| I would say that Berkeley is probably a 'better' engineering school than is Caltech, under the myriad ways that you could define 'better'. For example, Berkeley probably has better ties to engineering employers, has more extensive engineering resources, and has a stronger engineering brand name. These all connote to its being 'better' from an engineering standpoint.
But that's not to say that that necessarily makes Berkeley a better school to attend for engineering. Berkeley may be a better school to graduate from but not necessarily to actually attend. There's a subtle difference there. Like I said before, the major problem with Berkeley engineering (and other engineering programs, but not Caltech's) is that you can't freely change engineering majors. You can't just come in as, say, a ME student and then simply decide that you'd rather switch over to EECS. It's not that simple. You have to approved to switch over, and that is far from automatic. Plenty of people don't get approved and are therefore stuck in majors that they don't want.
So, sure, I agree, if you come into Berkeley as an ME student, and you never want to change, then you're probably better off than if you had gone to Caltech. But what if you do want to change? In particular, what if you want to change and are denied? |