Cambridge or US?

Haha this is a 'lil late now but I just wanna know your opinions

I was given these choices:

Cambridge - Chemical Engineering AAA (Maths Phys Further Math)
Imperial - Chemical Engineering AAB (Math Chem Phys)
Bath - Unconditional

UC Berkeley - ChemEng
Carnegie Mellon University - SHS Scholar
Carnegie Mellon University - EECS or Chem Eng
UIUC Scholars program - Materials Science & Eng
Middlebury - Chem & Maths

All are great schools.... but when it comes to choosing the final one its really between Berkeley & Cambrige....

If you were me, why choose one over the other?

Reply 1

Bismarck

13

I think Berkeley and Cambridge have fairly similar reputations. Your decision should depend on where you're planning to work after your degree. A degree from Cambridge will help you more in Britain, and a degree from Berkeley will help you more in the US. If you're planning to go to Malaysia, you should consider the reputation of both of these colleges there.

Reply 2

forpolarbears

17

Had I had the choice, I would have picked Cambridge. And then the Cambridge tutors pretty much told me at interview to go to finish at Berkeley (I have done the equiv to 2 years @ Berkeley) & made my decision much easier by rejecting me :smile:

.

A lot of it depends on what you want socially, location wise, general education requirements or not, where you want to work, etc.

vs

Reply 3

Aimless2007

Cambridge would be a better choice. The rep is probably the same, but 3 instead of 4 years might be nice. Also housing and stuff like that could be stressful in Berkeley. The experience will be definitely better at Cambridge, so go for it.

Reply 4

Scuttle

Well like others here I think the only 'real' choice is between Cambridge and UC Berkeley.
I, personally, would go for Cambridge, but that is mostly because I like the ancient university thing. Stupid, I know.
Either are good choices, Berkeley I would be inclined to say is even better known for it's engineering than Cambridge, but I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

I think the choice has to be between the countries and environments, rather than prestige.

Reply 5

wazzup

berkeley. US university culture is better and doesnt just evolve around drinking.

Reply 6

coloursonthetv

1

I'd probably choose based on location. Yeah great, Cambridge is extremely well respected but going to a top US University and having the experience of living out there for the duration would be fantastic and show that not only can you move to Uni and go to a top one but you can also move right across the pond. :smile:

I just realised your location is Malaysia... which makes the reply mentioning Malaysia make more sense :P In that case they're both good just consider where you could see yourself living for your University years?

Reply 7

abless

Cambridge. Definitely.
I had the same option. Cambridge or Berkeley EECS. While Berkeley has a great reputation for grad school, things look totally different for undergraduate: classes are _huge_, contact with professors is difficult and Berkeley is (in)famous for being cut-throat. In the states, Berkeley is generally considered significantly lower than HYPS for undergraduate.

Go to Berkeley for grad school. There are not many schools that can beat Cambridge for undergraduate; certainly not Cal.

Reply 8

shady lane

16

Berkeley is not a great place for undergrad--the class sizes are huge and the graduate students get the vast majority of the attention from the professors. I would recommend Cambridge in this case.

Reply 9

bally

3

How is the college life there? Pretty social?

Reply 10

Aimless2007

berkeley. US university culture is better and doesnt just evolve around drinking.

Culture is something you can argue about, but even top schools in the US have heavy party-goers. It's def comparable to Oxbridge, so it shouldn't be a deciding factor.

Reply 11

Mubsy

wazzup

berkeley. US university culture is better and doesnt just evolve around drinking.

A rather misguided and sweeping generalisation.

Reply 12

Dirac Delta Function

14

A generalisation, yes, but probably an accurate one.

It's only when you are not a drinker that you realise how alcohol-obsessed British Uni culture is.

Reply 13

Aimless2007

It's uni culture in general, that's it.

Reply 14

shady lane

16

No...it's different in the UK. Remember that the legal drinking age in the US is 21, which means 1/2 of the undergraduates cannot legally drink. Most American universities have perhaps 1 or 2 bars on campus, while my current university in the UK has 4, despite being a very small urban campus.

Reply 15

Freckles

12

I agree, drinking culture in England is horrible.
Cambridge is probably the better uni, but I would have gone for Berkeley all the way. I just couldn't afford US study, but if you can, I would always pick the US :smile:

Reply 16

coloursonthetv

1

Dirac Delta Function

It's only when you are not a drinker that you realise how alcohol-obsessed British Uni culture is.

I could easily not drink and it would make no difference to me personally. In fact I probably go out and drink more at home than I do when at Uni.

The drinking laws comment was a good point, everything else about the relationship between Uni and drinking is just a generalisation/opinion.

Reply 17

Chengora

No love for CMU, huh? I would say Berkeley for chemical engineering, but Carnegie Mellon for EECS, which is an excellent program. It's so good, in fact, that it helped my sister transfer out of CMU to MIT. :biggrin:

Plus, they did the video rigging for the Super Bowl a couple years ago (unveiled some of the latest technology in motion capture, rescaling images, etc.).

Seriously, though, I would put CMU just under MIT and Caltech in the hard sciences, and particularly computer science. I would actually put it above Berkeley in that regard. But the chief reason my sister left is that the school is in the middle of nowhere. Well, okay, it's in Pittsburgh, but that's not like being in, say, Boston or San Francisco.

Reply 18

Aimless2007

No...it's different in the UK. Remember that the legal drinking age in the US is 21, which means 1/2 of the undergraduates cannot legally drink. Most American universities have perhaps 1 or 2 bars on campus, while my current university in the UK has 4, despite being a very small urban campus.

Is this a serious comment? Even freshmen start drinking like crazy, it's not like getting someone else to buy you a sixpack is that hard, you know. Also plenty of HS kids drink as well. As soon as you get to college, the drinking age just seems to be a joke, because you can get booze at every frat party, for free most of the time.
Maybe it used to be different when you went to college, but nowadays freshmen and sophomore drink at frat parties or private dorm parties, and upperclass-men go to bars or clubs. Therefore there is no difference and drinking is simply part of the college culture.

Reply 19

oregon

I'm surprised that nobody recommends Carnegie. I don't know much about engineering/science courses but I always thought Carnegie was one of the top unis for engineering/science courses. Althought, I do admit I can see that UCal or Cambridge would be better choices from the perspective of international reputation.

Anyway, I envy your 'difficult' decision :p:

Cambridge or US?

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