<p>sorry wrong link earlier.</p>
<p>[USC</a> - Viterbi School of Engineering - Viterbi School Signs Unique Accelerated M.S. “VIP” Agreement with Cal Poly](<a href=“http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2008/viterbi-school-signs154841.htm]USC”>http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2008/viterbi-school-signs154841.htm)</p>
<p>Having walked this path with two previous sons who were applicants in the posters shoes. Here is my input and my sons would agree…one is at cpslo, the other at USD . They both have good friends who are at programs and each of the UCs.</p>
<p>UCs are first and foremost research institutions.
An engineering student of any type will take mostly all lecture hall courses with most teaching done by TA’s for labs also. Most of those TA in the math, science and tech fields are often foreign and not easily understood in terms of esl.
Smaller classes in their major will possibly be available second semester fo junior year depending on the department in Eng.</p>
<p>At the UC the undergrad programs are primarily theory based with litle if any hands on involvement or research until the senior year project. Of course there if occasionally some research lab one can volunteer at to tabulate data, etc.</p>
<p>Cal poly SLO has a incredible number of clubs available to Eng student where course work is mingled with hands on experience. </p>
<p>UCs are pretty notorious for their "weed Out " classes during the first two years.<br>
and until the junction year when a student has slightly smaller classes the profs are fairly disengaged with undergrads…their focus is getting the best phd students on their team and to get their work published or out to the market.</p>
<p>Unless one is in a honors program within a UC Eng program…We do not see it a a worthy transition from HS due to the more competitive student body in Engineering fields…especially at UCB, UCLA,…the large impersonal classes, and the lack of quality advising or support. </p>
<p>Best to shadow at each school for a few days with Eng students at forth lever and Junior level. A worthwhile time when you a considering your education and future for the next 4 -5 years.</p>
<p>^^ Well said! Amen!!</p>
<p>I’m still indecisive between SLO as a GenEng major and UCD as a ChemE major (first choice). Help! :(</p>
<p>@chocolatechipsss: Are you planning on attending Cal Poly’s Open House next week? Does UCD have something similar for Admitted Students? Maybe visiting both campuses one more time will help you decide. My daughter knew in her heart that Cal Poly was the best place for her - she has visited the campus many times, felt such a positive vibe with everyone she met, knew she’d get a quality education there, has her big sister there for support, etc, but was having trouble getting used to the idea of leaving Colorado, family and friends. Choosing to attend an in-state school like CU Boulder or CO School of Mines would have been the easy safe choice. But in the end, she went with her heart and chose Cal Poly. I’m sure you’ll get a quality education at either UCD or Cal Poly, and they both have great campuses. Perhaps visiting them one more time and meeting some other prospective students will help?</p>
<p>@chocolatechipsss – take COparent’s advice and read post #22 by genevas very carefully. Then make the decision. Both are good schools. We turned down 5 UC’s for Cal Poly including UCLA and UCSD. We’ve been there and done it and do not regret the decision.</p>
<p>With regards to your major. Cal Poly may not have it. However, our kid went in as a GENE and we thought that he would end up in EE or Computer Engineering. Guess what? He fell in love with Mechanical Engineering and is now in that department. You never know …</p>
<p>What a reassuring thread. My S is a junior in HS, loves CS (likely major), and just did pretty well, 2160, on SAT. I have been crawling all over the internet trying to sell us both on the “highly ranked” UC’s and failing. </p>
<p>I hesitate to regard Cal Poly as a safety, but we are hopeful. His HS has a good relationship with U of San Fran, whose CS dept. actually looks pretty good to me. We may reach for Mudd, (is Stanford just ridiculous?), maybe Santa Clara, or some out-of-state schools. Money is an issue. We’ll try to visit all of 'em. </p>
<p>Right now it seems like Cal Poly would be a very good fit.</p>
<p>Jeffgordon - I would have some safer safeties than Cal Poly. You want to avoid the sad stories I’ve read over on the Parent’s Forum. Also, my son’s buddy failed to get into his “safeties.” He’s an extremely bright kid and a URM but things just didn’t go his way so now he’s off to a junior college. It has been growing more competitive each year, so plan on it being more difficult than what you’ve read. Know that the lower SAT and GPAs in the range of admissions represent legacy, hooks (like URM & first generation) and athletes only.</p>
