Mechanical Engineering: Cal Poly vs UC Berkeley

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
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<p>As I prepare to decide which college to go to, I am trying to plan ahead and make my choice based upon which school will best lead me to a career in the automotive industry, preferably Fisker or Tesla Motors, or at least a similar career. I am currently deciding between Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Berkeley. Both are very highly ranked in mechanical engineering, and of course both say they turn out the best engineers. Obviously Berkeley has an amazing reputation, but I have also heard from many sources that SLO is a rising star and does a better job of training engineers to work, as well as has close ties with many companies in the industry. I have visited SLO and love it, but am hesitant to commit because I’m still not sure that a SLO degree is the equivalent of a Berkeley degree. In addition, I plan to go to grad school after earning my BS, so I want to know how prepared I’ll be after graduating from either school.</p>

<p>Bottom Line:
How equivalent are M.E. degrees from Cal Poly SLO and UC Berkeley, both for graduate school and a career?</p>

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<p>I put this on your other post as well. My kid is an ME at Cal Poly and we had a very similar dilemma. Hope it helps.</p>

<p>Cal Poly has many distinguised grads and many go on to top grad schools. Here are some examples:</p>

<p>Bill Swanson, Chairman and CEO of Raytheon is a Cal Poly grad. Here is he resume: <a href=“http://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/r...io_swanson.pdf[/url]”>500 - Server Error | Raytheon Technologies;

<p>Here is a section of a post from a veteran CC poster ickglue (a Cal Poly egingeering grad and Harvard Business School MBA):</p>

<p>“If a Cal Poly graduate walk into an interview for an engineering, architecture, business, or agricultural firm, he/she will stand toe-to-toe and beyond with the aforementioned UCs. Take the tech industry in Silicon Valley, you will find CP graduates ubiquitous all over the valley in almost every function ranging from engineering, product management, marketing, to finance. Some of the most senior executives in Silicon Valley hailed from Cal Poly (Apple’s CFO, Oracle division president, Brocade CEO, etc) There is a reason why Cal Poly graduates’ salaries are some of the highest in all of the US universities, and beaten only by UCB and UVA for public schools. So bottom-line, if you are measuring CP’s reputation by its industry clout, Cal Poly is a powerhouse, full stop.”</p>

<p>By the way, Cal Poly also trumps UCB on initial salaries too. </p>

<p>More from ickglue:</p>

<p>"To address your question about getting into grad school after CP, the answer is gaining admission to a top grad school is most definitely a non-issue, provided the student did well of course. But that would be true even if you went to Harvard undergrad. </p>

<p>As an example, Cal Poly engineering actually has a preferential admission program for USC grad engineering program." </p>

<p>So, here is my anecdotal 2 cents. One of my kid’s colleagues who is a graduating senior in ME said it perfectly, “I turned down UC Berkeley for Cal Poly and at that time I was very worried that I had made a huge mistake. Many of my friends chose Berkeley instead. However, now that we are all graduating, I had several internships and now have multiple job offers. I am taking the offer with Chevron. My friends at Berkeley are still struggling to find jobs. I think that the best thing to do it is to get the practical experience at Cal Poly and then do a masters at a research university so that you can get the experience of both worlds.”</p>

<p>I have nothing bad to say about Berkeley. It is an outstanding, World class research university with a global reputation. We as a family did substantial research, every campus tour offered and we turned down 5 UC’s for Cal Poly ME including UCLA and UCSD (UCB was not in our pool of choices – my kid was uninterested in UCB due to distance from home and campus culture preferences.)</p>

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<p>I just talked with someone from SLO this last weekend that just got an internship for this summer with Tesla. So SLO must have a relationship with them.</p>

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<p>I would definitively go to Berkeley. Cal Poly-S.L.O. is great, but Berkeley (Cal, UC Berkeley, or whatever you want to call it) is a national and international engineering powerhouse only rivaled by MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and Cambridge (UK). Notice that this is only my opinion.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the kind words Osakada, as always.</p>

