Decisions, Decisions ~ UCB vs HMC

AxolotlLover
Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:12:00 +0000

Givens:
-I’m definitely (~99%) sure I want to go into STEM, probably engineering of some sort.
-Accepted RD into both UC Berkeley (MSE) and Harvey Mudd College (unspecified major)
-At the moment, I want to go to grad school (either for an MBA or further work in STEM), preferably at UC Berkeley, and settle down in Silicon Valley. How does UCB stack up against Mudd for grad school prospects? HMC touts its figures but UCB Career Center doesn’t provide much data.
-Career prospects (call me naive LOL): Probably industry (NASA? ;D) , or (less likely) college professor at a research university (I love research and teaching but the K-12 public school system really disheartens me)
-$30k/year at Berkeley; $60k/year at Mudd. No aid from either, and I don’t expect to stumble upon any Nobel prizes in the next three weeks.
-Interested in humanities. Can’t live without music. I currently play cello at a very high level (for a non-major, that is), and I need musical opportunities to stay sane.
-Live about an hour south of UC Berkeley.
-If I go to Cal, I will probably (>50%) do a joint major in MSE/EECS.
-If I go to Harvey Mudd College, I will probably (>50%) major in Engineering (only a general engineering degree) while trying to develop a strong CS background, just because everybody in Silicon Valley loves CS.
-Personally, I think I will enjoy any hard science major roughly equally.

The Question: Cal vs Mudd? I know I’m supposed to make my own decision, but I’d appreciate some thoughts on both sides of the issue. Any thoughts on the majors I mention? I hear many good things about Berkeley EECS and Berkeley Chem, and less things about Mudd’s individual programs but many good things about Mudd engineering as a whole.