There certainly are students that need to rush through and help family and siblings, so graduating with the minimum requirements is an option. Don’t forget, however, that when u do graduate u will be competing with students who are not only adept with technology but are also fluent with the ethical, legal, and moral implications that technology brings with it. At Most leading tech companies today, being great with code is table-stakes, how u r able to differentiate yourself in the market calls for more.
I would like to update everyone on this thread that I’ve committed to UC Berkeley! I decided that the lower price, priority placement I’d get with Regents, proximity to Silicon Valley, and possibility of a 5 year Bachelors/Masters outweighs the prestige I was seeking with MIT.
Thank you all for your input and advice. I’ll probably be looking back on your responses in the months leading up to Berkeley and even during my time there. In the five days this thread has been open, it’s exploded into 150+ messages that have shaped my priorities on college and what I’m looking for. You’ve educated me on everything from FAANG recruitment to business school, and I am so grateful.
With respect to graduating early, here are some stats for UCB, related to its 2010 cohort (the UC needs to update things as closer to 2020’s):
– 4% of the class graduated in the 3.0-3.5 years. Hopefully it’s higher now for all UCs.
– Units taken at the University, 152 (converted from semester to quarter), so 101.33 semester units. So approximately 19 units of college credit.
– Average gpa, of this subcohort, 3.61, the highest of five, with diminishing grades the longer it takes to graduate, which is of course, concomitant with intuition.
If expediency in graduating from Cal is a factor for $30k, then why is MIT, at $140k more than 4 years at Cal still under discussion???
As for “filler” classes, they don’t have to be. More advanced coursework adds to your employability in a substantial way.
You also need to plot out the curriculum with all the prerequisites tied together and see if you can even get out in 3 years. My son couldn’t even though he started with lots of hours, well advanced in math and physics, with his chemistry requirements completely covered by DE. He only had 15 hours left 4th year, the bulk of it senior project.
Sorry, @eyemgh . . . let me add before @ucbalumnus adds his pertinent remarks, that a lot of the early graduates aren’t from E/CS; they’re probably from social sciences, etc.
Congratulations!
Based on #146, it looks like if the OP takes only 6 semesters at UCB, she will have 6-7 completely free elective courses (out of about 24 taken in 6 semesters) beyond the minimum requirements for the degree, so she can certainly choose to increase both technical depth and course work in ethical/legal/moral/social implications of technology beyond the required course work in both areas. If she takes 7 or 8 semesters, that increases the free elective space for such courses (or other courses) even more.
In https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/ug-outcomes , the cohort years are the frosh entry year. So 2010 is the latest year for all lengths of graduation, since it goes up to 7+ years (which seems to mean 7-8 year).
The latest cohort for which 3 year graduation rate is available is the frosh entering in 2015, with a 4.5% rate for UCB.
@penguin2 do you have insider’s knowledge that you were awarded the Regents’ scholarship already or are you just planning to win it? Lol. My daughter is deciding between Cal (with/without Regents) and CMC, so similar financial issues. Either way I’m sure both of you are going to do great things in the future!!!
@ucbalumnus . . . ^^^, right, but I wanted to highlight the gpa aspect, which diminishes the longer one stays. Perhaps the 3.19(?) gpa at five years might be where most of the E-types live.
https://pages.github.berkeley.edu/OPA/our-berkeley/gpa-by-major.html has average GPA by major at UCB (based on graduation year). For the most recent year that is listed (2018-2019) for CoE majors and closely related L&S majors, and CoC chemical engineering:
3.66 L&S Operations Research and Management Science
3.50 Environmental Engineering Science
3.47 L&S Computer Science
3.43 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
3.42 Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
3.40 Engineering Math and Statistics
3.36 Chemical Engineering
3.36 Mechanical Engineering
3.34 Nuclear Engineering
3.33 Civil Engineering
3.27 Engineering Physics
3.21 Materials Science and Engineering
3.14 Energy Engineering
Given that most engineering majors are more selective than UCB in general, it is unlikely that needing more than 8 semesters to graduate from frosh entry is much more common than for UCB in general. (Note also that the two related L&S majors are not more selective at frosh admission, but students need to meet a 3.3 (CS) or 3.2 (ORMS) college GPA in prerequisite courses to enter the major.)
Obviously, the slower graduates are more likely to have had academic difficulty, so it is not surprising that their GPAs are lower than those of faster graduates on average.
@ucbalumnus . . . much better, more detailed, and a better dashboard to obtain the number of graduates within each program.
For CS, Year: gpa, graduates,
2015-16: 3.27, 422
2016-17: 3.38, 557
2017-18: 3.42, 609
2018-19: 3.47, 706
706 graduates in 18-19; in 19-20, will there be 800?
And so much for grade deflation.
@KBTDPT Good point! *with or without Regents. Good luck to you and your daughter while choosing!
Note that the minimum GPA to enter the L&S CS major was 2.0 for a while (in the wake of the tech bubble crash – note that only 84 L&S CS majors graduated in 2009-2010, presumably having entered as ~2005-2006 frosh or ~2007-2008 transfers). Earlier this decade, it was raised to 3.0, then to 3.3, so that part of the grade inflation may be due to the increasing strength of students due to the higher GPA cutoffs.
Other majors showing large increases in enrollment:
Applied Mathematics: 100 → 314
Cognitive Science: 63 → 343
Media Studies: 90 → 254
Statistics: 73 → 227
Congrats to OP on making tough decision, hope it works out great !
FWIW, my D1 was much like OP, graduated a year early with max AP recognition and several college courses. could theoretically have graduated in two years. Somehow or other she managed to still take four !
@monydad Did she take 2 years of courses for her personal enjoyment, or to expand her knowledge in her field?
She did in fact get personal enjoyment from coursework/learning. She loves to learn. She audited several classes for no credit.And she obviously expanded the knowledge in her field(s), since she took no intro courses whatsoever.
Her problem was she chose an LAC and had some trouble scheduling the advanced courses she wanted in her later years there.
She completed a double major. Learned a (nearly) completely new language, thru advanced level, and took or audited advanced courses in her HS one to shore that up. . And I think the last semester she only took one course (an honors thesis), since she already had more than enough credits to graduate by then. She took a semester abroad, sophomore or junior year I forget, to work in a non-college sponsored internship, earning no courses or credits for it. Because she could. (And wanted to, obviously). I dont remember if that çounted within the four years or not. But it probably did.
But more existentially:
I think in part she was putting off what came next, because she didn’t know.
Her majors were non-vocational. She was very young when she started. She probably didnt think she was ready’to move on yet.
But one would have to ask her. If she knows.
Much of this may not apply to you, at all.
@penguin2 can arrange her course selection so that she retains the option of graduating in 6, 7, or 8 semesters and then decide later when to graduate, based on various factors (e.g. financial situation, whether she wants to take additional courses, and what the job outlook at the time is). I.e. if she completes all degree requirements by semester 6, then semester(s) 7 and 8 for additional course work are purely optional, and the decision can be made while in semester 6. There is no need to commit to a specific graduation date now.
she may be able to take summer course or two as well, especially the electives if they’re offered at a time (evening say) where she can work in the day if she gets an internship in the bay area.
I don’t know where I’ll be if I get a summer internship - maybe in Seattle for Microsoft, maybe in North Carolina for Cisco. But if I do end up in the Bay, I could take some electives during the evening.