<p>@OP
Besides choosing the school for academics, think also about the environment you want to be in. Cal is 40k+ student urban campus with extremely competitive academic culture. Cal Poly is a 17k+ student campus with mainly open nature as a backdrop with a very cooperative academic culture. Think about what will make you happy as a person along with an opportunity for academic achievements. </p>

<p>Remember that getting into grad school for engineering/Phd is all about grades, so a 4.0 GPA at Cal Poly is WAY superior to a 2.5 GPA from Cal engineering, in the eyes of grad school admission.</p>

<p>But it needs to be said that Cal engineering is one of the best program in the US. They have tremendous resources at the graduate level, great facilities, and outstanding faculty. But these are all highly focused upon the graduate level. </p>

<p>Cal is not on par with MIT/Caltech/Stanford/Princeton though. By endowment size alone, the aforementioned schools are in a different league and thus enabling them to carry out research on another level. </p>

<p>Cal engineering is more equivalent to Cornell, UIUC, U of M, John Hopkins etc. But obviously still a great school.</p>

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<p>Honestly, I list a few of the reasons why I chose CP over UCSD (highest UC admitted to) for ME
-CP is the highest ranked ME program where a PhD is not offered</p>

<p>-Grads start out with the highest salaries of all CA public schools and have the 3rd highest sustained salaries over their careers (Forbes)</p>

<p>-the professors accessible and not absorbed in their research like some are at the UCs, classes will usually be around 30 ensuring personal attention</p>

<p>-Probably one of the main reasons why I chose CP engineering is the fact that a lot of labs are incorporated into the education and internships are facilitated well by the school; by comparison I have heard that CP is 50/50 hands-on/theory whereas UCs are 10/90.</p>

<p>-as aforementioned by ickglue, CP is a much more “relaxed” school, not as hyper-competitive like Berkeley</p>

<p>-I went to Open House and the clubs are amazing! Here is where you can join organizations that really pique your interest( I’m thinking about joining the Baja Team, so sick!)</p>

<p>-Finally, college is a lifestyle decision. CP is a beautiful school with excellent weather and a “down-to-earth”, family community. Good luck with your decision!! </p>

<p>Sent from my LG-P505 using CC</p>

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<p>I appreciate all of your input, and it definitely seems that what you guys are saying is the truth; I’ve been hearing similar opinions from all over. </p>

<p>Another concern I have from talking to both Cal and SLO alums is that it seems that Cal really pushes their ME undergrads to finish in four years, while SLO expects students to take 4 1/2 to 5 years to finish. Intuition tells me that this is because the hands-on part of the education at SLO takes more time, but I havn’t studied the course flowcharts and descriptions enough to be sure. Also, with my AP credits I would hope to be able to finish in four years regardless of where I go. Can anyone comment on this?</p>

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<p>@Fanatic16
I definitely agree with everything you just said. I’m heading up to Berkeley for Cal Day and I think my experience there will be the deciding factor in my decision. I need to find out just what this “competitiveness” I’ve been hearing about is like, as well as what tasks I will be doing if I was to get any undergraduate research. Also, if I do go to SLO, I’m definitely joining the Baja or Formula team!</p>

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<p>Also consider the Supermileage club. My kid is an ME major and they just took 3rd place out of 50 competitors from all over the country at the Shell Eco-marathon in Houston. They beat Cal, UCLA, UCSB and every other California school that was there. Great kids and an outstanding team that assisted other schools to stay in the competition as well. Their car got 1,370 mile per gallon this year. Amazing stuff. University of Colorado Boulder, an excellent team that really befriended Cal Poly, took first. Cal Poly plans to win it next year.</p>

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<p>After visiting both campuses and gathering as much information as I could, I decided on Cal Poly SLO over Berkeley. Here’s why:

