We have done several tours at CP including the general and engineering tour. With multiple college students, I have done each 2 or 3 times. One thing noticed on both is that while engineering is talked about as the king pin of CP in general, Computer Science seems to be the disregarded sibling. It was never brought up except for pointing to the older grubby building that hosts CS classes when we walked by, and that was only cause we asked where it was. Otherwise it would have no mention. Which leads me to ask, while engineering gets kudos there, is CS at CP a good program? The engineers seem to imply there is no interaction with CS majors unless they have an issue with their laptop and call a friend in CS. Gotta admit, pretty disappointed on the surface, perhaps someone involved in CS there knows better?
Excellent program with a less than 10% acceptance rate. I am sure a student or patent with first hand knowlege could elaborate. All I can say is that my younger son did extensive research on CS programs and found SLO’s program the best fit for him. Unfortunately he was not accepted but would have jumped at the chance to attend.
Just as good as any other engineering major at cp. Grads who are good at programming and do well in school have a good chance at getting great jobs at places like Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech companies. I think it’s becoming one of the most competitive engineering majors for admission at cp. The program seems to do a good job of preparing students for jobs, and follows the hands on, learn by doing philosophy.
The computer science, computer engineering, and software engineering programs at Cal Poly are excellent. Thoroughly read each departmental website and links for information, as well as their ‘achievements’. You’ll find that there is more to CP’s Computer Science (CSC) Department than the ‘older grubby building’. The Graduate Status Report will show the graduates get jobs (employers want them, same holds true for other CP majors).
When we visited each university, we made it a point to walk into the departments (computer science, computer engineering, and related majors) and talk with people. Often we ran into a professor or student in the hall and talked with them.
Most tour guides (on every campus we visited) knew more about their own major or college than about computer-related majors. All we heard about the major was how busy you were going to be.
What impressed me about Cal Poly was the ‘feel’ of the department, campus, & community; the small class size taught by professors (not graduate students); low crime rate; the cost; and the weather.
If you are an admitted student, go to Admitted Students Day at Open House. This is when you will spend time half a day with your department. By the time we left, we were really impressed with the computer science department. Note, we have an older son who went through the same department, so we knew what CSC was like. We were surprised at how the department had expanded, introducing new topics (which take time, effort and money).
Hello there.
I am a first year software engineer and also a college of engineering ambassadors. Only 5% of our ambassador workforce are CSC/CPE/SE’s… so you can kinda understand why it’s rarely talked about.
There are so many great things about the program that I don’t even know where to start. What I can say for sure is that Cal Poly CSC graduate’s are one of the most sought out students in the entire CP campus. You will have to try really hard to NOT get a job/internship.
The professors I’ve had so far are amazing, and the fact that we have small class sizes and an ACTUAL professor teacher us (not some random TA graduate student) makes the experience much more enjoyable. I’ll even stick my foot out and state that Cal Poly probably rivals UC Berkeley’s computer science program just by job opportunities and salaries.
Awesome of you to reply @yengkerng - I can see you take your job/responsibility as an ambassador seriously and that is impressive. I think on tours or preview days, a student or parent is looking for one little switch to go on about the program they are looking at or the school they are interested and with so much to cover with so many people, sometimes those signals are missed being sent or maybe missed being heard. So thanks for taking the time to read this and to reply, I have a feeling as an ambassador going forward you will make sure to mention CS if you have someone in your group interested it. Good luck to you!