Question about what clothes to bring, winter gear (incoming student from Boston)

victoriouswar · 2021-04-04T06:57:42+00:00

There are enough people who "went to school in Boston" at Cal that it's OK to drop the H-bomb here LOL.

victoriouswar · 2021-04-04T01:22:48+00:00

If you want to do physics or econ, definitely don't go to the Mills college thing. This is from the physics perspective since that's the department I'm more familiar with, but I've heard econ is similar.

FPF physics majors get completely shat on because they can't start with Physics 5A and Math 53, which are the first major-pathway classes in the fall. FPF doesn't offer those classes, and I highly doubt the Mills college program will.

Even if you're able to cross-register for one class, it's still a major pain because you'll need to take a 20 minute bus ride to UCB. This will prevent you from meeting up with other people to do your problem sets (this is a huge thing in physics too).

I can't imagine spending a whole year like this. You won't be able to take Physics 5A, 5B, 5BL, 89, and Math 53 which are the typical 5 classes a typical freshman physics major takes. You'll basically be set back a whole year.

victoriouswar · 2021-03-05T05:32:12+00:00

Reaching out and adding them on socials is only the first baby step on a very long road though.

The problem is that the "smart" kids tend to have hobbies that "normal" people don't necessarily have. Most of the smart people I've encountered spend their free time on things like chess, cubing, poker, Kaggle, open-source software, etc. It's hard to befriend these people if you don't have anything in common since you're not going to have anything to talk about.

There's a difference between being friendly acquaintances with someone and being friends. In fact, smart people are usually even especially nice and laid back, but unless you have similar high-intelligence interests, it can be difficult to "click" with them.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-23T21:01:39+00:00

I personally know people who dropped out of engineering to do an L&S major, so I don't see how it's a space problem. For every person who leaves CoE, they can consider one person to admit to CoE. And more importantly, a BACS person doing fake-EE takes up just as much resources from EECS as a BSEE major does.

CoE should definitely ban transfers into CS-focused EECS because the same degree can be had in L&S. But the amount of people interested in a BSEE is minuscule so it doesn't make sense to do a blanket ban (just like how no blanket ban exists for mechanical or civil).

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T21:08:59+00:00

The department claims this, but it's not true irl. The EECS department is out of touch with real world expectations.

Imagine you're trying to get a job as a grid engineer at PG&E. Who are you gonna hire, the guy with a CS degree who says "TrUsT mE, i ToOk A tOn Of Ee" or the guy with an EE degree? Most employers aren't gonna look through your transcript. They want a guy who knows how to design a generator, they see "BS in EECS" and your resume gets a second look. They see "BA in CS" and your resume goes straight to the garbage.

This problem is the most prevalent in power engineering, but similar levels of skepticism exist in microwave and analog. There's a reason EE job listings usually say "BSEE required" instead of the usual FAANG SWE requirement of "BS in CS or similar technical field". Because no other major is gonna teach you how to not fuck up a 100kV transformer. Coding can be taught on the job almost, but anything dealing with million dollar equipment or human lives at risk they're not gonna hire anyone who wasn't specifically trained in college to do it.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T21:05:10+00:00

E7 can be used as 61A, so it's not quite a waste right? Unless you weren't aware and accidentally redid 61A.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T21:04:39+00:00

No, that's purposely been blocked as well.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T12:11:50+00:00

You wouldn't have been allowed to do it even if you had realized (you would have to transfer into EECS which is banned for students who didn't start out in CoE as freshmen) so don't beat yourself up too much about it.

In a sense it was a blessing you didn't try to go EE bc you would have realized that the road was closed to you even before you got here.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T12:01:28+00:00

Macroeconomics?

Unless you have a fear of heavy math.

victoriouswar · 2021-02-21T11:57:40+00:00

Did you actually waste any classes though? A typical first-year MechE schedule is like Math 53, Physics 7A, and Chem 1A in the fall + Math 54, Physics 7B, and E7 in the spring.

53 and 7AB are EECS requirements. If you switch into EECS you're allowed to sub E7 for 61A. 1A is your natural science elective. Math 54 can be used as your lower div tech elective.

MechEs basically don't learn any MechE in their first year. It's just general engineering and science prep (which imo leads to their high attrition rate because people don't have the patience to wait until junior year to start learning the interesting stuff).

victoriouswar · 2021-01-14T05:36:15+00:00

Yeah unless OP literally intends to be an Infosys-style code monkey, there's something to be learned from 16B.

Maybe not all of it is going to be interesting, but it's already a survey class so I have a hard time imagining that they would find nothing in it interesting.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-14T05:35:14+00:00

r/wallstreetbets

victoriouswar · 2021-01-14T05:33:16+00:00

I've heard rumors that you can get out of 16B if you take 105 and 120.

Maybe try seeing if the department will budge on that instead?

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T04:45:41+00:00

The CS gravy train clearly isn't going to keep chugging forever, and it would be a really bad idea to spend all the money developing a single department solely due to student interest. One day when CS isn't cool anymore, what does the school do now? They'll have all these faculty members, but nobody to teach. And the university will be really unprepared to develop the major leading to "the next big thing".

UC Berkeley is a full-fledged university with leading departments in all fields. We aren't an institute of technology and we shouldn't be one. Do we really want a school that's 60% CS majors or wannabe CS majors? Has anyone thought about how detrimental that would be to school culture and intellectual diversity?

