<p>I have been on the search for great engineering schools for the last couple of months. I only noticed USC recently. Can someone tell me the strength of their Electrical/Comp Engineering program? And How it compares to Rensselaer and CMU. Please do not bring up rankings (USNews and such), I do not care for them. Please try to keep it bias free, although I am sure there will be some considering its the USC area of the forums.</p>
<p>Unbiased…CMU is better while Rensselaer is probably worse. The strength of USC’s engineering school is due to the graduate program which in turn brings up the undergraduate reputation.</p>
<p>darkaeroga,
In the engineering forum I posted a detailed description of some features of the Viterbi School of Engineering. There is also a brief positive comment from a current student.</p>
<p>The post is in reference to the 2014 graduate school U.S. News Rankings which will be released on March 12th, 2013.</p>
<p>I do suggest visiting the Viterbi site. There are photos, YouTube videos and student reviews. Use the search feature here on this forum. There have been candid comments from current students and recent graduates regarding the engineering school.</p>
<p>My brother is an alumnus of Viterbi with a degree in civil engineering.</p>
<p>“CMU is better while Rensselaer is probably worse”</p>
<p>I have a CS degree,and would agree.</p>
<p>The graduate Viterbi School of Engineering has been ranked #9 by U.S. News just released today.</p>
<p>Georgia Girl, did you not read the OP? 
</p>
<p>CMU > USC > RPI</p>
<p>In my opinion, CMU and USC are pretty close and I could see reasons to pick either one. For CompE and EE, CMU has an edge, but USC is strong too. I would choose based on fit between these two.</p>
<p>My greatest fear would probably going all the way to California, I am from NJ. It is still a bit of a reach as my GPA is 3.7 unfortunately, but I just wanted to know the strength of the problem. Looks like I really have to research myself and see the quality. Thank you for the ones who responded 
however I was looking for more elaboration.</p>
<p>Trust me, the weather here will make you wonder why you ever considered Pittsburgh and staying in the cold northeast :P</p>
<p>Darkaeroga, sorry I saw your post before and haven’t had a chance to respond. I’m a Pittsburgh native and figured I should chime in. I know nothing about RPI other than it being a good but not great engineering school, so take from that what you will.</p>
<p>CMU is an excellent school but oddly angular. It’s known for its engineering and fine arts programs with essentially nothing in between. It looks like they’re working on that now, as they should, because that gap meant that several generations of liberal arts majors in my family went to Pitt instead by default, as there was nothing there for them at CMU.</p>
<p>Beyond that, while I would put CMU slightly ahead, the problem there is that the location works against you. The overwhelming majority of USC grads, no matter where they’re from, stay in Southern California, while all of the younger Pitt and CMU grads I know said that for everyone there the school was nothing more than a stopover on the way to somewhere else. CMU has built a branch campus in Silicon Valley and I believe they also built one in the “education city” in Dubai (?), but there’s no need for USC to do anything equivalent because California is such a magnet for talent to begin with. Even then, USC has extensive study abroad programs, and internship opportunities galore throughout the region.</p>
<p>I would characterize CMU on the whole as a “holding steady” kind of school meaning that it’s never going to surpass Harvard or MIT - it’s one rung below - but USC meanwhile is a hard charging, up and coming school. There is a dynamism at USC that you won’t find at most schools, and that’s because everyone at USC knows that the university’s time has come… seriously. I always tell everyone in my family that USC is the anti-Pittsburgh, because in the last 20 years USC has been growing and growing, while in the 70s and 80s Pittsburgh essentially imploded with the loss of its main industry, steel, and that resulted in a painful depopulation of the area from which the region has only begun to recover in the last 10-15 years.</p>
<p>USC is in California which as a state has more than its share of problems, but while Pittsburgh has poured plenty of money into a new airport, convention center, and stadiums for all 3 sports teams, many of the water mains, bridges, and tunnels are 125 years old and in desperate need of replacement. Same thing with the Pennsylvania Turnpike. California needs to keep up its infrastructure, but it’s nothing like Pennsylvania’s problems. When President Obama talks about needing to repair our infrastructure, he’s talking about places like Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>All things being equal, I would choose USC in a heartbeat. If you’re a computer science major, odds are good that you’ll end up working for a tech company on the West Coast or in Texas anyways. USC’s degree will be respected only slightly less than CMU, but I believe that the university makes up for it in terms of a dynamic learning environment, great location, nauseatingly perfect weather, and a more complete education - various professional schools besides arts and engineering, Division I sports, and a great social scene.</p>
<p>I actually like cold weather, much more than the hot sweaty moist atmosphere of places in the south. I will be very surprised if I get accepted to USC, and would love to go. The real obstacle will be the location it seems. Thanks USCAlum, you truly exposed me to the quality of USC and I will definitely continue my research on them to see if they fit me.</p>