<p>Can anyone point me to a flowchart or something with the projected “typical” curriculum year-by-year at Cal Poly for a CS (or other engineering) major?</p>
<p>People have been saying that Cal Poly is “learn by doing” and that the weeder classes are minimal etc… but I’d like to see how exactly. Am I going to spend my first two years doing general ed classes and drowning in weeder courses with 200+ people, or doing real programming work? I’m already proficient in 4 languages, have apps on the iTunes store and maintain two real-world web applications. I don’t want to spend two years dying in gen-eds and weeder classes at a UC when I could be studying higher level subjects in my major! This is really important to me as I already know from my work experience that all those high-level math/physics weeder courses aren’t that important after graduation.</p>
<p>I intend to go to a top grad school and before that, work at a Google/MS-tier company, so “prestige” is important to me too. I do NOT want to lose out to a Berkeley/UCLA grad because my degree came from Cal Poly, and I’m willing to work my derriere off to prove that I am no less brilliant than they are.</p>
<p>Call me elitist, but I always considered CP to be my lowest-tier safety and never thought it’d become my #2 choice one day. Not that I didn’t get into any UCs - UCD, UCSB, but I just didn’t like the vibe at the campuses. When I graduated, all the ‘UC rejects’ in my year went to CP. The parentals are worried that their high-achieving son is going to mix around with the “wrong crowd.” It doesn’t help that my S/O’s brother just got into Cal Poly with a 3.1 GPA/below average SAT. My parents think that I’m too “good” for CP and that I’d be wasting four years there, when I have prestigious top-5 schools to choose from out-of-state.</p>
<p>closetobroke, thanks. I attended junior college in IL and would be proud of my S if he went. But our local jc does not have any computer science.</p>
<p>My concern about both CalPoly and UC is class size and who is doing the teaching. I know this was addressed in a previous post. But I was surprised to learn there were over 19000 students at CalPoly. There will be some large classes. I gotta keep in mind the primary mission of the CSU is to teach undergraduates whilst at UC it’s research. </p>
<p>My sense is that for many, (most?), the UNDERgraduate experience at CalPoly would be greater than or equal to that at a UC. </p>
<p>The progression “two years at a JC followed by a CSU for a bachelor’s degree, followed by graduate work at a UC” makes a lot of sense. The state system in CA was the envy of the nation when I went to college (80’s). Free jc! Incredibly low-cost high-quality CSU and UC’s! </p>
<p>How do they rate now, you all?</p>
<p>Dustinthewind- Here’s the flowchart for CSC:</p>
<p><a href=“http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/site_media/uploads/majors/csc/csc2011-13flowchart.pdf[/url]”>http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/site_media/uploads/majors/csc/csc2011-13flowchart.pdf</a></p>
<p>Technical Electives allow you to choose an area of specialization such as
•Graphics: 473, 474, 475†, 476, 478, 572
•Databases: 366, 466, 468, 560
•Networks: 465, 564
•Distributed Computing: 469, 569
•OS: 454, 456, 458, 550, 556
•Architecture: 316, 416, 459†, 482 “Robotics”, 520
•Languages/Compilers: 434†, 530
•Software Engineering: 402, 405, 406, 409, 437, 508, 509
•GUI/HCI: 435, 483, 486, 487†, 581
•Artificial Intelligence: 416, 481, 482 “Autonomous Mobile Robots or Multi-Robot Systems”, 485, 489, 580, 581
•Computational Sciences/Theory: 343†, 449, 540, 541, 588†</p>
<p>A few Cal Poly Computer Science news articles:
<a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/Punchd/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/Punchd/</a>
<a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/cal-poly-programmers-top-their-algorithms/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/cal-poly-programmers-top-their-algorithms/</a>
<a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/poly-grad-wins-2011-techcrunch-hackathon/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/poly-grad-wins-2011-techcrunch-hackathon/</a></p>
<p>Jeff Gordon – Class sizes in Computer Science classes are typically 30-35 students. The CPE/CSC 101,102,103 series is difficult, and many CSC majors end up changing majors before getting through this series. CPE/CSC 357 is even harder, and I think is pretty much a final weed-out course. My son has a friend in CSC who last summer had an internship with Linkedin, and a the son of a friend of mine (also CSC) had an internship with Facebook. (They were paid $75 and $100 per hour). I think those that survive CSC at Cal Poly are in high demand in the marketplace. My 2nd son tried CSC, got through 101/102/103 and decided to get out of the department. It was hard, and he found out he didn’t really enjoy computer programming. But for those that want an education in Computer Science, Cal Poly will make them EXCELLENT programmers.</p>
