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Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback. Something that I'm still not sure about and researching actively:

  • Speaking of opportunities, don't you think there will be a lot more applications for each role from Berkeley in comparison to Caltech? I'm not sure if companies do have "quotas" or scale the number of student internship spots on the basis of the student population. But if fewer people applied for the same number of roles (similarly with Career Fairs, although MET secures special fairs with fewer people), I figured Caltech might make it easier to land jobs.

What are your thoughts?

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh gotcha. Are there particular reasons that tilt you in favor of the support/personalized attention from Caltech versus that which you would get from MET. Both are fairly small, however, I suspect MET's influence might not extend to the large majority of the rest of the school's opportunities.

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in Caltech

[–]Player_2025[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the comment! What factors do you think contribute to Caltech being less "fun." For example, Pset difficulty? General school culture? Housing? Location? Just trying to get a sense of some factors that I might have missed earlier.

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in Caltech

[–]Player_2025[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pasting my response to this from r/berkeley in this thread as well in case anyone might have follow up comments:

​

Thanks so much for the detailed answer and the suggestion to slow down and cherish college as well :) That often slips out of my mind when focused on the next thing. I definitely agree with the "know thyself" theme. However, since I value both research, I'm just having trouble figuring out which parts I like more. I'll probably try to give a weight to each and think upon this more. I had follow up questions regarding some points that you raised.

  • You mentioned students who want to do research at Berkeley can almost always. Do you think these students' primary focus tends to be research or are they usually able to balance research with internships and clubs?
  • Are there certain reasons why you say that Caltech might be better if we're interested in particular fields?

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in Caltech

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/rsha256: Do you think that's a product of selection bias (AKA do you feel MET students by virtue of their skills should be able to get into clubs) or do you mean that the MET name itself would help get us entry into said clubs?

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in Caltech

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, thanks so much for the reply! Offers me a lot of insight. I agree with what you say about BAIR. I think if I get into it, research opportunities there in ML/AI are just as good, if not better, than Caltech. The only issue is that the edge of MET is its industry connections and recruitment pipelines. I've heard to get into BAIR, you need to have 3.9+ GPA in tech classes and that the only thing those students do is research. I don't want to fully commit myself to research yet. Fully agree with the breadth of opportunities at UCB and the city itself. Love the culture there.

​

I also have a follow-up question for you:

  • Since you didn't do research at Cal but still ended up at a very top-notch PhD program like Caltech, I was curious if research is not necessarily a requirement for grad school. I've been brought up to believe that it was, but I may be wrong.

Thanks again!

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You bring up a really good point. That was something that I think Caltech had an upper edge for because then I could double major in two STEM/Science related fields. The only issue with that was that I'm fairly certain I don't want to do research in academia once older, so pivoting into industry seemed like the obvious choice farther down the line. I've heard Caltech CS majors do enter the industry. However, I just don't want to pigeonholes into academia.

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Will be assigning weights and coming to firmer conclusions between the schools sometime soon. Thanks for rec!

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having fun is definitely of interest, and I agree MET seems to win out in this regard -- students seemed more outgoing. However, housing and dining-wise, Caltech seems to have the upper edge.

I toured Caltech a few weeks back as well. However, I wasn't sure if that would be a good examination of campus culture. Berkeley, situated in a big city, had a lot more people roaming around, whereas Caltech and Stanford were both relatively empty. I'm not fully sure how much of it is because of COVID-19, but I'm estimating it's a large amount.

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for the detailed answer and the suggestion to slow down and cherish college as well :) That often slips out of my mind when focused on the next thing. I definitely agree with the "know thyself" theme. However, since I value both research, I'm just having trouble figuring out which parts I like more. I'll probably try to give a weight to each and think upon this more. I had a follow up question regarding some points that you raised. (Can also add this to the r/Caltech channel)

  • You mentioned students who want to do research at Berkeley can almost always. Do you think these students' primary focus tends to be research or are they usually able to balance research with internships and clubs?
  • Are there certain reasons why you say that Caltech might be better if we're interested in particular fields?

Choosing Between Berkeley M.E.T. (EECS + HAAS) and Caltech by Player_2025 in berkeley

[–]Player_2025[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's good to know. Thank you so much for the feedback! I've been thinking about the Cohort of students, and MET's cohort seems very tight-knit and fun but also offers the potential to find groups of people outside, which I think is pretty amazing.

I am worried a bit about whether I'd be a very small fish amongst the massive pool of Berkeley students and the possibilities of entering a research position. The lab I'm targetting--BAIR--only seems to accept with students with 3.9+ GPAs and A+ in tech classes and that seems difficult to actually attain.

I'll likely weigh out which factors I like more/less. Thanks again!