<p>i’d say the most common argument konakai to being an above average to average is that Berkeley “prepares” you more for whatever may come by making you work hard. And while that may be true, I think it really doesn’t apply to everyone because sometimes, you can work your ass off at Cal and still manage to do terrible on a final, thereby messing up your grade.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble deciding between the two for Engineering because I’m not sure which discipline I want to pursue and UC Berkeley is notorious for not allowing even qualified applicants transfer. I’ve already spoken to both and UCLA has said that it’s possible to switch as early as orientation. If UC Berkeley was just as flexible, I don’t think I would have any problem deciding.</p>
<p>eyeheartphysics:</p>
<p>Are you already in the Berkeley College of Engineering?</p>
<p>yessir. i’m a spring admit too though, and in Nuclear Engineering at UCB and MAE at UCLA. I thought i wanted to go with what was going to be hot in the future but realized that I should have applied for what I really wanted even if it’s not as lucrative.</p>
<p>I am currently attending Cal for grad (and I graduated from UCLA for undergrad) … so no, I wouldn’t chosen a different UC.
But I would like to say that I had a better experience at UCLA than at Cal (I don’t know if that’s going to change in the next 2 years before I graduate, but I doubt it). At LA, there seems to be a lot of things you can do for fun and enjoy life. I never got bored of that city during my whole time there. Here at Berkeley … I got bored right after a year. I already visited San Francisco a bunch of times, and there is nothing attractive about that city (except for Fisherman’s wharf - in which I been there 5 times already).
In terms of academics, ok … I would say I learned more things at Cal than at UCLA, but I really doubt that I have to know all of these materials I am learning now for my future …
I also kinda want to go to SD and see what life is there like.</p>
<p>fasttrack, what type of engineer are you and if you know anything about the CE dept can you help me please? =]</p>
<p>If you’re already in engineering, switching around isn’t that hard. It’s if you’re not in engineering that switching in is hard for. </p>
<p>I’m going to say that out of all the UCs I was only choosing between Cal and SD for BioE and I don’t regret it at all though I do sometimes wonder about Cornell. I didn’t even consider UCLA and I only considered SD because it had a good BioE program and La Jolla is gorgeous.</p>
<p>is maintaining a 3.00 GPA in engineering difficult? It’s the bare minimum for allowing switching. I know it’s all relative but if you’re a hardworking student is it still possible to fall below 3.00? I don’t want to be in the “engineering trap”</p>
<p>I think that question varies from person to person. For me, so long as I study, then maintaining at least a 3.0 is not a problem. For some friends of mine, this is really not a problem. Yet, there are also hardworking people I know who are struggling just to pass their classes. I think, however, that you won’t escape this scenario no matter what school you choose.</p>
<p>aha, sorry for the thread hijack… but it’s somewhat relevant to people who are undecided. So this engineering trap does exist? do you know people who are close to a 3.00 or are qualified to switch but can’t? What happens to these people?</p>
<p>I only know one person who wants to switch out of engineering entirely but can’t because of grades. Most of the other people I know just want to switch into another engineering major and they don’t have much trouble doing that unless their GPA was below 3.0. As for the first person I mentioned, she was doing better in her classes this year and she thinks she might just stick with engineering once she has her grades up because she doesn’t really know what she would do in L&S.</p>
<p>I’d just like to mention that my examples aren’t exemplar of everyone in the engineering school. There might be people in the engineering school who are miserable but trapped there by their grades. Most people I know are content being an engineer even if their grades aren’t spectacular. They just want to graduate with their Berkeley engineering degree and get a well paying job.</p>