Comparing Course Rigor at various colleges

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>This is the first of 2 separate specific questions I have about picking a college for mech engineering. I'm trying to understand the relative Math, Physics, and Engineering course rigor between San Diego State, Long Beach State, Cal Poly Pomona, UC Davis and UC Irvine.</p>

<p>I'm a solid student, but not brilliant. I want to know if a given course --- be it Calculus II, Physics E&M, or Dynamics --- will just be inherently tougher at a UC, for example, than at a Cal State. I understand that the competition will be stiffer at some schools, and all other things being equal, one might expect a somewhat lower grade at one college as compared to another, but I'm asking if the course content itself will be deeper and/or more difficult or faster-paced at one college compared with another.</p>

<p>I know everyone has opinions about the 5 colleges, and their general ranking. I'm not asking about that, so please don't comment on that. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>SDSU and long beach will probably be a little slower paced since they’re on the semester system, the others are on quarter. Other than that, UC’s are supposed to be a little more theoretical than csu’s.</p>

3

<p>All things being equal, I’d say go for a school that does semesters. Quarters force you to be less rigorous because you simply don’t have the time. Sometimes they get it right, like doing the calc sequence in four quarters. But I know that the rigor of the introductory calc-based physics classes I’ve been taking has suffered because we haven’t had the time to properly study all of the material.</p>