Graduating with an Associates Degree! Where to go to *real* college?

As someone who grew up in Southern California, I had the exact same debate when I was choosing for college. Eventually I chose Berkeley Computer Science.
Some general observations:
- Berkeley is closer to San Francisco/Silicon Valley. There are a lot more innovative people here in comparison to L.A.

- In comparison, Berkeley computer science has a much more rigorous requirement and Berkeley students tend to be more competitive.

- The weather and traffic in Bay Area is much better than L.A. area.

- Because Berkeley is a public school, it lacks the same kind of resource that private school can provide. Hence you will have to do more things on your own. (E.g. look for an apartment vs stay in the dorm for 4 years)

- McKenna folks tend to be more active and outspoken

- Berkeley is a powerful name brand, especially in Asian community.

In my opinion, both schools are very good.

Best of luck!

Why is Berkeley’s CS department infamous? Also, don’t most UC CS department’s get deep into theory (which sucks)?

Either way, congrats.

I don’t know who Jeremy Pepper is but I like him already =p

I’d vote for Berkeley, if for no other reason you’d be in the bay near all the nerds and you’ll have a better opportunity to network with fellow nerds/nerdettes out there..

Congrats on the AA!

I have mixed feelings about Cal, not enough contact with Claremont to have any prejudices.

Not a big fan of the socal burbs, but I think student-teacher contact is important. The size of the classes at Cal are ridiculous (from what I’ve heard). I guess that _could_ be OK as long as you’re not thinking of going to graduate school down the road, in which case you don’t have to battle for face time just to get a decent reference (ahh .. things people do to stay in the academic rat-race). But then that’s so not how learning should be.

As mentioned in the earlier comment, the Bay Area is a big draw. I could see myself trading up funny frisco for a few years in a place that would a better educational fit (but if you think Cal is a better fit then this is a non-issue obviously!). I know I’d definitely get a hellavalot more work done. And you’d get to come back to do business related stuff in the summers, right?

If pressed to decide now, I think I’d probably go for Claremont, if only because I used to have this thing for small liberal arts colleges. And it’s cleaner, much cleaner (yes, that’s important:))

Try to take the heavy Cal name factor out of the equation (hard as it may be).

No love from Stanford?

Did you get into both? I would go with Berkeley over Claremont. The name is much stronger.

Jessica,

Many CMC students chose between Cal and CMC. For whatever reason, this is a common decision.

My feeling is you’ll get a much better education at CMC. The students are as smart or smarter than at Cal, small classes with real professors (not TA’s), and a speakers series that is unrivaled. Also private college facilities are better. You will also be an hour away from LA and the second largest VC investment region in the U.S. Plus, if you are interested in computer science, Harvey Mudd is outstanding. Economics, CMC is the best.

The advantages to Cal is you’ll be in the Valley, Cal has a larger brand name, and you won’t get as much attention from professors and the institution in general (if you want to start a company or do other things). Also more diversity and larger student body.

People who don’t know anything about liberal arts colleges will advise for Cal. People who know the higher ed landscape will probably advise CMC.

Good luck with the decision and if you want to talk more about it, feel free to email.

Clearly you’re a people leader. Most women do not excel in the systems and programming side of tech Angie Chang’s Women 2.0 org enumerates on this.

On the other hand many of the software companys making a real difference are run by political scientists with a grip on both marketing and computer science.

Gates and Elison concentrated on directing both the development and marketing. They get other people to run sales, support and all the other interchangeable functions.

Thus take inventory of own preferences. Do you love development like its second nature. Concentrate on growing skills at Berkley. If you prefer influencing and convincing and coaching people focus on growing at Claremont. Berkley will offer more distractions. Claremont less so.

Good Luck on making the best choice for you.

Make the choice that is more likely to make you happy. I doubt people will be judging you on the logo on your diploma.

I like Yeh. And my G-d, a poll, really? Shame, Jessica, shame.

I already said UC, but now that you tell me that Haterington went there, I’ll add a +1 to myself.

The Berkeley name will carry you far.. you included with thousands of people.
Claremont has a very good reputation, and less people have it on their transcript.

also..

i think you might make more connections at claremont since there are fewer, but promising students.

I transferred to Claremont McKenna from a big state school last year. At CMC, I’m concentrating in Economics and Computer Science.

From your post, it sounds like you know you should come to CMC, but you worry about post-graduation opportunities. Honestly, your worries are unfounded. Ben is right in his assessment.

I don’t have much time to write a detailed comment, but if it’s still a tough decision, e-mail me and I’ll help convince you.

Choose CMC. One day you’ll look back and wonder if you’d have accomplished what you have if you’d chosen Cal =)

Jessica, do you plan on starting and running companies while in school? One decision factor to consider is whether you’ll have the time to follow such pursuits while taking classes. I graduated from top ten computer science and I felt that all I had time to do was compete with other students for top grades.

Hi Jessica,

I was also a transfer student to Cal, and I’m 20 years old. I transfered Fall 2007 and only stayed for one semester. The reason I left was because the company I started during that semester received venture capital funding. Six months later we are up to five employees and working diligently on a new product.

If not for Cal, I would probably not be where I am now. Perhaps the biggest reason is location. San Francisco and the peninsula are without question the most active locations for high tech ventures. They are also just about the only place where it’s still to recruit highly skilled employees who are interested in sacrificing a high salary for good options. I am aware of 3 startup companies in downtown Berkeley alone. San Francisco is literally packed full of them. We share an office in SOMA with 4 startups, and there are similar office spaces filled with startups every few blocks.

