UCB CS Transfer

[ucbalumnus]

@lenocturne

Are you aware that the link you posted actually refers to both degrees and NOT only to L&S CS that you are defending so much?

Your claim is incorrect.

https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2014CompSci.pdf is specifically for L&S CS. EECS is on a separate page at https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2014EECS.pdf (yes, slightly higher average pay for 2014, but that does not mean the “BA in CS is nearly worthless”). The list of majors by division is at https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2014Majors .

Having been in the industry for a while, there are plenty of UCB L&S CS grads around, and no one cares about whether their major was L&S CS or EECS (unless hiring for EE jobs). The job ad writers may write BS, but they will not auto-reject someone with a BA.

@lenocturne

CS is a hip degree these days - everybody wants it, but not everybody understands physics, chemistry, and advanced math. So, how do we bring more CS students in? Right! We tell them that BA is just like BS, but with music and philosophy instead of physics and chem. Problem solved.

The L&S CS major is not new; it has been in existence for more than three decades.

@lenocturne

“Some students choose EECS because they feel that a B.S. degree is more prestigious than a B.A. This is not a good reason; any CS degree from Berkeley is prestigious enough! If, in addition to CS, you’re also interested in philosophy, or literature, or mathematics, or music, you should probably choose the L&S CS curriculum”.

Do you really believe that in a real world anyone would care about your interest in philosophy, when it comes to employing you as a software engineer/qa engineer/software architect/even DBA?

They largely won’t care about whether you take the extra physics, EE, or calculus 3 course that you say that you are getting a C or D in (in another thread) either. Except for specific applications of CS, someone hiring CS (L&S CS or EECS) graduates will mainly care how well you know your CS, which is based on what courses you chose, how well you did in them, and how well you can answer technical questions about what you should have learned.