@2toplace People are not aware of the fact that employers don’t make the distinction between CS, SE and Computer Engineering, and I am guessing applicants aren’t aware. My older daughter graduated with a CPE degree last year and now works for Apple, did not make a bit of difference for recruiters.
On Gonzaga, I have a colleague at work originally from Portland who started his college at Gonzaga some years ago and then transferred to UW since he learned most Gonzaga graduates at the time would start their careers in Spokane, which he did not like. Things might have changed since then, but there is something simple you could do. Go to linkedin and lookup how many graduates from Gonzaga work for big tech, compare that with CalPoly while adjusting for how many people are in the CS related majors. That should give you some sense of how attractive the school is for employers. I don’t know anyone with a Gonzaga degree in CS, doesn’t mean the school is not good though.
@eyemgh I agree it can, but most of the time it doesn’t for big tech. Big tech hires college grads for potential and many of them hire generically, i.e. the determine fit for the company and then figure out placement. For example, Facebook would hire new college grads based on an interview process that determines generic CS knowledge, puts them through a 6 week training bootcamp and then determines where they actually work based on interest.
There are indeed differences between majors, but they are more related to specific areas past 300 level where they go in depth on rather than the fundamentals, which are very common. My personal perspective is that CPE is a more rounded major, since it includes much more EE than CS/SE and has a more practical/engineering perspective. They still have to take arguably the single most important/dreaded class CPE357 which is at the core for all three majors.
Some people don’t consider CS to be an engineering major and as an old hand I am quite amazed to see sometimes how otherwise talented software developers, coming from very prestigious schools lack basic engineering knowledge. Anyway, we’re debating fine points, I am sure it will matter on some specific jobs, but given the hunger of the industry for talent it is not that important for a particular graduate.
@iulianc, I agree if we are talking about programming. If we are talking about hardware though, the CS and SE grads won’t even have the tiniest foundation to do what your daughter can do. That’s really what I was talking about on job description.
@2toplace One thing you have to consider is that because of impacted classes CS at Cal Poly could take up to an extra year. If you go to the Cal Poly reddit and search for CS threads they are the most unhappy major about not being able to get classes on a timely basis and really have to hustle to be able to register for the classes they want. I will caveat this by saying that if your daughters come in with a lot of AP/dual enrollment credit this will mitigate it, somewhat. University of Washington is a highly rated school for CS. If your kids are direct admitted into their program I’d think you really need to think very hard about turning your back on that to come to Cal Poly, particularly given you are a Washington resident. Lack of direct admit into engineering (and OOS being $50K) was a big reason we did not apply to UW for my oldest son.
@ocmom1000, my son’s roommate took an extra quarter. He just graduated this year and will start at Apple in the Fall.
They reduced last year’s CS class (from 130 to 100), this year’s class and likely will do the same next year, to get back to normal numbers. It likely won’t be a huge deal for this incoming class, but certainly something to consider.
@ocmom1000 my daughter graduated four years (CPE) despite taking two quarters off her junior year to study in Korea (she did take some classes there though). She did come in with lots of AP credit though. She would have easily graduated early if she did not do that. And she did not take an unusual load of classes, some quarters she only took 12 units when the classes were hard (that’s what she did when she took CPE357). She did not take any summer classes, used summers for internships, was involved in the engineering sorority and clubs (which helped her score the internships).
It did require some planning, she persuaded professors to take concurrently classes that were required to be taken in sequence, was on waiting lists often, etc. She was creative and determined and not necessarily overly zealous about taking a large load of classes. I have a good friend who’s daughter took one extra semester to graduate from CMU due to the difficulty of getting classes. That extra semester was about $35K, what it costs a whole year at CalPoly. The stories about difficulty of getting classes are often blown out of proportion and they seem common at many colleges.
Yes, direct admit to CS UW is great and definitely comparable in educational value to CalPoly, it was really, really difficult to get in when she applied, not sure what the situation is now. At that time, the total cost of in state UW wasn’t that different from OOS for CalPoly with the scholarship and the added bonus was smaller classes for undergrads and the weather.
CPE is a longer curriculum than CS too (between 11 and 15 hours, depending on classes chosen).
I can’t agree with @iulianc strongly enough. Being organized, creative, knowing the scheduling system and curriculum inside and out and not dodging times or professors is the secret. Our son will be finishing with a BS and MS in ME in 5 years. It was nice for him to take 12 hours when he had the killer classes every engineering major is known to have.
You guys have all been so helpful, I really appreciate it. Don’t think I am a bad mother but I am a little worried that my twins may struggle a lot in CS at Cal Poly. They both took CS in Highschool and did well and they both did very well on the SAT etc but they do well because they work incredibly hard. They both believe that a person can do well at anything as long as they work hard at it but I am not sure that is always true. Is there support at Cal Poly if they do struggle? Also, they have been coding in Highschool and seem to really like it but it is not like they have been coding for years. Do all of the kids come into CS at Cal Poly already having a lot of experience?
@2toplace, don’t worry about it. Everyone fears that their student(s) will be under prepared, but they’ll get everything they need from Cal Poly regardless of previous experience (which is actually uncommon). Congrats!
Major: Civil Engineering
Status: Accepted
Found out on 3/3 at 3:00 A.M.
In-State (Not Local)
Cal Poly GPA: 3.85
CSU GPA: around 4.1
SAT: 1370
ACT: 30
MCA: 4315
Max Rigor
ECs with Leadership
The thing though is that the vast majority of jobs these days are on software.