I’ve narrowed down my college list to the last two options but I’m having trouble deciding between these two. I’m OOS for both schools so price would be around the same (parents will contribute to full price at either school). I was admitted as a bioengineering at Berkeley but I intend to double major or switch my major to EECS after my first year. At Michigan I can choose between a few options as students admitted to the college of engineering don’t get admitted by major. I’ve visited Umich several times and I do really like the campus, I will be going to Berkeley on Cal day. A big factor that I want to consider is career outcomes I believe berkeley might have an edge on this as they have the higher average salary after graduation. I have more questions about berkeley in general like:
How competitive is Berkeley are people really cutthroat?
Is finding housing a pain after your first year?
Is it hard to get the lower division classes that you want?
How safe is the campus (I’ve heard several negatives about this)?
Any input is greatly appreciated as I only have a few days to decide and I’m really torn about this decision.
You would have to double major, one can’t change their major to EECS.
Transferring Within UC Berkeley
Because of our competitive admissions process, it is rare for students already admitted to UC Berkeley to change their field of study to EECS. Students intending to apply to transfer into the program are expected to simultaneously complete degree requirements for their current major and the EECS program while earning a high GPA.
- Are you an Engineering Undeclared student? Meet with your ESS Adviser for more information
- Are you declared in another College of Engineering major? Change of Major information
Beginning Fall 2017, the College of Engineering stopped accepting change of college applications for any of the following: EECS major, EECS/MSE joint major, EECS/NE joint major.
Any starting salary differences are likely primarily explained by geographic averages/norms. California starting salaries are higher than those in the Midwest on average. Any increased salary likely doesn’t materialize into one’s wallet because of cost of living and tax considerations.
I will let those more familiar with exactly what is happening on UCB’s campus answer your other questions. In general, I find it difficult to recommend OOS students attend Berkeley, for many reasons including some of the ones you have touched upon (cost, competitive culture, housing, etc..)
Probably most of those stories involved pre-meds (bioengineering will share some classes with pre-meds) or the competitive secondary admission business major (until very recently when it became mainly direct frosh admit).
But similar conditions could exist elsewhere regarding pre-meds and majors with competitive secondary admission.
Going to UCB with intent to change to EECS is not a good idea, since the likelihood of being able to do so is very low. However, other CoE majors like IEOR and engineering math/statistics (as well as bioengineering) do have access to CS courses: Getting into CS Classes - EECS at Berkeley
Investigate how difficult it would be at Michigan to declare or change into your desired majors.
I’m going to address some of the experiences that my daughter’s friends and my neighbor’s daughter experienced who attended Berkeley.
It’s not that it is cutthroat, it is that there are so many strong, capable students at that university. You have to crank up your daily performance to keep up.
That industry wants people who can work together. So you will have group projects where it behooves every student, to put in their part. The atmosphere feels tense.
(Our daughter’s friends would visit her often at Davis to alleviate that feeling of stress and competition. They were initially shocked at how comforting Davis “felt”. They loved all of the restaurants, cafes and stores at Davis. This doesn’t mean that Davis students were any less capable, it just means that their students always look “happier”.)
As for future employment and pay, yes there are lots of companies in the Bay Area, as well as, the rest of California, that have to pay well. The cost of housing is insane. Hence, commutes can be long.
(FWIW: Our eldest attended SUNY-Buffalo and came back to SoCal to work for a huge engineering firm. My family has 3 EECS grads. Two of them conduct a lot of hiring interviews. Your internships and summer jobs are what will get you employed. My husband personally likes the CSU/ Cal Poly grads because of their practical applications and experiences.)
So, the instate student from CalPoly, is paying a lot less for that degree and is going to be making a similar wage as the student who is paying $320k for a degree.
As for housing in the Berkeley area, it’s expensive. You can find housing, if you’re willing to pay that price. Our neighbor’s daughter was fortunate in that she found a roommate to help cover the costs. The closer you are to the university, the more expensive the costs.
I know that a couple of our daughter’s friends were in the EECS major. I was always told that you had to be accepted into EECS and that you couldn’t change into that major.
From what I understand, the department was very strict about limiting the numbers of students because of the need to provide for the necessary and elite staff and student experiences.
Remember, that this is a public university funded by the California taxpayers, There is a limited budget for salaries. The issue is that any one of these professors could go to Silicon Valley, and be immediately employed, at a company that would pay them insane salaries with perks for them. The university has to keep them happy and corral the large numbers of students who want to “slip into” the department of engineering.
I’m sorry but I just can’t see a person paying $80,000 a year for the Berkeley name. It’s a great school and it has a great reputation but that’s a lot of money!
When you get your job, you’ll be seated across the office from that person who attended SUNY Buffalo or UC Davis, who is making the same, if not more of the same salary.