During my one semester at Cal I had the privilege of taking one of many classes in the IEOR department. This class was all about entrepreneurship, and although much of it was a review for me, the advice and support I received from my professor (A seasoned entrepreneur himself) and my peers was extremely valuable.

To say that the majority of students at Berkeley are not ambitious or driven to be productive is ridiculous. Berkeley students are extremely driven, to the point where I found it difficult to keep up. It’s not uncommon to find people triple or quadruple majoring, taking far more than the normal maximum of units, or working long hours on research projects while still Ace-ing their finals. Though I will concede it seems many more students are driven to get a Phd and change the world through research than are driven to start a company. Of course, with a student body in the tens of thousands it’s easy to find people who’s ambitions are like your own.

Finally, the rigor of the CS and other science/engineering majors at Berkeley is high. As someone who has made employment decisions in the past, it is important for me to know that the people I hire are highly skilled and motivated. Anybody with the Berkeley name would immediately be a serious candidate.

Oh, also, you can use the money you save on the state subsidized tuition for a startup or to fly to some more conferences.

If you have any questions, feel free to message me.

Well, Twitter is down so I finally got around to reading some feeds & saw your post.

I voted for Claremont, but it’s pretty borderline. Really the main thing to remember is, you’re the consumer, what do you want?

I went through somewhat of a similar experience, 2.5 years at Caltech (very small, probably nowhere near as good a student life as Claremont) and then 2 more years at Texas (huge “better quality” state school, the eng. school alone was probably bigger than all of Caltech).

There were many differences. UT eng. students were very different. They weren’t very curious. They worked hard but just learned about what they needed to learn to get their degree. They were mostly aiming to be worker bees in a big organization. While some were friendly, I really didn’t connect very well with them. Perhaps transferring in (& living off-campus) had an impact on that.

There’s this perception at top schools that it’s less work at state schools. This wasn’t so much the case, but the material was much more boxed in, far less interdisciplinary in nature (which is a big deal, for those interestested in doing research).

Berkeley is, I guess, really a hybrid between a state school and a top private research university. I imagine the students are quite competitive.

One other thing that REALLY bothered me about undergraduate life (I just did a little grad school) was the very limited interaction with faculty.

There was surprisingly little difference between the schools in this regard. I really valued the handful of chances I had, at each, to visit professors in their homes or elsewhere off campus, and to get to know them a little.

It’s a tough choice–If you’re really into computer science, I guess it would be obvious you’d want to go to Berkeley (though I bet that dept. is pretty tough). If you’re more looking for a business education and growth in leadership skills, the Claremont Colleges are supposed to be pretty good for that (and their “brand” will probably improve with time, FWIW).

I think you’re overestimating the prestige that CMC carries. Outside of the West Coast, not many people have heard of the Claremont Consortium — and, if they have, their knowledge is probably confined to Harvey Mudd.

Wow! I read your bio and you are a perfect fit for Claremont McKenna. Seriously.

At Claremont McKenna, you will never be taught by a teacher’s assistant. You will have very tasty food and very nice weather. (It isn’t in Los Angeles, but is 45 minutes away so you get neither the bad traffic, nor the smog.)

You will have the opportunity to take classes at Harvey Mudd and Pomona, which are easily among the top schools in the country.

I, too, was a bit obsessed with the name brand education, but let’s go down the list of the people in your industry who have come from Claremont McKenna.

Jonathan Rosenberg — Google Senior VP for Product Management and Marketing

Ashwin Navin — President of BitTorrent, Inc.

Michael Arrington — Techcrunch

I could go on. For a college our size, we punch way above our weight.

The Ath is one of the best establishments I have ever frequented. Within a semester going to Ath events, I got summer job offers with The New York Sun and the Kauffman Foundation. (I was only a Freshman.)

On a more personal level, Claremont McKenna is not as hypercompetitive as some of the large degree mills. I know this sounds corny, but as a college, we will help you achieve your dreams. At a lot of colleges, the typical reaction is competition. At Claremont McKenna, we have collaboration. You have an idea? We’ll help you get it to a mass audience.

There’s a reason our motto is “civilization prospers with commerce.”

I tend to be critical of the college on my blog, but really, it’s one of the best places I’ve ever been. I cannot say enough good things about it.

Limited interaction with professors is *genuinely* something you can control. Having just graduated from the MASSIVE (25,000 undergrad) University of Illinois (famous for its engineering program), I can tell you right away that if you’re feeling like you haven’t seen enough of the professor, you need to go to office hours! Sure, it will take extra initiative and a bit more time, but that is something you clearly will have no problem doing.

The nice thing about a large school is you can make it as small or as large as you want it to be. It may mean that you have to meet more people there to realize who you truly want to hang out and work with, but it offers the kind of flexibility that you may not have at a smaller private school.

It’s pretty easy to be a big fish in a small pond, even if that small pond is pretty talented. In a way, it’s a lot harder to distinguish yourself at a large university, so when you finally do, it carries a lot more power.

A small school will certainly be easier for you. It will be easier to make friends, connections, etc. But real life isn’t like that, and it’s far more like Berkeley than a private school in the sense that you have to make a lot of the opportunities happen and they won’t always be easily concentrated for you.