<p>We are hot and dry here not hot and moist. It rarely rains. Today were sitting at a nice 80 degrees. In choosing between cmu and usc I would look at financials, and I bet once you come you’ll never look back to the cold weather no matter how much you love it.</p>
<p>You have the way wrong opinion of the weather in Southern California. Everywhere in Pennsylvania will be much more hot and sweaty in the summer than Southern Cal and much colder and shivering in the winter. I have lived all over the country and you will not find better weather than southern California - which is a key reason why so many people live there.</p>
<p>I think you guys are misunderstanding me. I dont like the hot weather. But when the decision time comes, bar the financials and weather, I am from New Jersey, it will be a huge move to go all the way across the country. I am a bit of a sheltered kid, so it would be scary for both me and my parents. :)</p>
<p>May I also ask, what is the diversity like at USC. I really would feel alone if its all white, I come from a multicultural area with 60% of the school getting free lunch.</p>
<p>Darkaeroga, you’ve got the weather slightly wrong though. I wouldn’t characterize it as hot and dry but as Mediterranean. It’s nauseatingly perfect almost every day and even “winter” temps here are usually high 70 and low 50, or nice and comfortable during the daytime and cool at night.</p>
<p>Beyond that, I would definitely evaluate both schools (and others you may apply to) based upon who accepts you and what the best deal is financially and how comfortable you feel at each school. You should know that only about 47% of USC students come from California while 13% are international (adds greatly to the experience) and the other 40% come from the other 49 states and DC. USC gets a <em>ton</em> of students from Texas, Chicago, and the NYC tri-state area, which I trust is where you’re coming from.</p>
<p>The other things worth mentioning that don’t often get enough credit IMHO are that USC encourages you to study two or more disparate fields of study - it’s very common to see people double majoring or majoring/minoring in things like engineering and philosophy or cinema and business. That sort of thing. The school’s philosophy is that studying multiple fields will allow you to tackle problems professionally from multiple perspectives, which has helped immensely in my own field, movies (went there for the film school).</p>
<p>Another thing the university does extremely well is make the school feel small. They have 37,000 students now (!!!) but not once did I ever feel like a number. The lines in the bookstore move quickly, same with the cafeterias, and you get to know nearly all of your professors. It’s just great all around that way - the benefits of a big school, with the attention and intimacy of a smaller school.</p>
<p>The other thing is that the school has a very good pre-professional focus in the sense that they don’t just give you a degree and dump you into the real world, they actually help prepare you to navigate that world post-graduation. They have a lot of campus recruiting, hiring events, networking events, etc. plus classwork that’s geared towards working in your field rather than just studying abstract concepts. The university deserves a lot of credit there.</p>
<p>Beyond all that, here’s a few videos worth looking at:</p>
<p>The generic overall video:
[Visit</a> the University of Southern California - YouTube](<a href=“Visit the University of Southern California - YouTube”>Visit the University of Southern California - YouTube)</p>
<p>Video on the university’s meteoric rise in the last 2 decades:
[Challenge</a> and Change: The Sample Legacy - YouTube](<a href=“Challenge and Change: The Sample Legacy - YouTube”>Challenge and Change: The Sample Legacy - YouTube)</p>
<p>And the university’s goals for its current $6 billion endowment campaign:
[The</a> Campaign for the University of Southern California - YouTube](<a href=“The Campaign for the University of Southern California - YouTube”>The Campaign for the University of Southern California - YouTube)</p>
<p>As the last video says, under Dr. Nikias the school’s goal is very simple: undisputed elite status. They’re well on their way.</p>
<p>USC is <em>very</em> diverse in every sense of the term. The student body is very diverse economically, ethnically, and geographically. USC has one of the largest populations of international students of any school in the country, and that means that in every class you’ll be working on problems with people who bring all sorts of perspectives. That’s one thing that’s fantastically stood out for me post-graduation, especially in working with UCLA grads when 91% of their students are from California. At USC, my two best friends were from Orange County and Germany.</p>
<p>Also, I hear you about moving cross-country. Keep in mind that you’re in your prime risk-taking years now though, and that if you’re going to major in CS/CE or even EE that you’re likely going to end up working for a tech company on the West Coast or in Texas, and USC is strong in both of those places. CMU is very well respected as well, especially among engineers, and RPI is probably very good as well, but USC can give you a ton of fantastic value-add that those other schools may not be able to, like excellent programs in whatever your secondary interests are, fun sports teams to cheer for (we have great school spirit), and a good social life. You won’t necessarily get that at other top engineering schools.</p>
<p>Very diverse, no question. Feels like you are in another country sometimes, people are from everywhere and it has a hip, happening, cosmopolitan feel on campus.</p>
<p>I would just love to thank you guys for all the effort you put into persuading me. Its definitely working. Its still March and I have a long way to go. I will weigh the options and definitely will consider your points. This is why I love CC! Hopefully in October, I can get a good chance thread going on USC :/</p>