Difficulty of changing into a major is generally based on instructional capacity limitations. UCB EECS is already a large major with a large faculty, but demand is so high that it is completely full with direct admits at the frosh and transfer levels, and few students change out to other majors. Hence changing into it is difficult or not possible at all.
This is mostly but not entirely correct. CoE does admit to CS. After your UMich CoE acceptance, some days later you get an answer on CS if you applied at such.
FWIW my droids love life in Ann Arbor. One in LSA Honors, the other in CoE/CS.
This (direct admission to CS at Michigan) seems to be a relatively recent change, presumably due to CS enrollment reaching capacity under the old scheme where CoE undeclared students can freely declare CS (and other CoE majors) after passing the prerequisites with C grades.
Yes I believe it was 2 (or maybe 3?) years ago that UMich made this change.
That’s wonderful! Please give them a huge hug and a big thank you for financially supporting college at any cost. Some folks don’t do this even if they can!
To me, the big difference in these options is the town. Ann Arbor is noted by many as one of the best college towns in the country. So much to offer there and it’s a fabulous university. @ChoatieMom can perhaps elaborate.
Cal is a much more urban location.
Also…Cal has much milder winters. Ann Arbor has real winter.
What other things draw you to these colleges besides the academics? Look at those attributes.
I don’t see a dilemma here.
GO BLUE!
This is largely based on where graduates are most likely to find jobs after graduation. Silicon Valley has a very high cost of living, and associated with this typically has high salaries. Quite a few UCB graduates get jobs in Silicon Valley. If you graduate from Purdue or U.of Michigan and then get a job in Silicon Valley then you will still get a Silicon Valley salary (and I have a good friend who did exactly this, from Michigan to Sunnyvale). If you graduate from UCB and then get a job in the midwest, then you will get a midwest salary.
Any “top 100” ranked university will have a large number of very strong students. Any very highly ranked university (including Michigan or UCB) will have an even higher percentage of very strong students (pretty nearly everyone). Some of them will be cooperative. Some of them will be highly competitive. Some of them will be so academically strong that it will not even occur to them that you might be competition. This is just part of attending university.
If you are majoring in bioengineering then quite a few of your classes will overlap with premed classes, and the competition will be even stronger. There will be some quiet students who do not impress you much, but who get a 90 on that tough exam which had a class average in the 40’s or 50’s. Again this is just part of attending a good university. Very smart people will be more common than they are in high school (which is mostly a good thing).
OP - You can change your major to EECS from BioE. In fact lots of people do it from within COE. It’s not easy and you will need to take a heavy workload and meet strict GPA requirements but it’s feasible and routine.
As BioE, you will have pretty good access to all the CS courses so course availability shouldn’t be an issue for you regardless.
I would focus on the school environment and decide which one is right. If your heart is set on Berkeley EECS then Cal may be a good move but only you know your appetite for a moderate level of uncertainty.
I also wouldn’t put much credence to the competitiveness dynamic. Engineering majors at UMich and Cal are all competitive by nature and no matter which school you go to, you will be competing against these kids for the same sought out jobs and grad programs.
I think this might be a big factor as I can’t switch to CS at Umich. I truly think just for this one reason Berkeley will be more worth it since an EECS degree will open much more doors than BME. The only thing I’m reluctant about with Berkeley is the things outside of academics like the housing and safety etc.
I mean both of my options right now will cost around the same. I don’t see the point of talking about other school’s in this forum when I’m deciding between two right now.
Can anyone speak to these questions? Any input is greatly appreciated.
Is the link I provided from UCB above inaccurate? The one that says after 2017 there are no internal transfers to EECS?
You’re link is very accurate but the keyword is change of “College” this means you can’t switch from another school like L&S into EECS. It is still possible for students in the COE to switch into EECS or double major as long as they have a plan.
Those are for change of college applications from outside of COE like LEtters and Sciences. OP is already in COE with his BioE admit.
There are unsafe areas. Remember, it is Berkeley.
I don’t know how much has changed because I haven’t been there in a while, but there were a significant amount of homeless the last time I went.. My kids’ friends said that they just didn’t travel at night too much, or knew the areas that were “scuzzy”.
I don’t know if the city has changed their laws/charter about franchises in Berkeley. There are used to be a lot of independent restaurants and cafés there, because the residents did not want to be overrun with chains. Someone else on this thread can chime in about that.
I know that you have to travel out of the area to get to an In-N-Out Burger or similar.
Since you are considering two very different majors, BME and EE/CS, my vote would be for Michigan where you can take courses in both areas and you get an year to decide.
The change of major criteria at berkeley especially the “satisfactory academic progress”, seems vague to me (my personal opinion) and not worth the risk. But, Berkeley is an excellent choice, if you are happy with BioEngineering.
With the expected wide adoption of AI, CS jobs/internships are not easy to obtain as it was before. Anecdotal examples from 2018-2021 timeframes or earlier do not apply today. Luckily, you have excellent schools to choose from and you cannot go wrong as long as you work hard. Good Luck.