Don't Have Money for Berkeley

@fragbot I hope to combine my undergrad with a marketing grad degree, I just want some technical background. Which major (systems/industrial) would provide that? Or is there an even more suitable major?

I haven’t waded in here yet but thought I will in case it gets locked soon. :wink:

OP, you are handling this meandering thread very well, it’s the CC way I guess. I do think it would help you a lot to take calculus over the summer at community college. Lots of kids do it and I think it would help once you got to college.

I’ve posted in 2 different threads about a friend of my D’s who has a 6 figure debt. She’s really struggling with her debt. My D who has no school debt is finding this year really hard for her financially. It’s a long story but she needed to move last year after she broke off a 5 year relationship. Anyways, the apartment she moved into is just too expensive and her utilities were more than she expected. She’s had to dip into her savings 4 different months this past year. Tonight she’s looking at a less expensive apartment because she can’t keep doing this.

She’s an engineer making a good salary with no school debt. Imagine if she had debt. Her friend is paying $1200 a month in school debt. Imagine that for 10 years. It’s hard enough when life throws you roadblocks it’s harder when there is a crushing debt.

D went to a selective U with a big price tag. She had another friend who came from a great IB program. She struggled a bit with the math and decided to drop from the engineering program. But her parents couldn’t afford the second year. Things worked out ok, she went to community college and then transferred to her state flagship. But she spend an extra year getting her degree. And her parents were on the hook for the expensive first year.

Good luck to whatever you decide to do. I personally would really consider a gap year and applying to school that are more feasible money wise. Especially as the state flagship isn’t what you want and you want to leave Hawaii. A gap year gives you so many more options than the ones you have now.

I hire statisticians all the time and they do NOT need an undergrad degree in “statistics”. They can be math majors (which I’d be surprised is not an option at virtually every college in America), they can be econ majors with a concentration in any of the data sub-topics (e.g. econometrics) any branch of engineering with a solid sequence in statistics, modeling and programming, or they can be any social science (psych particularly) with a Master’s with heavy experience manipulating large datasets.

Personally, I feel a Systems Engineering degree has limitations as an undergraduate field, and feel a detailed knowledge about some subset is important before trying to grasp the whole. Honestly, I kinda feel that way about OR as an undergraduate topic too.

I suspect IE is a perfectly acceptable precursor to marketing. Depending on what IE electives are offered and which you take, it might fit very nicely. But those decisions are years away yet.

MBA does not require any specific undergraduate major, although many MBA programs prefer applicants with post-BA/BS work experience.

For industrial/systems engineering, some colleges do offer operations research and similar advanced level electives (or a within-major concentration option) under their math or statistics departments. Obviously, this would not be an ABET accredited engineering degree, but it is not obvious that this would be needed for your eventual goals. https://www.informs.org/Resource-Center/Operations-Research-Programs/O.R.-Educational-Programs/ORMS-Educational-Programs-in-the-U.S is a list of majors and within-major concentrations in operations research, though those within business schools are likely to be less technical than those within engineering divisions or math/statistics departments. The list also is not complete since there are some (e.g. UCB ORMS) that are not listed (though UCB IEOR, which runs the ORMS major, is listed).

Unfortunately, it looks like UH does not have much in the way of operations research courses. Two are listed in the math department, but have not been offered from 2012-2017: http://math.hawaii.edu/wordpress/courses/ and http://www.catalog.hawaii.edu/courses/departments/math.htm . UH does have some higher level probability and statistics offerings.

Post #575

If that is true, and if you cannot get Rochester to significantly increase aid, and if your parents are determined to send you to the mainland for college no matter what the cost - then UW would probably be the better option once you also factor in travel costs. There is an inexpensive commuter rail line that goes straight from the Seattle airport to the campus - no need for Uber – so simply getting to/from campus will be a lot easier and probably must lower airfare. (I still think its nuts to borrow so much for UW – I’m just saying that if 4-year costs are are about equal, you and your twin would probably be happier at UW, as long as you are willing to pursue alternate majors if you can’t get into your first choice. And you do need to factor in travel costs as well as clothing purchases, even if the school isn’t including those in it’s COA estimates.)

