Sibling Rivalry
Battle of the Brains

Tomorrow’s 109th Big Game is another reminder of the rivalry that runs deep between Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

But while the Bears and the Cardinal have long detested each other, UC Berkeley and Stanford also have a well-established academic relationship.

Nothing better exemplifies the cooperative-competitive relationship between UC Berkeley and Stanford than the ties between the computer science programs at the two universities.

“There is a rivalry of course, but also lots of collaboration and good will,” said UC Berkeley computer science professor Christos Papadimitriou.

Faculty members and graduate students at both schools often work together on research projects, committees and journal editorial boards.

In addition, UC Berkeley and Stanford faculty will sometimes teach graduate courses together.

“We compete for students—undergraduate and graduate—we compete for faculty and we compete for funding,” said Stanford computer science professor Marc Levoy in an e-mail. “However, since most universities don’t hire their own graduates as faculty, many Stanford computer science faculty graduated from Berkeley, and vice versa. The ties that bind us are very strong.”

The result of such “crossbreeding”—the exchange of students and faculty members—has led to many research collaboration projects between the two schools.

Papadimitriou is currently working with Tim Roughgarden, an assistant professor at Stanford, to create an interface between algorithms, economics and the Internet. Roughgarden was once a post-doctoral fellow in Papadimitriou’s group.

Another joint effort is the Recovery-Oriented Computing Project. Researchers from Stanford and UC Berkeley are working to build computers that are more reliable by significantly decreasing the time it takes for a computer to start back up after crashing, said project group member and UC Berkeley computer science professor David Patterson.

The collaboration between the two universities not only serves to produce more innovation, but also gives the West Coast an upper hand in a rivalry against the East Coast.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley and Stanford are among the top computer science programs in the nation, according to the US News & World Report.

“The cross-town rivalry is naturally stronger than the cross-country rivalry in some respects, such as when we compete for students looking for a school in California, but weaker in other respects,” Levoy said.

One of the stiffest areas of competition between the two departments is graduate student recruitment. Both schools are eager to draw the brightest

students to their own individual program.

However, cooperation between the two schools can serve as an effective strategy to lure students to California. For instance, the UC Berkeley and Stanford computer science departments will approve advisers for doctoral students from the other school, giving graduate students more choices and flexibility.

“The effect of all this is both Stanford and Berkeley now look a little better when somebody decides between East Coast and West Coast graduate schools ... because of the collaboration,” Papadimitriou said.

Distance has been an influential factor in facilitating cooperation between the two institutions.

Patterson wrote two textbooks with Stanford professor John Hennessy, who is currently Stanford’s president. It would have been more difficult to work together had the schools not been so close, Patterson said.

“The fact that arguably the two best computer science departments in the world are just 40 miles apart is a tremendous asset to California,” Patterson said. “If we look at the top 10 computer science departments just in the United States, the next two closest are about 500 miles apart.”

Still, a rivalry is a rivalry, and the computer science departments are no exception.

“I enjoy poking fun at Stanford more than at MIT,” Patterson said.

During the last lecture of every undergraduate class Patterson teaches, he presents an evaluation of a UC Berkeley computer science education versus a Stanford one.

He also takes the time to discuss The Play, which Patterson considers the most important piece of cultural heritage for Cal alumni.

“A lot of students are familiar with the ... Nobel scholars and all the great things that happened intellectually, but instead I talk about football,” Patterson said. “The Play is an inspirational example of never giving up. ... You’re Berkeley alumni, and you have a tradition of overcoming big odds like football players and band members.”

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