UC Berkeley vs Cornell vs Cambridge (UK) [for Physics related studies]

tamagotchi
Sun, 07 Apr 2024 15:09:10 +0000

Retro_C:

Engineering physics is more like applied physics with some engineering electives.

I’m not sure how it works at other universities, but at UCB, engineering physics majors take the same physics classes as pure physics majors (they’re not taking separate applied physics classes… was that what you meant?) They can swap in engineering classes (with related content) for some proportion of the physics ones, though.

I just typed several paragraphs explaining all the requirements in detail, but then it occurred to me that you probably don’t care so much about that, so I deleted

The bottom line, though, is that being admitted in engineering physics is advantageous, regardless of the OP’s ultimate interests. Being in engineering physics gives the OP access to everything in COE, and also CS classes, which are more difficult for L&S students to access. If the OP wants to go more in the applied direction in the future, being in COE opens up the possibility of switching to (or adding) another COE major if desired. If the OP decides they prefer pure physics, they would be able to switch to L&S without much difficulty and it should be fairly seamless, because the lower division math and physics are the same, and upper division physics classes are the same. Switching colleges in the opposite direction (L&S → COE) is more difficult.

Andygp:

UK studies usually are extremely focused on the major you choose with very little opportunity or requirement of diversity

Although this is true of many UK programs, the specific Cambridge program (Natural Sciences with an emphasis in Physical Sciences) is not as specialized and actually requires classes in other sciences. More discussion in the thread above.