When applying to colleges during the fall I thought I knew that I wanted to major in civil engineering. Recently, though, I’ve become certain that I’m actually not interested in civil engineering and I want to change my major to ME. I’ve been accepted to SLO’s college of engineering under civil engineering as a freshman and have noticed that in order to initiate a major change you must first complete at least a quarter under your current major. I’m worried that this would put me at a great disadvantage as I have been studying the flowchart for an ME BS and have noticed that the essential intro to ME classes are only offered during their respective quarter (only Intro to ME II offered in the winter), forcing me to wait until the fall of my sophomore year to begin taking Intro to ME classes. I’m curious as to whether someone here has switched majors within the college of engineering and whether or not its been difficult because I don’t want to fall behind and I plan on graduating in 4 years.
You should call. Each college does it differently. It’s likely that you’ll have to wait and possible that you’d be compared to the cohort of MEs you would have competed against in the first place, since ME is a harder admit than Civil. Again, call the ME department and ask. They hold your fate. Good luck.
You should call. Each college does it differently. It’s likely that you’ll have to wait and possible that you’d be compared to the cohort of MEs you would have competed against in the first place, since ME is a harder admit than Civil. Again, call the ME department and ask. They hold your fate. Good luck.
I believe you would take ME 228 and ME 229 instead of ME 128, 129, 130, and 163.
The only thing that makes it hard to change majors within the College of Engineering is the coursework itself. It is not easy to make good grades (2.75 GPA for ME) in the engineering support classes that all engineers must take. CENG is the largest “exporter” of students at Cal Poly, so there are often spots opening up in most CENG majors. (OCOB is the largest “importer” of students.) My son just completed his ICMA to change from BRAE (in CAFES) into AERO (in CENG). Getting the grades was the hard part. He had to have at least a 2.5 in all three GPA’s-- Cal Poly GPA, Higher Ed GPA, and the GPA for the courses on his ICMA contract. (In his case, Chem, Statics, and Physics.)
@ralph4, there’s a ring of truth to the old addage of calling Engineering…Pre-Business. 
BTW, did you mean statics or statistics? If he had to complete Statics, I’m guessing he didn’t switch until second year or was WAY ahead in math.
Congrats to your son!
@eyemgh Yes, engineering statics. He switched 2nd year but was already taking all the right support classes for engineers (and BRAE) his freshman year. He didn’t decide he wanted AERO until his 3rd quarter at CP. Freshman year he took lots of the machine shop classes as he was considering changing into Manufacturing Eng. And thanks, he has worked hard.
No not at all! I have had multiple friends do it with ease!!!
If you switch into ME then you will take ME 228 and 229 for transfers. You will end up at the same point as normal ME students because two terms of 228/229, plus starting 1 term later, comes out to 3 terms just like 128,129, 130, and 163 take 3 terms.
Please note that ME 228/229 fill up quite fast, so definitely enroll in them as soon as possible.