@AMCdad my son was in a triple and he and one other roommate brought bikes. They kept them in their room (rearranging the furniture so the bikes could be against the windows) in front of their desks. Worked out well for them. Also, Cal Poly has bicycle storage lockers that you can rent for the academic year https://afd.calpoly.edu/parking/commutingtocampus/bikeparkingandstorage
Thanks, @MLM. All of you have been most helpful.
@smhs101 Thanks for bring that back up. I looked at it again below, you did mean 40%+ Asian appears to be less diverse than CP which is 57% white, right? So what spinning did I do? Yes it’s obvious that more qualified Asian prefer going to UC than CP, which results in a much higher % of student body being Asian at UC. It’s perfectly fine for anyone to treat that as a negative at UC and favor CP, but to say CP is then more diversified seems like twisting, no? BTW, if you look at Eng/CS portion of CP, Asian % would be much higher than campus over all as well. And the real world for CP’s Eng/CS grad’s major landing spot (mainly west cost and tech industry) would be heavily Asian too. CP is great at many things (undergrad focus, more practice oriented…) but diversity is not one.
“Yes CalPoly is majority white but how does that make it less diverse than say a school with +40% Asians? Couldn’t that be looked at being less diverse also?
How are we suppose to let our children see and experience the “real” world if we try to keep them sheltered within their and our own comfort zones?”
You guys are taking this forum way too seriously :). @Just4Years, I am curious what your definition of diversity for a college major is, since you seem to be implying it should whatever the industry racial profile is for the major. I can tell you for sure as an insider, the tech industry is not considered a model of diversity by any definition. From that perspective perspective alone, CalPoly would be considered more diverse than UCs, based on the figures you’re quoting 
Feel free to disagree, I don’t mind
CP and UCs are legally bared from using race as an admission criteria, and to a large extent they end up with whatever student population they end up with by students choosing to apply and then commit. There is no malicious intent, it is nobody’s fault, it is what it is
To be clear, I think diversity is a good thing, but it can be counterproductive to treat it as a number’s game. The more important point is, diversity is about respecting each other, valuing diverse perspectives (on many dimensions, not racial specific) and in the end being diverse for those reasons, not because we fit a certain number pattern.
Yes, there are jerks everywhere and in every race, but as @NLinsanity pointed out, they are few, not tolerated institutionally or even by the student community, not different from real life and the best thing to do is to ignore them. In my mind, picking a college primarily because it fits a certain racial profile better is simply creating segregation and perpetuating lack of good diversity. But that’s just my opinion
Is a school with over 50% Asians, very few Hispanic compared to the population of our state, and nearly no African Americans diverse? I don’t think so. The UC’s can claim diversity all they want, but that’s not really diverse. When our state went to race blind admissions we gave up the opportunity to engineer diverse educational environments. Should Cal Poly be recruiting Asian students to get more of them to apply just to be able to claim diversity? Maybe a better use of resources would be to figure out why our state’s African American and Hispanic students aren’t college ready and aren’t being accepted to the competitive schools in our state. I don’t think being 58% white makes Cal Poly unwelcoming or unfriendly to minorities. Again, my Hispanic child felt very comfortable of campus and has committed for the fall term.
Look neither CSU nor UC is supposed to admit students based on race; it’d be based on merit. So you end up with whatever racial composition on a campus depending on who apply and if the accepted enroll. I never imply what ‘diversity’ should look like. I only commented when I saw people regard CP to be more diversified than UC because UC has 40%+ Asian (and maybe 30% white) vs. CP’s close to 60% white and 10-15% Asian. It’s almost like diversity needs to base on white majority first. Don’t think that’s right. Then we heard argument that since the US in general is majority white so it might be a good thing that campuses more or less mirror that. You as a parent or student can make your call on what’s good for yourself, but personally I don’t think colleges in general have the obligation to make campuses mirror the general population. It’s not perfect but merit system (which both CSU and UC adopt) seems to be more fair.
