<p>I've been accepted into both SJSU and Cal Poly Pomona, and right now these are my main two college picks. I live in Silicon Valley, about 20 minutes from SJSU, but if I attended there, I would get housing as it would be nice to move out of the house. I know it's not the most logical thing, but I'll be able to finance it so it's no skin off my back. If I chose Pomona, I would obviously have to move down to LA. I've heard that SJSU can be better for CS because lots of local startups and companies visit to hire students. Is there the same degree of job opportunity for Pomona? The big advantage I see to CP:P is the name recognition, but I don't know much else past that (e.g. ranking, respect, job opportunity, salary).</p>
<p>tl;dr I got into both SJSU and CP:P for Computer Science and I'm wondering which would be the best choice for getting right into the field after getting my Bachelors.</p>
<p>Don’t know much about the name recognition of the two schools, but there’s definitely value in being close to a tech sector…I personally go to a school in Seattle and it’s great having companies close by. Lots of tech talks from local companies, co-op opportunities during the school year, other special sponsored events (like hackathons and free pizza during finals)…the list goes on.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, zumzup, but I would really like to hear a response from someone who knew some specifics. I’m having a lot of trouble with this predicament and would love to hear anything you could contribute!</p>
<p>Yeah, I can’t really help you there since I know next to nothing about either school and/or their respective CS departments. Good luck in making a choice.</p>
<p>i don’t know about the specific degrees, but as for CS, I would think that most of the innovation would be during your graduate degree. For undergrad, go for the better overall education and experience life away from home. For those reasons I would choose Cal Poly Pomona. They are generally ranked higher and better regarded by future employers and graduate schools. The quality of the incoming freshmen class is also higher than SJSU.</p>
<p>As for CPPs connection to industry, here’s an article fresh off the press.</p>
<p>Thanks, I appreciate the response! I’m not planning on pursuing a Masters+ degree, so that’s not of a concern to me. My only concern with CPP is the location- SJSU has Silicon Valley/Tech Companies, while CPP is in the middle of nowhere and has LA/Aerospace which isn’t really what I’m into. Also, I think it might be nice to be close to home. Is that worth going to SJSU instead?</p>
<p>I think it’s a misconception that being in near silicon valley means better job prospects. I know friends in high tech, and people working in the field come from everywhere, including SoCal. As that article link says, CS jobs are everywhere and in places you may not think of. CPP is home to the Innovation Village in which Southern California Edison and the American Red Cross house over 2,000 high tech jobs many of which are for CPP grads. You’ll only go to college just once in your life. I hope you can make the most of it.</p>
<p>I never knew about Innovation Village- thanks a lot for letting me know about it- I’ll look into it more. I’m learning a lot from this thread, thank you two for helping so far.</p>
<p>True, but local recruiting is easier and more convenient for both the company and the student when no airplane flights are needed. A company may have a higher threshold of whatever measure of quality it uses to select non-local schools compared to local schools for recruiting, due to the lower cost of recruiting at local schools (i.e. a lower yield is acceptable at a local school because the cost of recruiting is lower there).</p>
<p>csavoia, there is a significant advantage to going to school in the Silicon Valley if you want to work for a Silicon Valley company and/or start one, provided that you have the financial means to go to school there. Although some SV tech companies have offices in SoCal, it is at the corporate HQ where most of the key events happen that could be beneficial to your career, such as Google Code Jams. You’ll also be physically closer to the SV VCs and angels who fund tech companies.</p>
<p>Cal Poly Pomona is far more selective and impacted for all of its engineering majors. Cal Poly Pomona’s engineering admission’s average SATs are 1156 (out of 1600) and it average GPAs are 3.54 (unweighted, out of 4.00). San Jose State has average SATs of 1004 and average GPAs of 3.30. Does it mean much? It depends, but it usually translates into higher rankings, more recruiting, more serious classmates, and a greater sense of “prestige”. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the replies guys! I guess at this point it’s a question of prestige versus location. Will going to a less prestigious school in the middle of SV be better than going to a more prestigious university outside of LA? Or vice versa?</p>
<p>Your comments have given me lots of food for thought and I really appreciate them!</p>
<p>In my experience, one can only ride the prestige of the school they attended but so far. Candidates still have to demonstrate their abilities. There are people from all over the world with excellent academic credentials applying to SV companies. Doing things like working on an open-source project that people at SV companies use is helpful in making an applicant stand out from the crowd.</p>