  1. Berkeley is primarily a graduate university focused on graduate research; no Cal faculty or students would explicitly state it, but you can tell if you read between the lines. SLO is ONLY an undergraduate university, their entire reputation comes from the successes of their undergraduates.
  2. During my Berkeley tour, they kept restating the fact that industry is telling them to get more hands on, something that Cal Poly has been doing forever. The Berkeley machine shop, while very high tech, had zero students working in there when I saw it, and the tour guide said that most students will first use the shop in their junior year (while at SLO freshmen engineers learn to use machines in the first week). At SLO, not only were many students working in all the machine shops, students were the ones actually giving the tours.
  3. How do you get into grad school? Recommendations and demonstrated experience (research or internships).
    -At Berkeley, you are competing against hundreds of other students for the professor’s attention. You are anonymous unless you put effort into getting to know your professor during their office hours. At SLO, there are no TAs or GSIs, you have around 30 person classes, and teachers make an effort to know their students. Which one sounds easier to get a recommendation from?
    -SLO is renowned for getting its students internships with major companies starting very early in their college career. Berkeley has scrapped its internship program entirely. Enough said.
    -Berkeley is great at research, yes, and some of the undergraduates get to participate as well. This cannot be denied. And Berkeley does have many of the same engineering competition clubs as SLO. But while the SLO teams each had their own alotted working space in the machine shop, Berkeley teams were, as one Cal professor said, “lower priority than the senior capstone projects. The clubs know their place”.</p>

<p>If a top school like Berkeley is contriving to make its learning experience more like the one that SLO already has, the decision is pretty clear as to which school will give the better undergraduate education. For me, that school is Cal Poly SLO.</p>

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<p>CONGRATULATIONS MechEMonty!! As the proud father of a freshman ME major at Cal Poly right now, I am thrilled that you have seen what we saw when we turned down 5 UC’s for Cal Poly. Not only will you save enough money to pay for grad school, you will get that coveted hands on experience. Smart man. Best of luck – you will LOVE the program. If you are interested in the Supermileage club (which as you state correctly has its own dedicated space in the machine shop AND a professor adviser), I’ll connect you with my son. Send me a private message via CC.</p>

<p>By the way, the clubs at Cal Poly know their place too – It just happens to be front and center!!</p>

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<p>Congratulations! Excellent choice by the way. My boyfriend chose SLO over Berkeley for Electrical Engineering. Pretty much for the same reasons. He wants a hands on experience and small classes. Berkeley has a pretty intense weeding process- my Berkeley bound classmates are rushing to the local junior college to get classes out of the way because they know they’ll be competing against the curve. </p>

<p>@Osakadad- I pretty much exited college confidential after mid march or so. As of now, I’m still waitlisted at SLO and that’s unlikely to change. I already SIR-ed to UCSD and I’m pretty happy with the decision. At least at SD, professors actually have to teach and I start my major classes from day 1, labs and all. And the structural department has 50-70 kids in the freshmen class, so it can’t be all bad right? Besides support classes like physics and math [and of course GEs], I only have one class in the MAE [mechanical aerospace engineering] department my third year. So I guess while UCSD wasn’t my first choice, I guess its just SLO’s loss :/</p>

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<p>@heartarrow – Congratulations to you too!! At the end of the day you go to the school that you are meant to. Of all the UC’s we felt that UCSD was by far the best program. In fact, UCSD was our kid’s first choice until the Open House at Cal Poly. You will get an excellent education and you will not regret your choice. I know a number of folks that turned down Cal Poly for UCSD! It is all in the eyes of the beholder.</p>

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<p>You were right about the asian trap by the way: one of my classmates picked UCI over SLO for civil engineering. He got in with lower stats than I did and he turned it down. I think he didn’t realize how incredibly fortunate he was until I let him know that he didn’t do his research and SLO is incredible. My close friends are almost all guys and engineers [and an extraneous physics major]. Half of us are going to SLO, and the other half didn’t get into SLO and are going to UCSD. Life is a little odd sometimes.</p>

