Hello, I’ve been accepted to UCLA and CMU for Mathematics, but I need help deciding. Thank you.
Are you instate for UCLA? We need more info specifically about your relative cost of attendance and preference for weather, geography etc.
I’m international so I think the cost for either is relatively the same, although UCLA would be slightly cheaper. I do like UCLA’s warm weather and “social life” compared to CMU. So in terms of preference I’m leaning towards UCLA right now. But I’m wondering if CMU has a better math program. I’m planning to also get a minor in computer science or computation related and shift my focus to the more applied side of math, rather than pure math.
UCLA is an excellent university. Go where you will be happy to be for four years. Happy students do better than unhappy ones!
Can you do a minor in CS at UCLA? I see data science engineering and stats / data science but not CS.
I would just verify that but UCLA is a fine school (as is CMU).
Best of luck whatever you decide.
Have you visited either or both? In terms of social “fit,” UCLA would be a safer sight-unseen choice than CMU. CMU is a great school, but not everyone resonates with the “vibe” there, whereas UCLA is more of a “there’s something for everyone” type of campus.
Math-wise, CMU is more hard-core about the Putnam competition, if you’re into that aspect. But otherwise, you can find all the depth, breadth, and rigor you could possibly need, as a math undergrad, at either school. (And UCLA does have a Putnam team also - they just don’t tend to rank as high as CMU, which really recruits for this.) The UCLA math department has its own suite of programming classes (the PIC classes, for “program in computing”), so you wouldn’t necessarily need CS classes from the engineering school to get the equivalent of a CS minor. There’s a specialization within Math, in Mathematics of Computation.
If you were leaning toward CMU, I would equally encourage that choice… but no, there’s no reason you “should” choose CMU over UCLA, if you are feeling a better fit at UCLA. Congrats!!
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