As to why CP has low Asian % (vs UC) given its strong undergrad engineering programs? Perceived lack of prestige and diversity/openness maybe. Location could play a role too. The only UC (among the top 6) with more white than Asian is UCSB if I am correct. Anyway, it’s probably a good thing that way. If more Asians apply it’d be eve more competitive. We’ve seen how hard it’s become to get into CS on top 6 UCs. It’s crazy. CP is hard too already now no need to make it harder :).
I do not think anyone is claiming Cal Poly is more diverse than the UCs- it is a white majority school. Although the white percentage has been declining steadily over the last twenty years. Likewise I would not describe UCSD as diverse. A more appropriate description would be Asian dominant. In 2016 the undergrad population of UCSD was 51% Asian/Filipino, 20% Caucasian, and 18% Mexican/Latino. The Asian/White proportion at UCSD has risen dramatically in the last ten years- this is likely because UCSD has decided for financial reasons to take in a lot of international students (19%!!)- the vast majority of whom are from Asia.
As I stated previously I do not think the ethnic makeup of either school is due to some hidden undercurrent of racism either in the administration or the student body. For many reasons Asian students and parents find Cal/UCLA/UCSD more attractive than Cal Poly. Some of its location, some of its worrying about fitting in at a school with a lower Asian %, and a large part of it is perceived reputation. When my son told his Asian high school classmates he was turning down Cal Berkeley and UCSD for Cal Poly they thought he was insane. They said even if they wanted to attend Cal Poly over those schools their parents would never allow it.
I would love to see the yield rate at Cal Poly broken down by ethnicity. My hunch it is quite low for Asians and unbelievably low for URMs. Like I said previously if an African American student has the GPA and test scores to get in a competitive major at Cal Poly he/she will be inundated with full ride scholarship offers by any number of elite private schools. Cal Poly simply cannot compete for such students due to cost/location/current demographics.
And lets not fool ourselves into thinking the UC system is “race blind”. State law is routinely circumvented in UC admissions through the “holistic review” process- particularly at Cal and UCLA. This is evident when you look at the huge spread in test scores at those schools. Quite a few students accepted to UCLA with ACTs below 25. If those two schools used only GPA and test scores in admission they would have very different demographics in their entering classes. A large amount of power is wielded by UC admissions officers who are guided by the unspoken but well understood directive to make the freshman class more diverse. They have a lot of politicians breathing down their necks demanding this- despite Prop. 209.
@choroidal When I said 40% Asian I meant to include just those from US. Yes if you include international, in which China and India dominate, then Asian become majority in most UCs. But I have to say Asian internationals don’t quite think/act the same as Asian Americans, so you got some diversification there actually :). Even in so called Asian American there’s much diversity within. I heard that CP is looking to recruit from Asia too (if not already), so watch out!
You brought up a good point. Even though UC/CSU can’t base their admission on race, they can (and they do as you mentioned) still get around by over emphasizing GPA over SAT/ACT scores. This way kids with good GPA from less competitive schools (which often imply certain diversification on race or social-econ status), can still get in top UCs with relatively low test scores. They might struggle more after they get in but at least they get in. Nothing much you can do about it I guess.
Likely another discussion, but there is a huge appetite for the US higher education from Asia, especially new money from mainland China. Schools love that, they will charge full tuition from these students, no questions asked.
The flip side is that in the process the number of seats available to US students is decreasing and there have been articles about some of the cheating from some of the students involved, all along the way from admissions through the entire college life. Not likely to be a generalized behavior, but important enough to be noticed. I have friends in academia (flagship schools) who tell me some of these students band together in class since some of them do not have a good enough command of English to understand the material. A full series of well documented articles (with specific UCD examples) by Reuters here: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/cheat-sheet/
Interesting to see how this will evolve over the next few years.
Does anyone here know people who are/were in the liberal arts and engineering major?