Post #617:

Again, it doesn’t have to be 4 years at UH. It can be one year at UH and then transfer to a WUE school, of which there is a very long list of options. And as I have said, that one year at UH can be spent beefing up on the math/science courses that you weren’t able to complete in high school, and earning transferable course credit.

Systems/industrial engineering are certainly strong complements to a marketing degree. That said, there are numerous other majors that will be equally complementary. Applied math can be strongly technical (see https://sites.math.washington.edu/acms for an example; note: it’s a competitive major with a ~30% admittance rate). Similarly, operations research and statistics will also have related coursework and I could see an economics department with a strong econometrics focus as an interesting choice as well. When I responded to you originally, I hadn’t thought to include physics but I just remembered one of my colleagues who specializes in process improvement has a physics degree.

My only point on the SEA-HNL flight costs is that over time, times 2, there is a rather large difference between $2,400 annually/$9,600 for the 4 years and $14,400 for the same if the budget is off. For some, another 5K over 4 years is not a big deal. For many, it might kick a school off the list as hitting some family tipping point.

Either way, the better the initial budget (and conservative is always better in my book), the better the end planning will be. Under budget, and if taking loans (and you under borrow) one could be literally stranded without a flight home.

Not seeing that happening here but still, the more accurate the better in my book.

Performing at Orvis is great but gives you no information about your fields of interest at UH.

Once you and twin sit down with mom and dad to figure out how much they are willing and able to contribute each year for 4 years for each if you, you can start to figure out what is financially possible for the two of you.

@sushiritto: I said saving your powder dry for a prestigious business masters made sense.

To the OP: I completely understand: When I was 17, 4 years was an eternity to me as well.

BUT you don’t need to stay in HI all 4 years if you attend UH. You could go on National Student Exchange (some good STEM schools on there like UMTC and Stony Brook and I think New College of Florida is a gem, but I don’t know how acceptable their classes are to transfer back) or you could study-abroad.

You may not be able to do engineering if you pick those options, but honestly, applied math or stats would be just as good for someone aspiring to enter marketing.
And as I mentioned, in I’m in favor of keeping your powder dry for grad school.

Even though commuting from home for another year doesn’t seem that appealing at 17, if you do that and can keep costs close to zero, you could have enough to cover NSE and study-abroad years and still have enough left for a prestigious Masters (which IMO is the most important thing).

Okay so I asked mom more about our monthly budget and such and these are estimates but it’s more than what I knew

So my dad’s current income is $11,000, but after tax it’s closer to $6,000. His pension is $6,000. He pays $4,000 for the house every month, $2,000 alimony, and after insurance, utility, and food bills…
Mom says we can definitely fund $3000 out of salary per month. Probably more if they somewhat pennypinch, up to $4,000, but $3,000 out of salary is for certain possible. So I think around $40,000 per year out of salary is do able. Divide that by two, it’s $20,000 for the each of us.

@blossom Thank you I’ll pass along the info to my sister :slight_smile:

@eandesmom I will be sure to calculate the travel costs as well

@fragbot I was also looking that the human centered design and engineering major at UW. Does that sound okay with a marketing degree?

@PurpleTitan I see, I would definitely like to do something of that sort if I go to UH. But I think I might just wait to get my masters because I don’t want my parents to fund that

Has dad agreed to 40K a yr from his salary? Mum doesn’t seem to really have had any say before now (outside of her slush fund).

@Sybylla He will be back Friday to confirm but I think he will if he can spare it

What is the net price of each school after subtracting scholarships and grants (not loans or work study)? There seemed to be various numbers thrown around that did not all match.

@jql2017:

Money is money. $100K from parents for an undergrad degree and you paying for a Master’s is no different than $40K from parents for an undergrad degree and $60K from parents for a Master’s. Except you probably save money the second way.

@ucbalumnus Both UW and UR are around 45k, Cal is of course still 63k

Right, does it make any difference anyway?
There is a hole in my bucket.

@Sybylla Many students are in your situation, especially OOS ones. That’s why few OOS students with significant financial need attend. Your only other hope is to win one of the big external scholarships, but it’s too late for this year. I suggest you look elsewhere.