MIT or Berkeley?

[fdsa]

I was admitted to Berkeley and MIT for EECS PhD, both fully funded, and am having a tough time deciding where to go. Here is my pros and cons list:

Berkeley

1. Would-be-advisor is awesome in the field I want to go into, it is even rumored he will win nobel prize soon. His grad students have greats things to say. He has put a lot of effort in convincing me to come

2. It's in California. Sun, girls, LA a 5 hour drive away, longer if I take the pacific highway

3. It's near silicon valley (didn't get into Stanford ): and advisor has multiple businesses in area, i.e. good connections. I think I want to do something entrepreneurial after graduation

4. CON: idk if Berkeley is considered to be as cool as places like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc. If I ever change fields, working for awesome advisor won't carry as much weight as MIT

5. CON: Would-be-advisor is 65

MIT

1. Would-be-advisor works a lot with DARPA and lincoln labs. Research is interesting to me.

2. Cambridge/Boston is a huge college town. Lack of girls at MIT can be made up for by hanging out with people from other schools. Harvard right down mass ave.

3. I relate well with people at MIT in terms of problem solving, but i'm probably more laid back like people at berkeley

4. Majority of MIT is grad students; majority undergrad at Berkeley

5. CON: Boston is cold and ugly compared to california

6. CON: MIT is probably more stressful than berkeley

Please post anything you want. I am listening to any and all opinions

[fdsa]

I'm tempted to choose based on which school gets most votes. It's better than my current plan of flipping a coin

[antecedent]

Don't quote me on this, but there are probably girls at MIT too.

As far as I'm concerned, and certainly in my field, Berkeley is equal to MIT in all ways if not slightly better. I would chose Berkeley for that, and because of it's location (Berkeley is beautiful, SF is right there, and I grew up in the state).

[lyonessrampant]

I think for your field, MIT is probably the better choice in terms of going into industry, though only marginally so. Location, however, does matter, I think, so if living in MA is something you really don't think you could do, then go to Berkeley. It's a tough call. Good luck!

[Pauli]

My favorite part about your original post is how every point you listed that describes the city or the university is either hugely stereotypical or blatantly wrong. I'm guessing you're not American?

[Pauli]

Oh, and you don't have to worry about the undergrad population or city life, since you'll rarely see them (unless you're a TA) due to working in your research lab all the time, lol.

Edit: Whoops, should have made this an edit to my previous post instead of another response.

Edited April 12, 2012 by Pauli

[aberrant]

2. It's in California. Sun, girls, LA a 5 hour drive away, longer if I take the pacific highway

This can not be serious. Nor Cal and So Cal is hugely different. Besides, do you really think you'll have time to make a 10-12 hours round trip to LA during your studies just for fun (or six flags, or universal studio, or hollywood, or wherever-that-you-were-thinking-of-in-southern-california)?

4. CON: idk if Berkeley is considered to be as cool as places like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc. If I ever change fields, working for awesome advisor won't carry as much weight as MIT

The only reason you think it is CON 'cause you don't seem to know anything about public universities. If by "cool" you mean reputable in whatever field you are in, they are definitely in the same par with some of the ivies, if not all of it.

5. CON: Would-be-advisor is 65

Just 'cause your POI is 65 that doesn't automatically makes him/her a CON. This statement does not justified whatsoever.

4. Majority of MIT is grad students; majority undergrad at Berkeley

I supposed this is a PRO to you but your statement stands no ground without any numbers (by numbers, I mean statistics).

5. CON: Boston is cold and ugly compared to california

To me, this would be the tie-breaker. Just so you know, though, that Berkeley/Nor Cal in general is very windy and cold compare to So Cal. So please don't expect whatever you observe/see from TV shows like Baywatch, Joey, whatever that has the story based in West L.A.

6. CON: MIT is probably more stressful than berkeley

This is a bias statement. If anything, grad school to most people is stressful regardless where you are. Besides, you are also comparing with Berkeley, which used to (don't know if it is still the case) have the highest rate of students suicide/attempt suicide among top schools in the West. Less stressful? Yeah right.

I personally would vote for MIT because I want to be a minority after all these years; Berkeley because I hate the extremely cold weather in MA.

