Since you’re not into the Core and you have such great alternatives, I would consider this a choice between Berkeley and CMU. Personally I would lean towards MET for the opportunity to be a big fish in a big pond.
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@ucbalumnus thx…btw did you feel getting good research as an undergrad was a problem at berkeley or its relatively fine? if you cold email enough profs/phds.
Hi, could you elaborate….how met would help @Muu9
Also, is a business degree useful to have…in addition to eecs.
@Mwfan1921 From what I’ve seen the combo mainly leads to product manager jobs which I’m completely fine with but most students end up going swe anyways. So, was wondering how does the haas business degree help if most likely you’ll become an engineer anyways?
Your choice comes down to what you want to study and what type of career you want. It sounds like you don’t want business, so I’m not sure I understand why you applied to MET rather than an engineering or CS type major.
Have you looked at the curriculum at each of your schools and mapped out a four year plan? Which one appeals most to you?
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Yeah, I wouldn’t do MET if you are not excited about the actual experience of doing an undergrad business program. Some kids love it, but if that is not you, it isn’t a good use of your time.
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In fact available here is a sample four-year program of study for MET EECS (courtesy of the link another poster already provided above):
Obvious things to note: there are a LOT of business courses. Between the EECS courses and the business courses, there are very few other courses, I believe pretty much the bare minimum necessary to fulfill Cal’s gen ed requirements.
Again, that’s exactly what some kids would want. But not others!
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Bare minimum EECS courses, bare minimum business courses, and bare minimum general education courses (which are somewhat greater than those for just engineering or just business, which have different general education requirements). So no schedule space for additional electives in EECS, business, or anything else without adding more overloading into the schedule than there already is.
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Of course, dropping the business portion is always an option, and then the OP would be an EECS major with plenty of room for all the electives they might desire.
My son (EECS) and his friends in CS haven’t had any problem getting the research positions they wanted. I would guess that coming in as MET could only help?
MET is a double major program, with a business major added to an engineering major. It has a special application process and the students who are admitted are typically very strong, so it is considered an elite program. Many students apply to MET simply because of this perceived eliteness, and also because if an applicant doesn’t get admitted to MET, they are still considered for the standalone engineering major they selected.
From what I hear, many current EECS students at UCB are using the flexibility of the major to take some hardware classes and broaden their expertise. My son (hardware focus) says he’s seen a lot of software people (both EECS and CS) starting to join him in classes this year. I can’t compare this to CMU, though, since I’m not as familiar with their program.
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OP- I’ll just repeat again- you are likely heading back to your home country after graduating. So what happens to American students after graduating from one of these programs is not relevant to your situation. The value of an undergrad business program is highly localized.
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MET as the name itself implies is meant to combine entrepreneurial thinking with engineering depth and leadership to help students be founders and innovators. They do have a fellows program that has internships at startups.
Obviously not everybody who graduates uses both business and engineering knowledge to be founders. Some go into software, some go into business whichever interests them. The program does not have a lot of room to add engineering or business electives as it is essentially a dual major.
In my opinion, it is an attractive hedge against AI and I can see it being an even more popular major in the coming years.
@ucbalumnus Hi, sorry what did you mean? Like bare minimum and all - like do you mean to say we can take few business for example…like minimum requirements are less and you can choose more courses>
More like, you take the requirements, but have no space for additional electives beyond the requirements.
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Hi everyone!!
a) I wanted to know how much better and in depth is cmu’s curriculum compared to Berkeley. I know they are both top schools but is cmu’s cs education strictly in terms of course content and offerings that much more advanced, better, or in-depth than Berkeley. Or are they relatively similar to learn the important stuff?
b) If so, does that extra rigor and extra knowledge gained at cmu have any tangible impact for tech careers. Does it actually make you more skilled or intellectual for job prospects or make you a better coder or algorithm problem solver compared to some EECS graduate at Berkeley.
Note: although Berkeley is electrical engineering and computer science. I’ve heard the minimum EE requirements are very little and you can basically focus only on CS related courses. Pls correct me if I’m wrong in case the EE aspect does require significant part of the course load.
I would not worry about the general availability of advanced CS courses at Cal, but I also would not rely on hearsay to determine what a four-year curriculum could actually look like. Both schools provide ample information, including sample four-year study plans, to help you determine that for yourself. I would carefully study those.
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OP, I suggest spending some time online making a potential course schedule. You’ll need to know the general and major-specific requirements, but those can be found. If you really want to know which courses you’ll take, or at least could plausibly take, you’ll need to do this. Since you believe this is important, it would be worthwhile and will help to inform your decision.
In terms of CS instruction quality, I think the consensus seems to be that CMU and Berkeley are equals, more or less, and are absolutely first-rate. So I would not worry too much over their general CS reputations. For you to differentiate them academically, do go online and spend a couple hours building course paths… and hopefully one will be more appealing to you.
ETA:
Because you may not always get into the classes you want to – especially electives outside your major - it would be a good idea to identify a backup for each of your gen-ed elective choices. So if you choose, say, Medieval European History… maybe hold Ancient Egyptian History as its backup.
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