<p>dustinthe wind – Everything you want to know is here: <a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/</a>
Also, here is every flow chart you could ever want: <a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/programs/bs-csc/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/programs/bs-csc/</a></p>
<p>You have not experienced “Learn by Doing”, so let me assure you that you will have CS courses from the very first week of your freshman year. You will have more than you can handle. Plus, clubs and labs, etc., etc. With regards to your “prestige” issues, rest assured that you can get into the best grad schools IF you work hard, get the grades and learn your stuff. With regards to employment, Cal Poly grads have the highest starting salaries of all California public school. You mentioned Google. Well, Google just bought Punchd, a smart phone application developed by two Cal Poly students, has been deemed a knockout idea by Google. The digital loyalty card startup business, spawned in a Cal Poly Android class, announced Monday that it has been acquired by the powerful search giant. Here is the link: <a href=“https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/Punchd/[/url]”>https://www.csc.calpoly.edu/news/Punchd/</a></p>
<p>Case closed – Cal Poly hangs with the best. No “prestige” problems here. My kid turned down 5 UC’s including UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, etc. Zero regrets we love the program at Cal Poly. Cal Poly is not a safety school.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree that Cal Poly is a great school with an engineering department superior to all of the UCs (save for Berkeley – I’ve been there, love it – didn’t get in, but then again people smarter than I am didn’t either. Couldn’t care less about UCLA/UCSD. Overhyped schools.)</p>
<p>I’m deciding between Cal Poly and the University of Illinois, which has an engineering pedigree that if you didn’t know better, sounds like Stanford’s. Cal Poly sold one (relatively unknown) startup to google. UIUC spawned Netscape, PayPal, Youtube, Yelp, Oracle, JavaScript, the transistor, the theory of superconducting, the world’s fastest computers. Microsoft and Intel hire more people from UIUC than any other college… in the world. The dorms I am looking at there have a startup workshop in the basement. Yeah.</p>
<p>It also costs $200,000. I don’t know if all of that is worth it. I am not worried about getting a job.</p>
<p>I am concerned about these things:</p>
<p>Rigor and flexibility of the curriculum. I finished the CS 101-103 equivalents at my community college when I was 15. I’m 21 this year and know at least ten times more than I did then. Ten thousand hours or more of commercial programming experience. I expect to be doing graduate level work by my third or fourth year. Failing that I want to be able to double or minor in business. I want to go somewhere flexible enough to let me do that. Is Cal Poly that place?</p>
<p>Environment. What is the calibre of student in Cal Poly’s CS department? I know the people who go to UIUC CS have 2200+ SAT scores like myself, but I don’t know about cal poly. I know many people going there with GPAs in the low 3.0s and SAT scores in the sub 1800 range. Not that I think test scores are an indicator of intelligence – i think they reveal more about work ethic than anything. Simply and perhaps crassly put, I am a hard worker and want to go somewhere where smarter people will push me to do my best. I know many schools have niche departments (even UIUC is one of them – the rest of the college is pretty mediocre stuff). Is Cal Poly’s CS department one of those niches in the school?</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help. I’m trying to make an unbiased decision and its hard to get an honest feel for Cal Poly with all the UC fanatics putting it down and my mum’s negativity bearing down on me to pick the uber-prestigious school. I’ve actually already SIR’ed on impulse to UIUC but had second thoughts the previous night about it. I’m prepared to reverse my SIR if I decide Cal Poly is the right fit for me.</p>
<p>I think you should go to UIUC. Cal Poly is full of bright kids (mostly 18-22 years old)who, for the most part, respect each other as also bright. You might not fit in there, since you sound older and seem to believe you would be smarter than everyone else there.</p>
<p>Given your specialized requirements, I think they would be much better served at U of I. </p>
<p>You should go there since comparing CP to U of I is comparing apple to oranges. </p>
