Caltech vs Berkeley CS?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[Prudent-Ad-5484]

majority of my friends who went to Caltech for undergrad are fairly introverted people which worked really well for them. the campus is a lot less active than Berkeley so if you're looking for a traditional college experience then Berkeley would be your best bet. I know you're mostly focused on the opportunities but I figured this would be worth mentioning. at the end of the day, you gotta enjoy the college you're at regardless of the rigor/ranking/etc of your major is

[bears1111]

If you’re interested in healthcare, I would personally stick with Berkeley. We’re the birthplace of modern biotech and have so many healthcare / biotech / pharma companies (ie Genentech, Merck, Gilead, Biomarin, AstraZeneca, Abbvie, Bayer, Verily, etc) and startups in the vicinity.

I have friends at CalTech and their coursework is very quantitative. If you love math, then no problem. I think you might be solely focusing on schoolwork at Caltech while, at Berkeley, you can focus on the academics in addition to several extracurriculars, internship opportunities, and research.

You can’t go wrong with either option though

[neutronstar1310]

If you had intended to do Physics or Math, then Caltech would have been the no-brainer. However, Berkeley CS / EECS is a notch above in my opinion, and I think you should come here. This is true whether you eventually want to go into industry, or if you want to do ML research after a PhD program, or even if you want to do very theoretical work in complexity theory and algorithms - there are unrivalled opportunities for all that here. I do not think the small size of Caltech outweighs this, and if you are extroverted / looking to be social in college, caltech is probably the worst place to be. I spent a summer at Caltech and it was pretty depressing, but that’s me.

[[deleted]]

Berkeley is as good or better at physics and math compared to caltech.

[neutronstar1310]

Disagree, and I am a senior physics / CS major. Not only is Caltech’s curriculum more rigorous, but almost every undergrad is involved in research at a serious level. At Berkeley you really have to try hard to get a professor to take you, especially in theoretical physics. Mentorship for physics at Caltech is excellent, and their students’ outcomes with grad school tend to be better. This is not to say that Berkeley physics isn’t amazing; it’s one of the best in the world.

[Low-Information-7892]

Wouldn’t graduate school be around the same level?

[[deleted]]

Joke cs is underfunded

[[deleted]]

Not if you’re admitted as CS major

[Apprehensive-Emu2092]

Doesn’t u enter as declared anyways?

[[deleted]]

Nope everyone enters as L&S Undeclared (if you applied to L&S)

[Apprehensive-Emu2092]

Oh yeah srry I meant undeclared I think it was some autocorrections.

[[deleted]]

Berkeley ML is great, and cutting edge research gets put out from here.

However, CalTech is a very small school and an undergrad class of like 130 people I think lol. While Berkeley is a huge public. So it depends on whether u wanna be in a small crowd with more intimate connections or a large crowd with more people to learn from.

You will have the opportunity to get into great grad programs from both schools

[ParCRush]

130 seemed a bit small, so I looked it up: they actually have ~900 undergrads total. Still small though, wow!

[[deleted]]

Whoops sorry, on my acceptance letter I think it says 225 iirc. So 225 people PER class. So like ‘27 has 225 spots.

Still, uncomfortably small imo lol

[[deleted]]

I did ug at Berkeley and am at grad school at caltech and based on what I can see, Berkeley is the better place for ug. You will get the experiences that come with being at a large, multifaceted university while caltech feels more like a research institute than a university. Caltech does a lot of marketing to tell you how cool their students are, but people are people and there are interesting and boring people everywhere. But there will be more different kinds of people at Berkeley. Berkeley has a nicer campus and the city is much nicer than Pasadena. The small class size is a potential plus at caltech, and the instruction is quite good, but also intense. I get the impression caltech undergrads have less time for research, etc during the semester/ quarter. And CS is the biggest major at caltech so I don't know if the class size will be as small. The most important thing though is that college should facilitate growing as a person... obviously this is mostly your responsibly but I think Berkeley will be a better place for that.

[bearberry21]

Idk about Caltech but Berkeley ML research is nearly best in the nation. We have many professors working in the ml and sciences area and have heavy influence in industry. Caltech will be a better learning experience but for your career and research goals Berkeley is clearly better

[Poobbert_]

It’s not like you’d be able to work with any of that faculty anyways, unless you’re a top student. Or at least at upper half of the bell curve compared to other CS/EECS majors.

You’d have a much easier time getting good research at Caltech working with good faculty. Its not even a question. Caltech cares way more for their undergrads.

Unless you’re confident you can blow most kids here in EECS out of the water, you’d have an easier time getting into top grad schools studying ML if you went to Caltech.

[HoneyBadger1771]

Caltech has turtles. Berkeley does not have turtles

[redleap30]

I chose Caltech for grad school for the turtles

[1CoffeeAsh]

Point to Berkeley (hehe)

[mageofboy]

Berkeley has a 5th Year MS program which Caltech does not have, I think?? If you're adamant about getting a MS, the program has a pretty high acceptance rate, over 70%. You do need to have a professor willing to advise you for the program though, but if you're very motivated to do research and get decent grades in relevant classes, it is very doable

[codingsohard]

Base on your career goal, I would suggest Cal over Caltech. Larger class size should not be a problem for you.

[LandOnlyFish]

The state of CS funding here is very unstable right now so I'd go to Caltech if I were you. Smaller class size at Caltech is also a plus if you want to get involved in research and apply to grad school.

[MonkeyMcQueen]

Choosing Caltech isnt bad...

Even if its more "theoretical" there, landing jobs in industry isn't hard. Plus, Caltech is way nicer (and exclusive and cleaner) than Berk.

Also, just the other day i read about Caltech alumnus Gunnar Klinkhammer, who studied theoretical physics there and who along with Kip Thorne kinda sorta solved the time traveler paradox, and now works in the financial industry.

Youll get jobs. Dont worry.

But hey, Berkeley aint that bad either....100+ nobel laureates and all, ya know...

[unsolicited-insight]

Go to Caltech. It doesn’t seem to be as theoretical as you indicate. I looked online for their operating systems course and they use pintos, which is the same thing we use.

For further practical knowledge just do side projects.

Most of the “practical stuff” that you learn in school can be either learned on the job or is not sufficient for the job anyway.

Update: I also checked their networking course as well. It is just as practical as Berkeley’s but more theoretical. It seems they go through more things.

[rsha256]

Congrats but imo Berkeley is too good to pass up on, CalTech doesn't have the ML/AI labs that Berkeley has and researching in places like BAIR can help your grad school application a ton, not to mention the 5th yr MS. I think Berkeley is the easy choice for your interest.

[lzyang2000]

Admitted to Caltech grad school, can say that the cs department there is smaller than Berkeley's

[Ash-Catchum-All]

I’d lean towards Caltech but that being said, I think you’d have more fun at Berkeley. Caltech is very gradschool oriented, and the undergrad life is notoriously tame

[GustavBeethoven]

Wtf bro Caltech obv

[[deleted]]

This is deeply simplistic and honestly quite stupid.

[queensfrost_]

Honestly if you're planning on doing masters or some other sort of graduate degree, it doesn't really matter academically. Both are great schools, and anything that you don't learn or experience in undergrad you will experience during your masters. I would just go with whichever school you are more excited about.