<p>So I apparently am standing at crossroads here. Considering I am rejected at UCLA, which I am predicting, my choices come down to these two universities.
For one, the majority of college ranking websites rank UCSD's engineering department as superior to UCSB, a minority think vice versa. (one website listing UCSB's engineering department 6th in the world. Woah)
My mother thinks it's the best for me to go to UCSD, and she has her solid reasons. One being that it's the only school she knows that offers nanoengineering as a major. Another that it's a better school overall, with a better engineering department. Stuff like that. Most of which are true!
The thing is though, I've visited both colleges, and I just flat out do not like the UCSD campus at all. It just, doesn't feel like it has a university atmosphere or feeling to it. I dunno. The campus just seems bleak to me. And there are the stereotypes saying that there is a modicum of social life there, which further enhances my opinion that the campus is bleak :p. The stereotypes may be overexaggerated though, so I'm not too sure. It just seems I wouldn't really enjoy it too much. No offense to anyone reading this that may be attending UCSD.
On the other hand, I really liked the campus of UCSB. The location and atmosphere just warmed me up on the inside more than UCSD did, even if that does sound corny. But it's true. Had more of a welcoming and amiable feeling to it.
And yea I know you should not solely base your college decision on the universities campus and atmosphere, but it should play some factor! Or should it not? GAH I'm not sure what to pick.
What do you guys think? All replies will be appreciated and considered! :)</p>
<p>question number one is have you already been accepted as a EE major at UCSB and as a NanoEngineering major at UCSD?</p>
<p>@mikemac Yea. I got accepted into both. </p>
<p>Congrats! Getting into nano at UCSD is especially good since it is an impacted major (as are all engineering majors at UCSD) and so it will be difficult to change into that major, even for those in other engineering subjects. If you know a lot about careers in nanotechnology and are really sure it is something you can see yourself doing then that might be the trump card in the decision.</p>
<p>If nano isn’t for sure, maybe you’ll pick some other branch of engineering (or maybe leave engineering entirely, which about 30-50% do) then making the decision informed by other criteria is good decision making. </p>
<p>I don’t want to be hard on mom here, she just wants the best for you. But her “solid reasons” are full of air. Rankings, to begin with, are mostly BS created by some journalists at a 2nd-rate magazine to sell an annual issue. And it worked! Better than they could have dreamed. But it is nothing more than a coarse guide and your mother is reading much more into them than is reasonable. You already know the coarse rankings, everyone does (MIT great engineering, CSUN engineering not quite the same). Relying on ranking for engineering or universities as a whole is the lazy person’s way of avoiding the work of thinking about what matters in a college education.</p>
<p>Ratings are produced by assigning a weight to things that can be measured like average SAT, polls of deans ranking schools, acceptance rate, etc. Add up all the weighted factors for each school, sort the list, and you have the US News (or whatever) rankings. See the US News description of this at <a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2013/09/09/how-us-news-calculated-the-2014-best-colleges-rankings”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2013/09/09/how-us-news-calculated-the-2014-best-colleges-rankings</a></p>
<p>A few things should be obvious. For one thing, the weights are arbitrary. Why is the retention 22.5% of the final score and financial resources 10%? Maybe having more money to spend on education should count for more. The point is there is no divinely-given way to set the weights, and in fact they are deliberately changed each year so that people rush to buy the magazine to see what spots their favorite schools get in the newest rankings. And keep in mind that if something isn’t easily measured it isn’t part of the rankings. Wouldn’t you care about whether students think the faculty is interested in teaching undergrads, whether they received effective advising, how helpful the career center has been? You might care, but since they weren’t measured they play ZERO role in the rankings.</p>
<p>I suspect it will be hard to discuss any of this with your mom. People that lean on rankings do so to avoid having to do any hard thinking on their own. Discussions about what really matters in college education and digging up that information are exactly the areas they want to avoid. So much easier to just put blind faith in the 2014 edition of US News. Says here UCSD is better. Done.</p>