<p>And CP is not party school as you have alluded to earlier. I think you were thinking about UCSB, which is way down the highway from CP. </p>
<p>And U of I is not on par with Stanford, Cal Berkeley is more of a match to U of I. Stanford is almost equivalent to MIT/Caltech. But if you do, by chance, think U of I = Stanford, then it would make even less sense to compare Cal Poly to it.</p>
<p>And Cal Poly’s student body typically comes attitude free. So you probably will hate it.</p>
<p>I agree with ralph4.</p>
<p>Sorry if I came across as elitist – I don’t consider myself “smarter” than anyone at cal poly, but yes I am older and don’t really want to repeat courses i’ve already taken twice. I am an averagely intelligent, unusually hard worker, and that’s it. I have the fullest respect for the 18 year olds who got into Stanford/Berkeley when I didn’t. I studied for half a year after graduation to get a 2220 SAT, while my friends got 2300s in junior year. If that isn’t humbling, I don’t know what is. Don’t misconstrue my situation for attitude. I screwed up in High School and worked my ass of after that to right some wrongs. I was never handed anything on a silver spoon.</p>
<p>Anyway, back to business. I came here for unbiased info on cal poly.</p>
<p>Many thanks for the flowcharts. That curriculum actually looks more hands-on than the one at UIUC, where I’d only be taking 2 or 3 courses in my major the first two years… And class sizes below 50? At UIUC the lectures are in the hundreds and often run by TAs… So that’s a big plus for me.</p>
<p>UCSB – yes, party school certainly, I sir’ed a no within an hour of my admit decision coming out. I wouldn’t be happy there. I know SDSU is a party school, sure. I honestly, do not know about cal poly. I didn’t keep in touch with anyone who went there when I graduated.</p>
<p>Since curriculum is pretty evenly matched (perhaps even superior…), then it comes down to the environment. Can someone give me an idea of what the campus is like? (party rate? noise level? study areas? quality of facilities?) and I didn’t really get an answer about the calibre/drive of students in engineering…</p>
<p>I sincerely thank you folk for answering my questions. There is a 40-50% chance that I will choose Cal Poly… Its going to come down to the kind of people i’m going to class with!</p>
<p>Unrelated:</p>
<p>UIUC isn’t on par with Stanford certainly. What I was saying was only in regards to startup lineage. I mean, Google was the result of Stanford – how do you top that? I guess YouTube, which Google bought over. If you consider the /other/ parts of an education, and the fact that Stanford is smack in the middle of SV, then you’d be crazy to consider any other school to be even in the same tier as Stanford. Its not even close. CMU, MIT, Cornell, Berkeley and UIUC would fit into that second tier together nicely. Top tier? There’s only one school for CS/Entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>“UCSB – yes, party school certainly, I sir’ed a no within an hour of my admit decision coming out. I wouldn’t be happy there.”</p>
<p>Interesting, this sounds a little different from your post on another thread.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14074320-post9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/14074320-post9.html</a></p>
<p>yup, i got into L&S at UCSB instead of what I applied for (Eng CS.) (if you want to snoop around my post history you would see that too.)</p>
<p>the other reason why I sir’ed a no so quickly was because they didn’t let me into my major. well before that happened i had already talked to friends there and decided it wasn’t my place. (i have a friend who dropped out because the school just didn’t fit at all with all the partying)</p>
<p>i know cal poly students are fiercely loyal to their school, but it would be nice not to have my integrity questioned like that.</p>
<p>Just to end this sillyness:</p>
<p><a href=“http://i40.■■■■■■■.com/19a15k.jpg[/url]”>http://i40.■■■■■■■.com/19a15k.jpg</a>
<a href=“http://i42.■■■■■■■.com/i1bbs9.jpg[/url]”>http://i42.■■■■■■■.com/i1bbs9.jpg</a>
<a href=“http://i42.■■■■■■■.com/34z0cxl.jpg[/url]”>http://i42.■■■■■■■.com/34z0cxl.jpg</a></p>
<p>I know there are lots of ■■■■■■ on CC, but some of us are real people who want to make the best choice they can going forward. I made a mistake accepting my UIUC offer on impulse, before doing my full research. Cal Poly ended up being a very strong contender.</p>
<p>@ralph4, thanks for the very helpful post up top and i am sorry if i offended your school pride. i do not go to uiuc, and i am not here to put down cal poly as i hardly know anything about it. the more i hear about it, the more i like. hopefully we can put this behind us.</p>
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