Undergraduate experience, opportunities, overall educational environment?

tamagotchi
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 15:28:52 +0000

He is taking EECS 16A (and will be in 16B in the spring), because he’s interested in electrical engineering. He likes the class, the teaching staff, and he has plenty of friends in EECS. The grading is not competitive (that is, it’s not graded on a curve). The EECS department also works hard to make the students’ experience more collaborative; they have a 1 unit course that goes along with 16A in which students are placed in study groups.

But he does have the impression that there is a stressful competitive edge to the atmosphere in EECS, that he does not feel is present in MSE or mech E. Perhaps this has something to do with the size or popularity of the major. He thinks that if Cal engineering in general has a reputation for being competitive in a negative way, it might be because of the experience of some students in EECS. Outside of EECS he feels that Cal engineering has a positive collaborative feeling.