BS from Berkeley? or BS+MS from Cal Poly Slo?

[Donald]

Hello everyone.

Very new to the forum here, but I've been scoping around a little, and I am glad that there are so many like-minded people here, and everyone seems to be very helpful in someway or the other. My question comes to whether you recommend me going to UC Berkeley for Industrial Engineering or to Cal Poly Slo for their BS/MS joint degree.

I am pretty set on Industrial Engineering because I feel like I can differentiate myself from others, and the major itself really stresses on how to make better financial models and risks, which seem to be essential in terms of quant recruiting. Of course, UC Berkeley is one of the highest rated programs in the nation, and they also offer a great flexibility in terms of choosing other majors/minors. And I feel like minoring in C.S. will be a great option.

For Cal Poly, they do offer simultaneous B.S./M.S. degree which seems interesting as well. Many of you have stated that getting jobs/internships with only B.S. is hard, and sometimes almost impossible. I was wondering if this holds true for institutions as UC Berkeley. Cal Poly is definitely not up to par in terms of prestige, but I hear that they do get special treatments because of their "learn by doing" motto where many of the recruiters take note. The joint program is 4 years of B.S. Industrial Engineering with 1 year of Masters in Industrial Engineering. I am not sure if Cal Poly will allow students to double major, but certainly I hope that they will allow students to minor, and in case, it will be in Computer Science as well. However, this program is not guaranteed as I need to make myself a worthy applicant while my first couple of years there.

So with that all said, does a M.S. make a huge difference in terms of job recruitment? I love both schools, and will attend any one of them in a heartbeat. I just wanted to make sure I take the most opportunity available, and at least keep me driven in terms of classes that I will need to accomplish. Would B.S. from UC Berkeley outweigh B.S./M.S. from Cal Poly? or Vise Versa?

Thank you very much for your time everyone.

 

[moretodo]

UC Berkeley! Not to be rude, but I seriously can't fathom the fact that your actually considering this.

 

[Dataminer]

why not just do B.s at Berkeley and do another M.s afterwards if you feel like you need it? Maybe you'll change your mind about IE and want to try something else?

 

[Donald]

Thank you for the replies. Well, it's just a dilemma at the moment since if my quant jobs do require M.S. regardless where you went for undergrad, to save time and cost, Cal Poly Slo B.S./M.S. seems like an ideal thing for me. At least I will be able to work in the field, and if I do need to go get let say a MFE, I may be a better candidate as well because of the M.S. degree. However, it's not a guaranteed path as I explained (but I'm willing to work very hard to get in), and of course, any engineering degree out of Berkeley is phenomenal. I am just not quite sure what the job market is like in terms of quant.

 

[Donald]

Also, any other inputs would be really appreciated

 

[Donald]

Bump. Sorry

 

[GoIllini]

If you want to work on the East Coast, Berkeley Engineering is worth an extra year over any other UC school except maybe UCLA or USC. Obviously pretty much every UC is a good school, but UC Berkeley is a great school. It beats every single Ivy in the engineering rankings. It has a national and international reputation that beats many elite Northeastern schools.

If you are working your way through school earning minimum wage, and you can get out of Cal Poly in three years and Berkeley in four, go to Cal Poly. Otherwise, I say Berkeley wins.

If you get into Caltech or Stanford, we will need to have another conversation, but given the choices you cite, Berkeley is the clear and obvious choice for 95% of the population; 99.8% of people who want to be quants.

Thank you for the replies. Well, it's just a dilemma at the moment since if my quant jobs do require M.S. regardless where you went for undergrad, to save time and cost, Cal Poly Slo B.S./M.S. seems like an ideal thing for me. At least I will be able to work in the field, and if I do need to go get let say a MFE, I may be a better candidate as well because of the M.S. degree. However, it's not a guaranteed path as I explained (but I'm willing to work very hard to get in), and of course, any engineering degree out of Berkeley is phenomenal. I am just not quite sure what the job market is like in terms of quant.

So the problem here is that most quant jobs also require a degree that recruiters can easily recognize, and most quant jobs are in NYC, Connecticut, or maybe Chicago. Berkeley is as recognizable as Dartmouth. Cal Poly is as recognizable as Ryder University. Living on the West Coast, you've probably heard of one but haven't heard of the other.

If you get a BS/MS at Cal Poly, you will probably start in a lower tier local job. You will gain one or two years towards graduation, but you'll spend the next two years trying to advance your career to where it would be if you had graduated with a BS from Berkeley. After all, a BS out of Berkeley Engineering often gets you a higher salary than an MS out of many other higher ranked schools than Cal Poly.

Prestige is overrated, but there's still something to it, at least when it comes to getting interviews, even in the quant world. UIUC got me interviews with Lehman Brothers, Citi, and Goldman Sachs when I was an undergrad; Northern Illinois University, while a perfectly good school, would not have.

You need to work your way back from the goal to where you are now. The transition from Berkeley Engineering undergrad to an MS program is much easier than the transition from an MS at Cal Poly to a quant job.

My suspicion here is that you have already made up your mind and want Cal Poly. Now that you're 18, it's your choice. And there might be reasons to choose Cal Poly over Berkeley (perhaps you have cultural preferences). But from a career perspective, nobody on this forum is affirming this decision.

For the record, I have a reputation for downplaying the value of prestige. I turned down a number of elite east coast schools to go to UIUC for undergrad. UIUC was cheaper than Cornell and Dartmouth and it placed just as well if not better. But there's no upside to turning down Berkeley for Cal Poly besides a year. And even then, you can probably land a job out of Berkeley with a bachelor's degree that pays better than or as well as a Cal Poly student with a master's would earn.

I would be giving you a more nuanced answer if you were going to a local Chicago or NYC state school that recruiters would be familiar with. There might be reasons to choose UIC or NIU over UIUC if you want to work for a Chicago prop shop. I'm not attacking the less recognizable state schools in this thread; I am attacking the idea of going to a less recognizable state school if you know you want to work 1000, maybe 2500 miles away.

From a career perspective, this is a terrible, terrible idea. Get a Bachelor's degree from Berkeley, work for a few years at Citadel or AQR or GETCO, and then, if you want to, get an MFE from Columbia paying a tuition that amounts to a year or two worth of savings. This is a much better option than graduating from Cal Poly and working for the BART system for five years and then scrapping your way to the back office of Morgan Stanley or a consulting firm and never truly becoming a quant.

But ultimately it's your life and your career. You own it, now. You're free to screw yourself, and there is a kid on Berkeley's waitlist who desperately wants to work on wall street, who has done his research, who will be happy to take your spot.