<p>USC scholarship and UCLA engineering students have now been accepted, so a lucky group have a tough choice to make.</p>
<p>Focusing for now on the academics rather than sports/neighborhood/student life, which would you choose for Mechanical Engineering and WHY, specifically? </p>
<p>[Assume USC scholarship makes cost of attending UCLA and USC equivalent, at least for a year or two.]</p>
<p>well i'm a usc scholarship candidate for mechanical engineering but i haven't gotten a letter from ucla yet; however, i'll choose usc over ucla or berkeley. you really shouldn't consider rankings so much with this group because the differences in prestige are negligible. i'd say the classes are much more personal at usc from talking to all of my friends. people at usc also have much better academic advisement. if they have a question, it gets answered immediately, but my UC friends have beaurocracy problems. you should definitely consider the social climate at a school, especially if you're a mechanical engineer. you're going to be very busy with you're school work and your ability to relax on the weekends is very very very important.</p>
<p>i got a scholarship for USC and my tuition to UCLA would have been paid on top of a small scholarship they gave me. the academic differences are really pretty negligible. if you care about rankings in your selections (and to be perfectly honest, you shouldn't consider them much at this caliber of school), USC and UCLA's undergrad engineering rankings are no more than one or two spots away from each other...a very negligible, and i'd say very trivial difference.</p>
<p>though i will agree with bluebeard that the academic advisement for USC is a bit more accessible. all engineers (and in fact, all USC students) are required to have mandatory advisement before each new semester to help select classes, talk about requirements, squeezing in a minor, etc. actually, that's one of the other reasons i chose USC...they had more minors than UCLA, with one that i had to have that UCLA lacked.</p>
<p>and yes, it is hard to neglect the importance of student life when selecting a school, even as an engineering student (perhaps...especially as an engineering student). those factors were the ones that pulled me over to USC.</p>
<p>I agree the social culture is important, but that is so much more subjective than academics. No one can tell you what school is a better social fit</p>
<p>I can't speak much for UCLA, but I do know that USC's classes are a lot smaller. Sure, the general ed classes can get pretty big, but classes for your major are usually a smaller side (one person I know has as little as 11 kids in one classes, while his friend in UCLA has 55 kids in the smallest class). The differences in rankings (I don't know who's ahead for engineering, but I think they rank by grad school and not undergrad) are probably pretty negligible, both schools have great engineering programs. I know USC's has a lot of money and if you're interested in research, a lot of kids I saw were straight-up researching their freshman year.</p>
<p>I know you asked to neglect student life but . . . it's hard to forget about social ops like an engineering fraternity of a pass to campus sporting events, etc.</p>
<p>I agree the social culture is important, but that is so much more subjective than academics. No one can tell you which one is a better social fit</p>
<p>Ack. Technical difficulties! As I was saying, no one can tell you which one is a better social fit</p>
<p>So, you’re both saying forget rankings at that level. Makes sense. And that USC has more minors and accessible advisors that you meet with before each semester and more often if you want. You’re hearing UCLA advisors are not as available. May I ask, what year are you, Phobos? It sounds like you think you’ve gotten good advisement so far? Keeping your scholarship GPA has been easy enough? </p>
<p>Bluebeard, check your mail today, the letters started arriving Th/Fri this week.</p>
<p>i'm a freshman, so i've only had one bona fide advisement session, two if you count the group advisement sessions at orientation. and by group, i mean maybe 8 or 9 people registering for classes with 1-2 advisers, not bad considering the relative sameness of first semester schedules. they really did help out figuring out my schedule, and the sessions supposedly only get more involved as you get deeper into your degree. there are walk-in advisement sessions at several points in the year, and to meet with one at another time i could just schedule an appointment by dropping by the advisement office and talking to the receptionist.</p>
<p>and if you want numbers as far as class size, my largest class so far was a GE at about 120 people, not nearly as big as classes at other schools. that and professor office hours tended to be accessible. my professor always talked about discussions he had with students during his office hours. my intro electrical engineering class was maybe 40 people, and the professor and TAs were easily accessible. in fact, when we had a robot project due, the TAs were available for 4 to 5 hours a day for about a week.</p>
<p>well i'd say certain social aspects are objective. ucla is a state school and therefore has more commuter students and students that go home for the weekends. you're going to have alot more friends and things to do on or near campus at usc. usc also how more of an outreach to its engineering students (KIUEL). does anybody here know about KIUEL who can elaborate on what exactly it is?</p>
<p>The biggest thing I can think of is that UCLA/UCSD/etc, based on what my friends tell me, it feels like they're trying to purposefully weed people out of engineering. Here at USC, even though it's still very rigorous (and people do change majors out, too) they give a lot of support along the way.</p>
<p>Most of the freshman engineering, math, and science requirements have supplementary group instruction sessions taught by upperclassmen who took that class previously - there's free individual tutoring also for those classes - as well as places like the math center where you can just "walk in" and ask whoever's there for help, either professors, grad students, or other undergrads. So they really, really try to help every student pass.</p>
<p>Also, there's not a strange idea of an "impacted" major here. If you're accepted to engineering, you're accepted to engineering, no matter what. If you get into, say, Industrial and Systems Engineering but want to do Biomedical or Electrical (or both!!), then you can just change just like that, no application or anything necessary, just meet with an advisor and get them to punch it in the system.</p>
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and the sessions supposedly only get more involved as you get deeper into your degree. there are walk-in advisement sessions at several points in the year, and to meet with one at another time i could just schedule an appointment by dropping by the advisement office and talking to the receptionist.
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<p>Plus, beyond the first meetings with the general engineering advisors, your department advisor is really accessible - most of them are really responsive to emails and appointment requests, and are pretty open to unscheduled knocks on their doors if you just need something quick (if they're not busy) any time of year. </p>
<p>Also, it's neat that they know you by name (and you're on a first name basis with them) - very personalized :)</p>
<p>Our son is in Engineering at USC. He loves Viterbi. He was accepted to UCLA for Engineering as well. I think either school would have provided an excellent education. I was very impressed with the new classrooms at Viterbi (multi-media, real-time lecture response units, top notch professors, hands-on in the research labs - as a freshman). The counseling/advising is incredible. Both Fall and Spring semesters, as our son went through Registration, he had received excellent advising. He knew which GE classes he needed to take each semester, and for the year. They go to great lengths to communicate what the requirements are. Once he knew what was required, he had the freedom to choose from many many GE classes that fulfilled the requirements. It gave him the freedom and flexibility to build a schedule that fit his personal preferences (early classes or later classes, spread across Mon-Fri or load up on specific days, sleep in every day, if that was his preference). Though he knew which core GE classes he needed to complete, he had the freedom, after viewing the choices available via their online Registration system, to choose (from a multitude of choices) one which fulfilled the requirements, yet also was in an area of interest to him. When his first year is over, he will have completed all of his required GE freshman classes. Also, at USC, they start in the first (Fall) semester taking classes in their major. He will have completed 3 classes so far within his major, in his first year. You will most likely be happy at either USC or UCLA, but my son is having the time of his life at USC, and is very much enjoying their Engineering program.</p>