I’m having a hard time deciding between the Cal Poly Pomona Electromechanical Systems Engineering Technology and Chico’s Mechatronic Engineering program. Not entirely familiar with either environment and am looking for something to tip the scales. Comparison of program quality/local job pool and industry/ease of continued education if I shoot for a master’s? I’ve been put under the impression ‘engineering technology’ is synonymous with vocational education which, if it bars me from pursuing a master’s later on, I’m not sure about. Any and all help appreciated - beyond school what’s it like to live there? Be as critical as helpful.
they are both very reputable for their engineering majors, being honest, CPP probably has a reputational edge but, going to Chico won’t hurt your grad school chances. The student experience is quite different, not only is CPP a larger campus, it is also surrounded by the greater LA area - that’s good and bad - good because you can get local internships pretty readily but, bad because you are in LA, where traffic stinks and lots of students live in their family home. Chico is a small town that’s pretty isolated from a major metro area - it is undeniably a college town and most students move to attend. That means they all live close to campus and there’s always stuff to do.
You really need to visit both.
Visited Chico to mountain bike and was impressed and spent time around LA and OC and could see myself bearing the busyness for a couple years. Access to trails and safe commute routes would be a bonus but my criteria revolves around the education first. Just want to ensure a BS in Engr Tech isn’t a dead-end insofar as not setting me up for continued studies (ie. Master’s program).
To clarify more simply, I guess I’m not concerned with the living situation of either so much as whether the degree program in question offered at Cal Poly Pomona is a dead-end, implicitly or explicitly. Any thoughts?
Sorry, i don’t know that curriculum well enough to make a real conclusion. IMHO, neither of the CPs would host an Engineering major of any type that didn’t have a practical demand in the work-force. Besides, most people change majors more than once - fortunately, both schools make chagrining majors fairly painless.
You note you are a mtn biker - both schools have pretty active cycling clubs and, if you participated in NICA and/or are interested in racing, both have club level mtn (and other types) bike teams that compete in the USAs Western Collegiate Cycling Conference. The season starts pretty early so you might want to connect with the clubs now. Based on my son’s experienced, If you raced NorCal or SoCal, with a little training you’ll have no trouble being competitive at the collegiate level. It is a great way to stay active and meet like-minded people.
Chico seems to respond best on/via the club’s Facebook page.
When we were looking CPP had a bigger team, I think CPP has someone monitoring the contact link here
https://www.cpp.edu/~cycling/CPPCWCCC2015home.html
here’s the league and schedule info.
http://collegiatecycling.org/wccc/
My younger son is now a sophomore in college and looked closely at both schools (CPP and Chico) but decided to gp another direction. He does ride for his collegiate team.
happy to answer any other questions in the forum or via PM.
Thanks for the insight, couldn’t find a PM feature so posting here. I was a top contender a few years ago in the NorCal League but not sure whether I’ll be able to swing racing at college. From your research is the Pomona cycling community primarily road or mountain? It seems with all the traffic that the bulk of the trails would be a way’s away. Will continue with my own research but just curious what you’ve found.
I think all of the teams skew road in numbers but it is in a different season (wraps up in a couple of weeks i think) Lots of students ride/race year round , starting in Fall with Mountain and Road in Spring.
The CPP team has been active several years but because the races are far away, didn’t seem to send many riders this year. I haven’t been there but, i know there a a lot of trails at Bonelli state park which i think are accessible from the CPP campus. They have hosted UCI races there several years in a row so, the place must have plenty of legit terrain to keep you sharp and in shape. Due to the sheer number of people, you won’t have trouble finding non-collegiate races within 100 miles. For example, I know there are high profile series of races in Big Bear and near Fontana.
Of course Chico has Bidwell for training and I know the club hosted a collegiate MTB race last year, The races are student run so, you need a critical mass to pull that off. For non-collegiate races, there’s alot of Non-USA sanctioned races in the area like the Bidwell Bump this July. For USA sanctioned you’d have to drive further to find other competitive races. Downieville is pretty well known, there are several in Truckee/Tahoe/Susanville area as part of a USA State Championship series that go on through the summer. .
For the collegiate races. you can just walk up and register - student or not. You do need a USA day or season lic but, both are available on-site. One thing i will say is that they aren’t as crisply run as the typical NorCal races. If you are a USA Cat 1 racer, you won’t be blown out of the A level races.
It looks like the Mtn headcounts at both schools vary a lot season to season. Sac State for example had no Mtn riders for several years in a row but, has a couple now. The races last season were hosted by Chico, UNR Humboldt, Stanford, UCB, CPSLO and UCSC - so, there’s a decided bent toward the North half of the state. Even SLO will be a several hour trek from Pomona. It seemed pretty typical for teams to travel together and camp someplace local.
http://collegiatecycling.org/wccc/results/
That’s the results from last year which will give you a sense of who has a big team that traveled to each race.
happy to answer any other questions you might have.