[fdsa]

Here's your stats aberrant

http://colleges.find...ompare/270-1954

Edited April 12, 2012 by fdsa

[Ancient CS Grad]

Berkeley! I attended Cal as an undergrad and lived with my ex wife while she was a grad student at MIT. (Both in CS) While the there is no question about the quality of both programs there is a big difference in the quality of life between the two schools and I am not talking about the weather. Unless you fit in well with MIT's vision of a grad student (and you mentioned being more laid back) you will probably not be as happy there.

[eponine10642]

Ditto what aberrant said about Berkeley... it defintely isn't what non-Californians think of as California (which would be socal, i.e. UCLA, UCSD, etc.) Not that the weather around Berkeley is terrible by any means, but it's not socal, that's for sure.

I'd recommend taking location out of the equation for a second and go with the program that you're more excited about. Personally, I don't think Berkeley (the city) is all that great and that you might be overestimating how nice it is there. But to each his/her own, some people I know do really like it around there.

They're both awesome schools though, and I'm sure you'd be well-prepared for whatever career you want afterwards no matter which you choose. Congrats & good luck!

[jaywalker]

If you love both programs based purely on academics, then you can't go very wrong with either one, I'd say. So I would definitely take the location into account. I've never been to San Fran, but I've lived in Boston/Cambridge for the past 7 years, and I currently work at MIT, so I'll speak on that.

I think Cambridge is the better college town (perhaps the best in the nation). It has a very young 30's and under demographic...very clean, and lots of people live an active, healthy lifestyle. I'm pretty sure it's colder than San Fran on average, and we definitely have a longer winter. But I would never call this city ugly just for that reason. And we actually had a really mild winter this past season.

As for the "girls" argument, MIT is actually a lot more gender-balanced than people think. Not that it matters much...you can always go elsewhere to find women. Be warned, our nightlife ends at 2am (our public transportation ends earlier)...not sure how that compares with Berkeley.

Like I said, both programs sound amazing, so I wouldn't think too much about which has better academic outcomes. If you're committing to move to a city for a few years, make sure it's the right environment.

[shayens]

I had to create an account because I really wanted to respond to this. It seems from your post you have already decided to not attend MIT, for every pro you attempted to list for MIT and the end of the sentence it was followed by a con or said something negative about MIT (e.g. "lack of girls"). However, I think I would like to give some more info about MIT/Boston.

I'm about to finish my undergrad at MIT, going back home to CA for grad school.

There are a lot of girls at MIT (me being one of them) so you should kill that stereotype, and no they are not ugly. As you said Boston is a big college town lots of great bars and clubs with walking distance (0-30min) and the weather sometimes sucks, but as others have stated the weather in NorCal is not the same as SoCal. The snow and the cold aren't that bad in Boston, the worst thing is the rain, which they have pretty bad in NorCal in comparison to SoCal.

There are A LOT of EECS buisnesses in Boston, unless there is a specific company in Silicon Valley area that you want to work for, they are both pretty much tied. and the professor and your advisor probably has connections with founders. There are a lot of start-ups in Boston. I'm on the MIT EECS jobs list and today I have literally received 4 emails about jobs in Boston (on average the list sends out 10 emails a day about jobs).

Judging on age is in my opinion foolish. Marvin Minsky is 84 and still at MIT and a cool person to talk to. There are a lot of EECS celebrities here and they are easily accessible (eg. Tom Leighton, founder of Akamai still teaches lectures for an algorithm class, Leiserson and Rivest lecture sometimes as well, and Barbara Liskov is my advisor). The EECS department is very open and very flexible.

do you really think you'll have time to make a 10-12 hours round trip to LA during your studies just for fun

I have done this (I have friends who went to Berkeley) it is more than 5-6 hours one way, especially if it's a long weekend. Counting traffic and rest at least 8 hours one way on a long weekend. So I wouldn't take that into account unless you were going to fly.

However, as I said in the beginning it looks like you already made your mind up.

[fdsa]

Shayens, good catch, I am leaning toward Berkeley a little bit. You seem like you like california better because you are going back, yeah?

Edited April 12, 2012 by fdsa

[fdsa]

Lol, of course it would be tied now. I chose Berkeley. Go Bears!

[delurker]

Lol, of course it would be tied now. I chose Berkeley. Go Bears!

BERKELEY FUCK YEAH!!!! You made the right choice sir, you really really really did. Enjoy it. Its one of god's gifts to humanity.

[crazypork]

Enjoy the weather!