@eyemgh Thank you. You should have your own thread for “Everything you need to know about MechEng at SLO”. Your input is invaluable. Hope you don’t drop off CC when your son graduates.
Are you member of “Cal Poly SLO Mustang Parents” on Facebook? I’ve just started looking at it a bit.
Does anyone have laptop recommendations for Mech Eng?
My D’s been using an HP Folio & an Ipad.
Need to get her her own laptop. The little I’ve researched about, there’s some issue with Solidworks on Macs
@byebyebaby, I agonized with this back in the day, and it wasn’t worth the effort.
If you want a Solidworks Certified machine, it has to be custom built, will weigh a ton, have a small screen (versus a desktop or multi-monitor desk top), and will have poor battery life. It would be a desktop equivalent machine, but would give up nearly all the advantages of being portable. I did buy such a machine for my son, an @Xi, thinking I was doing him a favor. They custom build for field engineers and the military. You can get a similar machine from Dell and Lenovo. It is a beast (quad core i7, 1T SSD, quadro graphics, 16g RAM, etc.) and still serving him well 4 years later. They start at mid $2000 and can go ovr $4000.
Here the truth, Solidworks is a desktop platform. People who use such a configured laptop do so only because they are going to the boondocks without a desktop, temporarily and HAVE to do 3D CAD while they are there.
The other day my son said, “I think I’ll get a new computer when I graduate.” I asked what he’d get. The response, an Apple, and I’d do all my engineering work on a desktop.
So, TL;DR: any computer will do. They have good access to computer labs and remote software. If it were me, I’d pick an i5 or better Windows machine with at least a 500G HD and 8g RAM. Apples are great, but there is a price premium.
BTW, I am a member of that group. It’s great. Traci is amazing.
Yeah, cause I grew up under immigrant parents who only understood reputation. Now that I’ve graduated, it seems ridiculous given my many opportunities that I probably would have gotten at either school and how unless you’re Ivy League + Stanford/MIT/Top10, the reputation of your school doesn’t matter - it’s all the same to employers.
College is obviously what you make it. My experience was probably rowdier than most from living with a couple guys on the football team to being locally “fame-ish”, things I wouldn’t have likely walked into at UCB. My main comparison is subjectively based on the number of attractive people and pool parties.
A big issue though is that there’s a culture of academic anxiety and that nothing else matters that’s very pervasive at UCB and even UC Socially Dead (according to my brother). I’m not sure the reasoning but you can just sense the culture when you walk on the campus.
Just what I was told at Apple. Large companies often require an advanced degree to justify promotion if you didn’t grow with the company when it started.
Haha, I missed big cities but stand up comedy is 99% of the reason I moved out here and grad was the only socially acceptable way for me to drop everything to move out here
Can’t talk about it. Apple’s just very secretive. I will mention that I did get flown out internationally (business class) several times and IP I developed will show up on a future product
No, Apple has a specific week-long recruiting event (they called it network with Apple) twice a year on campus for just themselves (as do several other companies). I believe Tesla started doing it too the year I left.
@eyemgh - thank you for the engineering computer info! So much intel to gather up over the next few months! And yes, Traci HL is AMAZING!
Wanted to add that I just joined that Cal Poly parents page as well; a very welcoming and helpful group of parents, with an extremely knowledgeable, friendly and just all around wonderful moderator in Traci. Would highly recommend other new parents to join as well!
Hi! I’m a little late to the party but I was just wondering about the difference between getting honors and not. I didn’t get the invitation to apply for honors as a freshman, will that affect my classes and stuff? I’m mainly just worried about not getting the classes I want. Also could anyone briefly go over the dorms and housing? Why does everyone want the new houses? And if it helps, I’m a Chinese American female and majoring in nutritional sciences
Can you comment on ability to graduation in 4yrs in Engineering.
I understand if you change majors, go abroad or have to repeat classes there’s an impact - but I’m seeing a lot about inability to get into required classes that is delaying grad’n.
What’s been your experience with ability to get into required classes?
What trend have you seen in Engineering?
I can share my daughter’s experience. She started in Computer Engineering with a pretty good load of AP credit and stayed in that major. Took two quarters off to study in South Korea her junior year and will be graduating in time this June in four year without taking any summer classes.
The AP credits helped her some, but very often had to crash courses and/or take classes at some inconvenient times, most times took over 14 credits, but was careful to balance them. The only time she only took 12 credits was when all were pretty hard. She was very persistent in getting the classes she needed, she developed relationships with professors and succeeded in allowing her to get creative exemptions for certain sequence of classes. For example she convinced some to take pre-requisites in sync with other classes rather than in sequence, pleaded with some and succeeded getting into classes that were in theory not easy to get into etc. She often made dean’s list. She was involved in clubs/engineering sorority, attended conferences, etc.
I think for the determined kids finishing in 4 years is totally doable. That will not necessarily come easy or by default, but then nothing in life comes to you that way. Good luck!
@byebyebaby, My son’s experience parallels that of @iulianc’s daughter. He always vetted instructors through Poly Ratings, and had preferences for times, but never dodged a prof or time if it meant taking a light schedule. He too took 12h once, when he had a class that would have been a full load by itself. He’s now in his last quarter of 4th year, and has a significant portion of his masters coursework completed. He will walk with a BS/MS in ME in less than 5 years.
Honors
No, they just add a star next to your name at the graduation ceremony. You get some GE classes reserved for you, but otherwise it isn’t really more beneficial
Housing
Sierra Madre and Yosemite: most social
Red bricks: major based and less social
PCV and Cerro Vista: least social.
SM and Y used to get booked out first immediately so I’m assuming the new housing is a similar extension of the social atmosphere of both of those.
What’s been your experience with ability to get into required classes?
Super easy as a mechanical Engineer and student body representative. There’s like 200 Mech engineers in my year alone which means all of my requisite classes are available every quarter and that being elected to student govt (or being on a sports team or being disabled) gave me preferential first dibs on all my classes.
The people who had trouble were those with smaller majors. Like Aerospace has certain core Aero classes that come around only once a year, which means if you fail or miss that class, you’re set back on the classes that use the core class as a requisite.
Any thoughts on the Q+ program that is offered to freshmen in summer before first quarter?