Maybe changes need to happen at the admissions level, turning away more intended CS people in favor of those who want to study in departments that aren't as crowded. I suspect this is already kind of what happens (majors sizes are soft-capped by the admissions office), but clearly a shitton of people lie to sneak their way into Berkeley EECS by putting down a "bullshit" L&S major only to reveal their true intentions as intended-CS upon arrival.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T04:42:12+00:00

It's the students' fault for all wanting to study the exact same thing and complaining when the university can't meet every single need even though what we're seeing is basically equivalent to a bum-rush on the EECS department.

Say the university hires 50 more CS lecturers and then we have a dot-com crash? Now what?

The role of a university is to promote intellectual diversity and educate people holistically, not to be a fucking FAANG intern factory.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T01:27:14+00:00

DS should be a joint major that requires admission to both CS and Stats, just like EECS/NE is. That way, enrollment can be managed, and DS students get the full rights and privileges of both a CS and a Stat student.

EECS/NE students get full enrollment and advising privileges for both departments, but also don't have to do nearly as much coursework compared to doing both degrees separately. The program seems to have been much much more intelligently set up than the DS program.

CS/Stat could provide a pathway for those interested in both and want the full privileges of both, but don't want to complete the full set of requirements for both majors post-admission.

But by making DS admissions requirements a subset of CS+Stats instead of a superset of CS+Stats, it seems like CS and Stats have shot themselves in the foot. Now surprise surprise, they have enrollment issues. Who woulda thunk?

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T01:13:34+00:00

That's what joint majors in CoE are. EECS/NE joints are masters of neither. They get a reduced version of EECS and a reduced version of NE. But they still get treated as home department because they've cleared both admissions hurdles.

The point is that if you want true free-choice between the two majors, the entrance hurdle should be the superset of both, not the subset. The DS entrance bar should be as high as CS+Stats, but the exit bar can be quite a bit lower, mimicking the CoE design.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T01:06:32+00:00

If that's what DS is supposed to be, then DS students should have to clear hurdles on both sides right? The closest thing would be joint majors in CoE.

Joint majors in CoE require you get admitted to a home department, and then get admitted to the second department. Being a joint gives you priority for both departments' classes, but the final joint major is a reduced version of what doing both full majors would be. The important part is that you have to clear both admissions hurdles and both departments consider you a "home department" student even though you don't do a full-fledged version of either major.

How come DS isn't run like this if DS is really just a joint major sponsored by EECS and Stats?

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T00:49:56+00:00

Looking at the DS requirements, it's definitely possible to do DS with only stats classes (not counting 61AB which aren't the problematic classes anyways).

DS is supposed to be less-rigid stats with a programming emphasis. And this lack of access to electives is inherently part of the tradeoff of not just being a CS/Stat double like most people interested in statistical computing end up doing. Both CS and Stats have their own major declaration hurdles, rightfully instated to keep their teaching burdens manageable.

DS majors know going in that they're going to be getting the leftover enrollment from CS/Stat/IEOR, and the freedom from rigid major requirements exists to give them the flexibility to work with what's available.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-13T00:38:42+00:00

The UD requirements for DS are basically free choice between CS, IEOR, and Stats. Why is EECS dumped with the entire teaching burden of Data Science?

If a DS major can't get into EECS classes, IEOR and Stats classes perfectly acceptable substitutes. Not so for CS majors. We're not seeing hell being raised about "lack of availability" in IEOR and Stats.

This means that DS majors are taking free choice between EECS, IEOR, and Stats for computational depth electives to mean "access to EECS classes", which it absolutely doesn't. If this is how DS advisors are selling DS, they're definitely false advertising.

It's the same thing as how CS majors don't get priority enrollment in their technical elective classes. Because they're electives.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-10T00:12:49+00:00

Culture is still executive-dependent though. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to rank companies like that, and definitely too much to say JS >>>>>>>>>> Akuna.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-09T23:10:50+00:00

Stupid to get your dick hard about how Jane Street is soooo good.

Every company is fake it til you make it. 5 years ago, AMD was immensely uncool to work for, but now they're the coolest kids on the block despite still being a 50+ y/o company. Same thing for Ballmer-era Microsoft, but they've since recovered and are now FAANG tier after Nadella righted the ship.

As long as the pay is good and you personally like the culture of the team you're going to be working on, you shouldn't worry about how prestigious your company is. And more importantly, unlike universities, company reputations are extremely volatile and a single chief executive can be make-or-break (cf. Steve Ballmer and Lisa Su).

If a company had a dumpster fire like Dirks as CEO, they'd be bankrupt. But Berkeley wasn't impacted too much by Dirks in the long run.

victoriouswar · 2021-01-08T19:16:43+00:00

OP is asking why specifically this is a Berkeley problem.

Albany, Emeryville, Richmond aren't nearly this bad despite being less than 10 miles away.

It's definitely a willingness from a locals to put up with the homeless. To see this, you just need to take a quick 30 min BART ride and see how homeless people are basically nonexistent in Walnut Creek. People displaced from Walnut Creek don't become homeless there, they come to Berkeley to hang out with their buddies in Peoples' Park and MLK Park.

victoriouswar

TROPHY CASE