I’m a transfer student for fall 2017, and I have been admitted to UC San Diego and UC Davis for chemical engineering. I would marginally prefer to live in La Jolla over Davis, but I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from people saying that UCSD’s chemE program is subpar, and that they don’t get many job recruiters. I’ve also heard that Davis has a solid program and gets more recruiters, especially from in-state companies. However, there are others that say the schools are almost identical and that the choice will not make much of a difference in terms of career success. Furthermore, most of the posts I have read on this topic are at least a few years old. If anyone could shed some light on UCSD’s chemE program, I would really appreciate it. Are they really that bad compared to Davis? Have they improved at all in the last few years?
I can’t speak about the programs but did want to share one piece of good news about UC Davis. The new chancellor is Gary May, Dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. Dean May is incredible and will do a lot of good for the students at UC Davis. You can’t believe how sad everyone is at Georgia Tech to lose Dean May. Dean May is a great recruiter at having companies come to his university for both jobs and for sponsoring student projects etc. He has an open door policy for students and will work hard to improve UC Davis.
Also student housing around La Jolla is not plentiful and very expensive. Sorry I can’t be more helpful but you will love Dean May if you go to UC Davis.
UCSD has an overall higher ranked undergraduate engineering program than UCD. See this year’s US News and World Report rankings. The difference is not much. Also, many perceive UCSD to be better and at least a little more prestigious than UCD for engineering. Choose the school you are most comfortable with.
I saw that UCSD has a higher ranked undergraduate engineering program, but it seems the one area in engineering that they do not beat Davis in is chemE, which is fine. I am not obsessed with rankings, but I’ve just heard from some that their program is not very solid.