<p>99/100 premeds aren’t going to take the same level math and physics courses at Berkeley that they would at Caltech even if they profess a desire to. It’s a lot harder to have a really good knowledge of courses far from your intended field of study and then have the motivation to take these courses knowing that you probably won’t know any friends in these courses.</p>
<p>In general, we’re often forced to take classes in diverse areas of science that we wouldn’t otherwise. If you had told me three years ago that I’d enjoy biology to the point that I focused my research on biological applications, I’d probably call you nuts. (I’m a EE). Yet I was surprisingly intrigued by the Bi1 class here at Caltech, at least enough to pursue the idea of EE applied to bio further. That probably wouldn’t have happened at Berkeley, as I would not have taken a bio class there.</p>