Hi everyone!
I just got off the waitlist at UC Berkeley, but it’s for the January semester, so I’m totally confused and have no idea what to do. I’m currently planning on majoring in Finance and Math/CS at UIUC. I definitely want to study math, and am not sure if I like CS or Finance more. I have a couple concerns about UCB and was hoping someone could give some advice.
Firstly, there’s the whole January admit thing. My dad says it’s not a big deal, but I’m a little worried about it. I’m not sure how I’d spend 4 months. I’m definitely not living at home, so I guess I could try to get an internship/job in Cali or do FPF. The problem with FPF is that I don’t really care about any of the classes they have at FPF, and I think I have most of the classes through AP credits anyways. So if I go, I’m gonna be wasting time, but if I don’t, I’m not gonna live in dorms and I feel like I’m gonna miss out on making connections, clubs, meeting people, all that stuff. There’s also some global edge program where you study in London, which I’m not sure is filled by fall admits or not, but either way it’s like FPF where I’m not going to get credits for any of the classes in my major.
My parents are mainly worried about the cost. It’s about 15k more per year to go to UCB. They said that if I’m planning on doing postgrad education (like an MBA or masters in mathematical finance/just math) then I shouldn’t spend the extra money (and there’s the whole grade deflation thing), but I also might just want a job in CS straight out of college, in which case I should go to UCB. In either case, I still want to go to a school with a great math program, and am not sure if UCB justifies the extra cost. Still, it does have the name recoginition and label a bit more than UIUC.
Lastly, I’ve heard of the stressful/depressing atmosphere at UCB. I’m totally okay with whatever workload (idk about the grade deflation tho) because spending 8 hours a day doing math and programming is still pretty fun for me. Still, I’m kinda a party guy and like to spend time just chilling or drinking and partying with friends, and dunno if UCB is gonna be too rigid and stressful for that.
Sorry if this is a lot of worrying, but I’m just looking for advice since I have to submit a SIR by Thursday and I’m completely torn between going to UCB and staying committed to UIUC. Thanks in advance for the help!