I was just sitting down and then a question just popped up in my head. A little background about me I am a CCC student currently and looking to transfer to a state school. After I get my bachelors in business, I plan to go to Asia and work in the country I came from since most of my family is there. The question is: does the Cal State system have any recognition outside of North America or should I just try to aim for the much more recognizable UC system? Or does none of this actually matter? The reason I chose the Cal State system is because they are much cheaper. The ones I am looking at especially are CSUF, CSULB, and CPP. If these don’t have recognition outside of NA, I plan to go to a mid tier or low tier UC like UCD or UCR.
I work with people from all over the world and am a proud CSU graduate. Funny story, a fellow student in my MBA program from China used to say, CSU/USC are the same thing where i am from… that is probably no longer entirely true but, in my experience. the public schools in CA other than UCB and UCLA perhaps Cal Poly SLO are kind of lumped together as generally pretty good - but of no particular renown.
The truth is, you can get a good education at all of 9 the UCs and all 23 CSUs. Is pretty good worth the OOS price-tag? That is up to you.
If you plan to go back and work in Asia, you might want to ask employers based in Asia if the Cal States have the name recognition you want. Very few jobs in the US are dependent upon name recognition for Undergrad degrees. As long as you can bring marketable skills to your employer, the name on the diploma should not matter.
My brother is an investment director for a state own company working in Beijing. He told me only some Ivies, UCB, Stanford were known in their world!! But they do recognize smashing GPAs. I think it depends on particular industry sectors. But, alumni network counts a lot in Asia. An undergrate degree is just a starting point. He told me he was looking for hires with critical thinking and who have good potentials in solving problems competently.