#Berkeley EECS vs. UCLA CSE

32 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

rotund glade
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Schools: UC Berkeley and UCLA
Intended major: EECS for Berkeley and CSE for UCLA
Similarities: Both top tier UCs with a great focus on research. Berkeley has BAIR (Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab) and LA has the Statistical and Relational Artificial Intelligence (StarAI) Lab. My goal is grad school, so access to these research opportunities is vital. I’ll dip into industry for the summers. P.S. I don’t plan on living in the Bay Area post-graduation, I’m originally from LA.

UC Berkeley
School 1 Pros:

  • Academics. Has more prestige in stem (I mean they discovered 16 elements lawl)
  • Proximity to Silicon Valley
  • More prestige

School 1 Cons:

  • Safety. Berkeley has a higher crime rate.
  • Uber competitive nature. I hear getting into clubs is way harder here than UCLA.
  • More prevalent grade deflation

UCLA
School 2 Pros:

  • Great weather, architecture, and is in an affluent part of LA, it’s more safe
  • Closer to home (my parents can come visit more often) + guaranteed housing for 4 years
  • Still strong with machine learning research

School 2 Cons:

  • Less prestige for CS
  • Quarter System
  • (can’t really find a third con)

Tiebreaking considerations:

  • Cost. I will see how much aid I get for both schools.
brittle tiger
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Berkeley

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especially since youre doing grad school

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BAIR is top tier

haughty temple
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i think both schools are really good for cs/ai stuff, i would probably go with a school if they give you significantly more financial aid, and think about if there's a school you like more socially / the location because I don't think it's worth going to berkeley for the better research labs if you don't like where berkeley is at

rotund glade
haughty temple
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yeah if you like both schools about equally for social factors and other factors outside of academics, then you can choose the school you think has better academics

rotund glade
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Fit is probably more important huh because if i feel better at one school, even though it's "inferior," i'll still perform better if I am at a place that fills my heart

haughty temple
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just depends on how much you would be willing to trade off for social aspects vs like academics

haughty temple
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from my understanding, both have strong CS stuff, i mean berkeley is more famous for ai stuff, but you can see if you think UCLA research labs will still satisfy your desire for undergrad research

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idk if that makes sense

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hopefully that makes sense

rotund glade
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It does! I'll make sure to ask good questions on Bruin Day

haughty temple
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👍 yeah hopefully college visits will help with your decision making

rotund glade
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There's a block in Bruin Day dedicated for solely the engineering side of the school, there I can ask about the AI scene

willow hare
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berkeley

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out of the question

rotund glade
haughty temple
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idk man his answers are so unhelpful in the other threads lmao

willow hare
rotund glade
willow hare
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berkeley has wayy better computing resources and opportunities

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not to say UCLA is bad I'd choose it over any T20 CS school

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but berkeley is in the Big 4 of CS schools

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that any employer recognizes

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unless you don't like big lecture halls then thats a different point

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but I believe UCLA is also overcrowded if I'm not wrong

rotund glade
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big lecture halls is a shared characterisitc

willow hare
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so at that point doesn't matter all that matters is how much effort you go once you actually go there

rotund glade
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thanks for your input

brittle tiger
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If ur serious about grad school its Berkeley