My experience: Cal Poly

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
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<p>Just some background information about myself:</p>

<p>BSEE Cal Poly 04’
MSEE Penn State 06’
PH.D. Penn State - expected 09’</p>

<p>I would just like to give those of you who are debating over attending Cal Poly (especially UC’s vs. Cal Poly) some points to think about. My experience will be most helpful to those applying to engineering. First, let me elaborate on Cal Poly’s “learn by doing” philosophy. It appears to me that many of you who were admitted to some of UC’s and Cal Poly have this idea that the UC’s are more theoretical than Cal Poly. Nothing could be further from the truth. The “learn by doing” philosophy is meant to serve as a supplement (in the form of labs) to the learning experience and in no way replaces the theory and mathematical rigour required of engineering graduates from any university. I mean math is math and physics is physics any were you attend school. Cal Poly does not de-emphasize the theory. Instead, you will gain a conceptual understanding of the theoretical formulations through numerous laboratories. In other words, what good is theory if you don’t really understand what the equations imply. As far as presitige of Cal Poly engineering vs. UC’s, I think if you speak to people in graduate school and industry you will find that it’s graduates are coveted as much or more so than the UC’s. This has just been my experience in job interviews and graduate school. For those of you trying to gauge how well prepared/competitive Cal Poly will make you over the UC’s, take my experience for example; I applied to many top tier graduate schools (UCLA, UCSD, USC, Wisconsin, Duke, Penn State,etc…) and was accepted to nearly all of them with funding. Upon arrival at graduate school I found myself leaps and bounds above many of the other graduates (some of which came from UCB, UCLA, USC) in terms of preparedness. It made the transition to graduate school very easy and smooth. I attribute this directly to the academic rigours of Cal Poly and it’s outstanding faculty…that’s why it takes many people 4-5 years to graduate.</p>

<p>Bottom line: This is a great school for undergraduate engineering and I am very happy that I chose this school over UCLA and USC for my undergrad training. You can’t go wrong!</p>

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<p>thanks for the story and best of luck with the phd</p>

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<p>How good is research at Cal Poly? It does seem like the UCs recieve a lot more funding for it.</p>

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<p>Most professors are not going to waste their time using their funding to support an undergrad doing research at ANY university. I will admit that if you intend on staying at that university for graduate school then the research opportunities are a plus. However, Cal Poly requires a senior design thesis that amounts to much more research in your major than you will experience at a UC for undergrad.</p>

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<p>Cp doesn't have as much research funding as the UC's, but it does contribute a lot to undergrad research. It is in the Top 35 for undergrad research as ranked by USNews. Only 2-3 UC's are on that list.</p>

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<p>yeah and an example of research at calpoly is i heard it is leading the research for RFID chips.</p>

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<p>That is good to hear especially since I've been hearing these arguments between Cal Poly and the UC's a lot lately and good luck with your PHD</p>

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<p>Cal Poly ME. Graduating in Dec. I agree with everything that has been said. Cal Poly just plain requires to be very well versed in all your stuff, due to the theoretical nature of lectures and the practical nature of labs.</p>