@NLinsanity First of all Congratulation on the upcoming graduation. It seems like you really enjoy the time at cal poly and also the quality of education you receive at there. However, I have a couple questions specifically for an international student regarding internships. I am an admitted transfer student for Computer Engineering and still deciding between Berkeley(EECS) and SLO. They both have great programs but Berkeley seems to have a larger number of international students; thus more internship opportunities. There are not much information regarding international students at SLO in the forums. Therefore, I wonder if you can help me answering these questions below:
- Do you have any international friends who got internship during summer from tech companies? How do they know about these opportunities? Is it through career fair, professors, or friends?
- How do the tech companies view international students? Do they have specific requirements for international students?
- What is the process of getting an internship? Is it through Optional Practical Training(OPT) or Curricular Practical Training(CPT)?
- What's your general advises for a new student transfer students, in order to standout for recruiters?
Everybody’s answer would mean a lot to me since I have to make my decision before the end of this month. Thanks everyone.
Hey @Robin101, I am going to attempt to answer from the other end (company), not student. The company I work for (large known software company) does not care about whether you are international or not when recruiting. As long as you can work legally as an intern, you have the exact same opportunities like everyone else regardless where you go. I had many international student interns working for me (not from either school though). I am going to assume most established companies have similar policies. The only exception to this rule are companies with Dept. of Defense contracts, don’t even apply to SpaceX, Raytheon, etc you won’t get security clearance as a non citizen. That would be true whether you go to UCB or SLO. The bigger determining factor on getting internship is how well your resume stands out from your peers and how well you do on interviews.
There’s no shortage of companies recruiting in both campuses. Each company has a limited number of people they can physically interview and a limited number of people they pick from each college, which is why you have to stand out. Standing out is a function of: classes you took already in the major, other internships you had, grades, clubs you have participated in, research you might be doing, how you write your resume, how much you show interest towards a given company/position in the resume and in your interaction with the recruiters, having someone to recommend you. Those get you in the short list as getting opportunities to interview, then you still have to do well/better than your peers in interviews. Even with that, expect rejections from a good number of companies, there’s a large dose of randomness in the interview process. Sounds long and scary, but if you’re passionate about the job and determined it is not that hard. It is not that different from the college admissions process, slightly different rules and processes. Computer engineering is hot, there are plenty of opportunities.
UCB pros
If you plan on working or studying outside US after graduation, UCB will make you look much better.
CalPoly pros
It might be a little easier to stand out from your peers at CalPoly than UCB.
Although joining as a transfer in the Junior year might be a bit more difficult if you don’t have prior internships, since a lot of Juniors tend to have good internships under their belt already, and that will make them look good in the fall when the internship recruiting season starts. This is the most critical internship, since most companies expect these interns to be offered positions at the end of the internship if they do well.
One easy way to make CalPoly work for you better is to enroll in the masters program in CS and make sure you mention that to the recruiters. That gives you an extra summer for an internship opportunity.
The process of getting an internship is to get your resume in the hands of as many recruiters as possible and make your resume stand out. You could do that by participating (with good preparation) in all career fairs and reaching out to companies through your network of friends and directly through their websites.
Hope this helps, good luck!
@mustangmom2o21
Liberal arts and engineering majors:
I know a handful but they’re uncommon. Likewise, employers tend to not be sure what the major entails and employment usually is dependent on example projects/portfolio. Harder/limited job prospects compared to ME/CE/EE/CS.
@Robin101
Go to Berkeley. As an international student, you’re realistically looking to be employed at the biggest companies that are willing to sponsor your visa. Yes, you will stand out less at Berkeley, but your rate of being hired by a visa-sponsoring company is higher. I might have loved my experience and probably had more fun at SLO, but UCB will more easily hand you the outcome you are looking for if you can manage through the 400 people lectures and socially dead atmosphere.
@NLinsanity might be right, although it would be interesting to see how many more bigger companies visit UCB compared with SLO. I know for sure, the top 5 software companies recruit heavily in both.
One other thing to consider, it is easier to get a working visa with a masters degree. Consult an immigration attorney, I believe you get a no restriction two year visa with a master and the H1B visa for master holders has additional reserved quotas. All those things you should clear with a lawyer and they might certainly change soon. If they do change, they’re very likely in my view to change in favor of those holding more advanced degrees from US universities.
