early in your college career.
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You can delay this decision 4 years :-). Recently I heard of a friend’s kid that did CS from GTech, went to work for Amazon, and by the end of his first year quitting Amazon to go join medical school. Not pre-med – actual legit medical school. Because he also did the required pre-med course work while at GTech. I was in shock.
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I know CS is super competitive and over enrolled at Berkeley, and I’m also scared that I’m not smart enough to do it. I’m honestly open to any career in tech because it just seems like the best industry to go into right now. I’ve looked into product management and design and stuff, but I feel like my parents would low-key be disappointed if I pursued one of those careers.
Product management jobs are far harder to get than engineering jobs. Part of the reason is that only 1 in 10 or 1 in 15 jobs are PM roles at companies like Google. I think Microsoft has more, but the role is different. It is more interesting, but much harder to get.
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What about product design? Are those jobs more or less competitive to get than engineering jobs, and how does the pay compare?
I don’t know. I do know that in that industry software engineers get paid the most. I don’t know how common the product designer positions are, and how less is the pay. There is another area called UI/UX, and overlaps somewhat with product design. I think those roles are more prevalent. Pay is not bad, but perhaps still less than pay at a software engineering job. These are more creative areas, vs engineering which is a more analytical area.
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@spicyskinny could you talk for a bit about what topics you’ve enjoyed the most in school? What did you enjoy about them? (Alternately, if there were topics you couldn’t wait to be through, what were they / why?) What extracurriculars brought you the most joy, and what did you love so much about them? This isn’t an application; so you don’t need to impress folks. What have you genuinely enjoyed the most from the last couple of years?
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With respect to academics, the top-level classroom experience at Williams may be worth consideration: https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=great-classroom-experience.
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Note that getting into medical school really hinges upon two main factors 1) GPA and 2) MCAT score. The prestige of the undergrad really is just a tipping point. So all things being equal, going to a place where you can get the highest GPA possible would be the best.
GPA distributions at UCB, and CS in particular are on the lower side. This would put you at a big disadvantage compared to other med school applicants. They generally do not take into account that you went to a ‘hard’ school or were in a ‘hard’ major. They will expect to see a GPA > 3.7 and MCAT > 514. Even higher if you are ORM.
Based on this, I’d say that Williams would be better for pre-med. UCB if you’re interested in a tech career.
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You see, I don’t know if I want to go to medical school or tech. That’s why I’m having this crisis. But I think Williams would open up more opportunities for me with higher education, while Berkeley would make everything more difficult for me. I just love the location of Berkeley and want to be in a sorority and go to football games. I’m probably going to have regrets either way, but I think Williams would be the smarter choice.
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I would suggest that you spend some time shadowing physicians. You can then get a sense of what its really like. Staying up all night on call, weekends, holidays. The pay can be good, but the hours in many specialties can be tough. Many people decide its not for them. There are some specialties that have great lifestyles (derm, psych, etc) but these are competitive.
Tech on the other hand has its own set of issues. But there is a strong entrepreneurial spirit, emphasis on coding skills and other factors. Going to a top school is helpful if ever you want to work at a start up (for raising money), but not essential for entry level roles.
These two fields couldn’t be farther apart. I understand at your age its difficult to make a decision. Have you thought about potentially taking a gap year to decide?
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From reading your comments, it sounds like you really want Cal - especially on the social and location side. Obviously, you are a bright young woman and know how to work hard to be accepted to both of these schools. You may have to work harder at Cal to find your path and need to be proactive to find courses that allow you to explore your talents vs this happening a bit more organically at a liberal arts school like Williams.
College is a big adjustment and being happy is just as important as the education. As a parent, I would say forgot about what your parents want for your career and use this time to discover all that is out there. The career center at both schools will be so helpful and establish that relationship early. Part of college and even internships is about finding out what you don’t want, as much as finding out what you do want.
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[Google] recruiters would recognize UCB for sure. That would help in landing interviews, but of course, not necessarily guarantee the job.
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