<p>I've decided to change the major into Mechanical Engineering. I'm in UCI now but found Cal Poly pomona is more appealing in this major. And yet, my parents insist on staying in UCI because it has better reputation than Cal Poly. (well...they are asians.) I have pretty good feeling that Cal Poly is better in mechE but I just need a solid (numerical) data in order to persuade my parents. I've looked in U.S. college rank but they didn't include CSU systems in. Can anyone help me?</p>
<p>Cal Poly is probably not much better than UCI, but it certainly is not any worse either. While CPP is not as competitive as UCI, the instructors are world class and the learn by doing philosophy makes up for the “less competitive” test scores of the students. Being a CPP Engineering grad who knows a lot of UCI engineering grads, it sounds like my degree was more work than theirs because CPP has a ton of labs, where UCI does not.</p>
<p>I had to make the same exact decision 10 years ago (except I studied EE) and am doing quite well in my career thus far. I am glad I chose CPP over UCI, but I do have a lot of colleagues who can say the same exact thing about their decision to attend UCI.</p>
<p>I went to CPP for civil and we had to take some ME classes. I would say go to UCI.</p>
<p>@CPP the ME dept’s objective is not to convey and teach the materials, but to fail as many people as possible. To date, I still hate most of their professor, especially this thermo prof that I heard died in a plane crash…
I never found out how the hell I got a C in the class while I was averaging a A-/B+ throughout the qtr…</p>
<p>I went to UCI for one year as a CS major. I didn’t do so well there and decided to go back to the junior college. After taking my GE classes at the jc I transferred into Cal Poly Pomona as a computer engineering major. I absolutely loved it. The classes were smaller at CPP compared to UCI, and all the labs were taught by the instructors. </p>
<p>The main knock on CPP is that it is a commuter campus, which was fine for me since I did not live on campus. The other slight is that they stress more of the learn by doing philosophy as already mentioned, this can hurt in some aspects, such as research experience. </p>
<p>I would not worry too much about the rankings as the two university systems are in different categories. If you are looking at staying in CA, especially So. CA, than either degree is fine. Even though CPP is not ranked with UCI the name carries itself in the state.</p>
<p>I would stay with Irvine. Its better for engineering than Cal Poly Pomona. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo would definitely have a better program than Irvine though, if you can get in there.</p>
<p>Cal Poly Pomona is definitely better than UC-Irvine, just because Irvine is in the prestigious UC system doesn’t mean that it’s engineering program is more reputable than Cal Poly Pomona.</p>
<p>I’m a Cal Poly SLO grad and I think the engineering programs at the Poly schools “punch above their weight” in terms of reputation within the engineering community. For employability I think CPP will be better for MechE than UCI.</p>