I got accepted to SLO for Computer Science for fall 2018, and I think I’m going to attend. I just love the ‘learn by doing’ motto, and the fact that it’s cheaper than the other UCs I’ve been accepted to and applied to is a huge plus. It’s also just three hours from my hometown, far enough to grant me independence, and close enough to visit home on some weekends. I’ve done lots of research on SLO, and feel like I’ve really sold it to myself, but in the case that I’m building a bias towards SLO, what are the negatives to attending SLO over other UCs? Negatives about SLO in general? Also, is a skateboard a good way to get around campus?
I’m not trying to purposely find bad things about SLO, I just want to consider every aspect I can.
Haha, got back just in time to see this thread getting resurrected.
@ummsail you seem to already have a great science mindset, so I’ll just summarize the data instead of delivering an essay. I’m basing my experiences off of just mine at CP vs UC friends and my brother (UCSD)
CP pros
-attractive people except vs UCSB
-more social except vs UCLA
-smaller class sizes
-easier to stand out because of smaller population except for engineering (My team and I won an international engineering competition my senior year and the news was immediately crowded out by other engineering achievements, whereas for my comedy stuff people will still mention even though I don’t attend any more.)
UC pros
-less attractive and social, so more time to dedicate towards studying (how my brother tries selling it to me)
-better reputation if you decide to leave California (assuming you attend Berkeley or LA, no one actually cares about the others from my experience so far here in Columbia, so don’t buy into the hype of CSU vs UC)
-World famous professors and research, but as a result all their classes have 400 people and are usually taught by the TAs (mostly LA and Berkeley again, UCSD has great stuff for bio/neuroscience/neurological machine learning because of Salk Institute). This also means you have more opportunities for grad school as they often train you to be researchers rather than industry focused and can write dope letters of rec
SLO cons
-Boredom. It’s a small farm town so you really have to learn to make your own fun unless you’re a nature/hiking junkie in which case this is Eden. Most people will sell themselves to a club, greek life, or just partying excessively to pass time.
-Lack of diversity. UCs have better financial aid packages/are closer to major urban areas, allowing them to recruit a more ethnic populations and have better ethnic food. As a result though, it’s also not as liberal or progressive as most universities and often seems like the small population of the sjw and alt-right types is about even, which is more representative of the whole of America.
-high rent. It’s in short supply.
-your friend group will split up after college because everyone moves to either LA or SF for work.
Skateboarding
Nope. They don’t allow skating on campus.
@NLinsanity thank you for the insight!
@NLinsanity thanks for your posts
- would you have chosen UCB over SLO? if so, why?
- why do you think UCB is "socially dead"?
- why do you think a Masters is necessary for workplace advancement?
- Congrats on Columbia. Why not do Masters at SLO?
- what type of work did you do at Apple as an ME intern?
- how did you find the Apple internship - campus job fair?
@byebyebaby, I know why @NLinsanity is in NY, but I’ll let him chime in on that. As a parent of a Masters candidate, I can shed some light onto why or why not do a MS at Cal Poly.
For my son it made absolute sense to stay at Cal Poly. He’s far enough ahead in the curriculum, that by the end of this 4th year, he’ll have the bulk of his MS coursework completed. He briefly considered applying to Stanford as some of his advisors suggested he do so. When he did the math, it made no sense. He would have had to stay at CP in order to complete his Senior Project, then move to a MS program that would have taken him 2 years to complete. Most MS programs do not offer funding (although he will likely get funded at Poly), so he would have had an minimum additional year with $50,000 in fees and a loss of $70,000 in salary by giving up that work year. There’s no way a MS from even Stanford would have offset the opportunity cost of $130,000.
If however a student is right on schedule or even behind, there’s only a little efficiency gained by staying at Cal Poly (they count 8 hours towards both degrees). The problem for MS at Poly is it’s advantage as an undergrad institution, it doesn’t offer doctoral degrees. As a result, there’s minimal undergrad instruction by TAs, but not a lot of high end research to get involved with.