<p>Our son is considering USC, UCD, Cal Poly, LMU, and Santa Clara for mechanical engineering. We are trying to get a sense of the quality and caliber of teaching at these schools in comparison to each other. Specifically, our older son who attends CSUS, has had some poor instructors as well as professors who cannot speak English very well, especially in the math and science courses. Does anyone have information about this for these colleges?</p>
<p>USC would rank as the best engineering school, with Cal Poly SLO coming in second. Neither of these schools have a significant number of visiting professors, nor do they allow a lot of the upper division courses to be taught by grad students (often a major problem at lesser-ranked public universities).</p>
<p>It is tough to get the engineering classes needed in the early years at CPSLO, but definitely not the case at USC (which is why I ranked USC as the better of these two schools.)</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the insight CalCruzer. Neither his Dad or I are in the engineering nor do we know anyone who has been through it, thanks very much. Do you think there are any advantage in going with a small, lesser ranked program such as LMU or Santa Clara? Can you get a job?</p>
<p>Santa Clara is well regarded in engineering, as is San Jose State. Employers in the Bay Area think highly of grads from these 2 schools.</p>
<p>My son is at Cal Poly SLO in EE as a first year student. He’s had no problems getting his desired classes in either his first or 2nd quarter, nor have any of his friends (ME, CE, etc). Professors have been excellent across the board.</p>
<p>If your son prefers a theoretical approach to engineering, then Cal Poly would not be for him. If he prefers a hands-on approach, Cal Poly is unique in this regard.</p>
<p>He could also consider Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Thanks vballmom. How is the atmosphere at cal poly…collegial or cutthroat?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone out there have an opinion about whether USC and UCD have a hand on or theoretical approach to mechanical engineering?</p>
<p>From what I can tell, Cal Poly is very collegial. My son immediately joined the robotics club and IEEE and started working on a robot as part of a small team. He’s participated in study groups for math, and is the kind of kid who enjoys sharing what he knows.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for USC, but UCD would have more emphasis on theory than practice in engineering.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for engineering per se, nor do I know Cal Poly at all, but my graduate student recently accepted a tenure-track position at Cal Poly. I spoke at length to the hiring committee about him. They were very interested in learning about how he would perform in the classroom, how much he valued teaching, what his prior teaching experience included, how his teaching evaluations to date compared to other instructors teaching the same course, and so forth. </p>
<p>This is very unusual. In fact, I have never been asked such questions. Normally I just asked to write a letter commenting upon one’s research abilities and the candidate includes their c.v. which is primarily research.</p>
<p>I took this selection process to mean Cal Poly cares quite a lot about the quality of classroom teaching among the faculty they hire.</p>
<p>Cal Poly – unlike UCD or USC – is not a research university. It is not oriented towards theoretical research, as shown by the fact that it has no PhD programs. Its primary mission is undergraduate education; there are relatively few graduate students there, and they only study up to the master’s level. </p>
<p>So yes, Cal Poly faculty carry higher teaching loads, and are expected to put more effort into their teaching, than USC or UCD faculty. On the other hand, they aren’t expected to publish as much, or to conduct cutting-edge theoretical research. </p>
<p>LMU is probably like Cal Poly in these regards, although it obviously differs in other respects (Catholic vs. public, urban vs. rural). Santa Clara is not considered a major research university, but it has strong ties to industry in Silicon Valley. Both schools are respected in their regional markets (LA and Bay area respectively), but are not well known outside these areas. Cal Poly is well known and respected throughout California. UCD and USC have national reputations.</p>
<p>Thanks so much to those of you who have responded. Your coments have been germaine and very helpful for us engineering neophytes. I have one more question. Cal Poly’s “hand on” approach sounds interesting. How does it work in practice? Does this mean that the students collaborate on projects during class time? The reason I ask is that our son has a serious medical condition which requires that he get a reasonable amount of sleep. We fear that if the culture at the school requires constant out-of-class work on group projects there may be pressure to work at odd hours in the middle of the night whenever people on the team feel the need. That was our impression of the culture at Cal Tech and is one of the reasons that (even if he could get in) we decided not to have him apply. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience about what “hands on” means at Cal Poly.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at Cal Poly in Architecture, and we have been very impressed by the small class sizes. There are only 20-something students in her calculus class, and the teacher knows all them as individuals. She also has not had a problem getting the classes she needs. The school is really working on this, even with the California budget cuts.</p>
<p>Years ago, I went to Engineering schools and they had few professors that I couldn’t understand because they spoke English poorly, not even comprehensible, even those that graduated from MIT or other fine schools. I would imagine there are more of them now at any universities.</p>
<p>My son meets with his robotics friends on Saturdays during the day. The major draw is free pizza - this seems to be a theme for clubs on campus. His math group session was at a scheduled time, also during the day.</p>
<p>Hey all of you Trojans and Aggies, what do you have to say about the teaching at your respective schools?</p>