<p>The truth is UCSB and UCSD are more or less clones. They attract students of similar abilities, have similar class sizes, student body size, grad-student focus, career center, advising, costs, intercollegiate and intramural athletic programs, degree requirements, study-abroad program, you name it. The real difference, in fact, is what you hit upon. UCSD is primarily a commuter school set in a wonderful city. After frosh year in the dorms many students live on the beach in Pacific or Mission Beach and commute in. La Jolla, the closest neighborhood, has pricy areas and residents that love the UC jobs but prefer the noisy students go elsewhere so having them live in PB or MB suits them fine. Some people love the mix of students city life and beach. UCSB is one of the few residential colleges in CA. It has a real college feel, your friends are going to live a stroll away, its easy to get to campus to see a TA or attend a campus event. Some people like it, some find it too small and confining. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>So if you want to go into nano, are reasonably sure about it, then it is hard to pass up the slot at UCSD. Otherwise pick the campus where you will be happy. </p>
<p>@mikemac
Wow I wasn’t expecting this long of an answer! Thanks for your input dude. </p>
<p>Man I can’t believe the parallels as I was reading your post. I had to choose between UCSD nano, UCLA materials, and UCSB chemical eng. My mom pushed me towards the nano, I liked UCLA campus more than UCSD. Ended up choosing UCSD because nano was super cool.</p>
<p>Thoughts:</p>
<p>UCSD campus is cool. Definitely not classic college campus, definitely a boring-ish campus, but it grows on you.</p>
<p>UC Sociallly Dead is exaggerated, there is a social scene here. But it is a more academically focused campus for sure.</p>
<p>Nano is awesome, I love it. If you’re passionate about it there are great opportunities here. But I’ve been to UCSB to visit and it’s awesome (and very fun) so I understand the allure</p>
<p>Reply if you have any more questions!</p>
<p>While I think it’s good to go where one feels most fit but to claim that UCSB and UCSD are clones is an exaggeration at its best. Check out the list of homegrown Nobel Prize winners at the UCs, UCSB is not even on the list. In California, UCSD is between UCB and Caltech, follow by UCLA <a href=“List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation</a> </p>
<p>@Anders157,
I’m glad you picked UCSD for you major. UCSD is in the top 10 universities that receive funding in federal research, that should be very good for you major.
<a href=“http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/feature/investing_in_the_future_uc_san_diegos_federal_research_funding_among_top_10”>http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/feature/investing_in_the_future_uc_san_diegos_federal_research_funding_among_top_10</a></p>
<p>I expect the OP has made his decision at this point, but UCSB is doing cool nanoengineering stuff, whatever they ‘call’ it. <a href=“http://www.nanotech.ucsb.edu/”>http://www.nanotech.ucsb.edu/</a></p>
<p><a href=“https://www.cnsi.ucsb.edu/”>https://www.cnsi.ucsb.edu/</a></p>
<p><a href=“Public Affairs & Communications | Institutional Advancement”>Public Affairs & Communications | Institutional Advancement;
<p>@DrGoogle UCSB currently has 5 Nobel Laureates on faculty regardless of what your list says. So has UCSD <a href=“Academic Affairs”>Academic Affairs; And I know an alumn of the CCS there won the prize fairly recently, and suspect other alumn have as well. Lists that tally what awards a UC have ever won in total aren’t necessarily useful in determining the respective quality of education there TODAY. UCSD is clearly a good school, but UCSBs engineering department is fantastic, imho.</p>
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<p>I don’t think of SD and SB as clones, especially since I think that among all the UC campuses, they seem to be at opposite poles, wrt social life. But both are excellent in the sciences, as @collegevetting mentioned, and I think people would be pleasantly surprised at how STEM oriented SB is.</p>
<p>The problem with the list is that there’s just too much redundant listing. I saw Adam Riess, astrophysicist, listed four times: MIT, where he received is baccalaureate; Harvard, where he received his PHD; Cal, where he did post-doc; and John Hopkins, where he is a professor.</p>
<p>Further, Harvard and Cal have hundreds of grads listed, because they are Nobel PHD factories, but if you pare down the list to those who did undergrad work at both, they’d have considerably less, and at most ~ 10? according to Alexandre’s list. For instance all UCLA’s isn’t even close to being in the breath of those u’s listed as Nobel PHD factories, and therefore doesn’t have but seven listed as grads, but all seven listed did undergrad at the U. This is the gist of this board, undergrad study, after all. </p>
<p>Besides which, Nobel counting in universities’ faculty lists if this were pared down, is a fairly specious association with faculty quality, wrt undergrad students’ association therewith or whether the Nobelists are still with a u or even still living. So these lists are always way overinflated. Sounds impressive that Harvard has a billion Nobelists associated with it, but one can pare down the list by at least ½ billion to teachers at the U and undergrad alumni association. </p>
<p>I guess my main point, is the OP should have gone where he felt most comfortable, and to have worried about the possible Nobel association or winning it himself in where he chose grad studies, which could be SD.</p>