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<p>I am SO jazzed my son will be an electrical engineering major at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He turned down numerous other schools, including UC San Diego, Davis, and Santa Barbara Honors Program. I think the hands-on will help keep him engaged in the program. So glad he wasn’t faced with the choice of UCLA or Berkeley but pretty sure he would have chosen Cal Poly over them too. He also had many great scholarships from private schools. We have a friend our (parents) age who grad from Cal Poly in EE and highly, highly recommends it and recruits there. Thanks OsakaDad for all your help. My spouse is convinced you are part of Cal Poly’s marketing, though. Please PM me with your son’s name so my son can contact him for advice. Thanks.</p>

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<p>My son is a sophomore EE major at Cal Poly. He also turned down UCSB, UCI and UC Davis for Cal Poly. His best friend from HS is an EE major at UCLA. According to my son, the lab work my son is doing at Cal Poly far surpasses the work being done by his friend at UCLA. My son did not get into UCLA or Cal, but he did not like the ultra competitive vibe at Cal. Not getting into UCLA stung a bit, but I am pretty sure he would have chosen Cal Poly over UCLA as well. He really loves Cal Poly and was very prepared. He had AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Chem, AP Computer Science, etc. and did well on the AP exams. However, the EE major is hard and he is very challenged. He said something like “I finished all of my calculus classes and physics classes–like calc 4 and physics 4 and now my EE class is like a Calc 5 and Physics 5 combined class.” So the classes just keep getting harder. It is no cake walk, but it is a great education.</p>

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<p>@closetobroke – That is SO funny! No, I am not part of Cal Poly’s marketing department!! I am just a Dad from Southern California happy that my kid is happy.</p>

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<p>Cal engineering is not on par with Princeton? Are you serious? U.S. News ranks Cal’s undergraduate engineering 3rd after MIT and Stanford. Princeton comes in 10th. Engineering isn’t one of the strengths of HYP. If you know you don’t want to go to grad school, then CPSLO is fine. If you think grad school might be in your future, go to Cal. My daughter was an undergrad at MIT and had TA’s from Berkeley, UCSB, Caltech, but no CPSLO, in any class. That’s not to say you won’t receive a good education at CP, but it just doesn’t compare to Cal.</p>

<p>Check out the top students from high school graduating classes. For those going into engineering, it’s usually MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and Berkeley (not even HYP). CPSLO usually gets those who were rejected from the above. They can still make fine engineers, but they’re generally not the top students.</p>

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<p>This thread got heavily hijacked by CPSLO affiliated posters. It is one of the top links when you google Cal Poly SLO, so I had to make this comment.</p>

<p>Berkley and CPSLO are two schools on different stratospheres. Any student should SLO over Cal is literally making a top 5 mistake of their life. </p>

<p>The peer you immerse yourself in during the 4 years of your undergrad education will have a permanent impact on the way you think and the way you act. College is a place to shape your mind, network and discover yourself. It is a completely obscene that some posters are suggesting that Cal ME graduates are inferior engineers than SLO ME graduates because they had possibly less hands-on experience.</p>

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<p>“This thread got heavily hijacked by CPSLO affiliated posters. It is one of the top links when you google Cal Poly SLO, so I had to make this comment.”</p>

<p>Did you check where this thread resides? </p>

<p>“C > Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Mechanical Engineering: Cal Poly vs UC Berkeley”</p>

<p>Hijack would be if this thread was in UCB section, and all the CPSLO people posted there. Since it is within the Cal Poly section, naturally there are lot of CP boosters responding to this thread. </p>

<p>Also, I think several posters here agree with the premise that Cal is better Cal Poly, if only you had read it.</p>

<p>And no, I would disagree with you on the quality of Cal Poly peers that a student would meet during their college years at CP. </p>

<p>Given I have worked in the tech industry since I was 21, I can tell you the quality of the peers one would meet at Cal Poly are outstanding, and are comparable to many of the students at other UCs and privates.</p>