My questions are as follows:
I am already aware of the “Cal Polys are better for hands-on education and UCs are better for research” discussion.
My parents can afford my education, so I don’t have a preference to Cal Poly SLO yet.
Thank you for your time.
If you are uncertain about your major, read carefully about changing majors at Cal Poly. Cal Poly is a slightly harder academic school, because the students higher scores than Santa Barbara, although Cal Poly offers no PhD programs. They are very different, in that UCSB offers graduate programs and Cal Poly is focused on job training with students going into the workforce. As far as job offers, it depends on the economy when you graduate but in general, CS majors are going to get offers, a lot of offers from either school. Also, there is a very cool new company in Santa Barbara to check out, its a supercomputer company being started by Google, to exploit a new type of computer chip, and UC Santa Barbara is the center of that, Professor John Martinis. http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/02/google-partners-with-ucsb-to-build-quantum-processors-for-artificial-intelligence/
If you want a very solid all around education, want the chance to work with graduate students on real research projects, and are uncertain what major is your preference, go with UCSB. If you are sure you want an industry job after four years, totally certain CS is it, and want to learn very practical information about the latest Oracle databases, and Cisco networks, etc go with Cal Poly.
As a recruiter, I go for the individual. Sometimes I get hits at Cal Poly, sometimes not. The state funding is hitting Cal Poly hard. The faculty quality at Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz is hands down superior because the UC’s pay for their talent. There has been a nice shift at UCSC with undergrad involvement with research and collaboration with other colleges. Nice hires there of late.