Housing and Course Load

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
1

Hi guys, I was recently admitted as a MechE major and have a couple of questions regarding life at Berkeley.

  1. I can’t decide between Foothills and Unit 3. I value, in no particular order: proximity to classes, excellent and convenient food, dorm size and social atmosphere, visual appeal and amenities.

  2. How feasible is it to simultaneously major in MechE (CoE) and Economics (Hass). Would I be able to get sleep, have free time, or attend social events by double majoring?

  3. Is there a cap on the amount of data I am allowed to used with AirBears and the REsidential Wifi?

2

Haas doesn’t offer a major in Economics, only Business Administration.

3
  1. Foothill wins on dorm size, visual appeal, and amenities. Rooms are larger, there’s less chance of living in a triple, and you get a big common room that you only share with your suite of 8 people, as opposed to a floor. You also only share bathrooms with your suite as opposed to with a whole floor. In terms of visual appeal, Foothill looks like a ski lodge, the units look like high-rise apartments. Foothill Dining Commons supposedly has better food, though I’ve never been to Crossroads or Unit 3 DC to find out whether that’s true.

Unit 3 wins on Social atmosphere, or at least, that’s the common consensus. I still think that foothill gets too much flak for being quiet and nerdy, I had a great time there. It probably just depends on your suitemates. Unit 3 is closer to the frats, Foothill is closer to most co-ops.

Proximity to classes and food are is a bit of a wash - Foothill is closer to engineering, math, and science classes, Unit 3 is closer to most other classes. I might count that as a win for Foothill since you’re going to be taking a lot of math and science as a first-year engineer. While Downtown / Gourmet Ghetto have better food than Southside, the walk from Foothill to those places is longer than the walt from Unit 3 to Southside food.

  1. As @briank82 said, Economics is in L&S, not Haas. Doing a simultaneous degree program between Econ and Mech E would be very challenging, but doable. I would only recommend it if you’re coming in with enough AP credit to get out of several intro courses, so that you can finish Econ 1, Stat 20, and Econ 100A/B or 101A/B by the end of your second year and still be on track in MechE.

  2. When I was in Foothill (two years ago), the rescomp cap was 40 GB per week. No cap on Airbears to my knowledge.

4

Note that simultaneous degrees of ME and economics would also require fulfilling both CoE and L&S breadth requirements, which differ.

It is probably better to just take economics courses of interest for your H/SS courses (at least 4 required beyond reading and composition courses) and free electives (looks like there are 2 in the ME curriculum; see http://engineering.berkeley.edu/academics/undergraduate-guide/academic-departments-programs/mechanical-engineering ). You may get effectively more free electives if you have AP credit that covers some frosh-level courses (see http://engineering.berkeley.edu/academics/undergraduate-guide/exams-ap-ib-level-and-transfer-credit-information ).

Note that the economics department considers a score of 4 on both AP economics exams to be equivalent to ECON 1. If you have that, then you can go straight into upper division economics courses like 101A and 101B once you have completed the math prerequisites for those courses.