I have applied to some UC and State schools and so far I got into:
Chico State - Civil Engineering
Sacramento State - Civil Engineering
San Jose State - Aerospace Engineering
UC Riverside - Bio Engineering BS + MS
I wanted to know if anyone has been through any of these programs or knew anything that might be helpful when weighing them together.
What type of engineering do you actually want to go into?
I am very split at the moment but so far I am leaning towards Aerospace.
I think your mind is made up for you. SJSU is the only one with Aerospace, plus, they also have ABET-accredited BME and Civil. If you choose any of the others, you shut the door on Aerospace.
But SJSU probably is impacted so it may take longer to get your degree. I imagine they would also make it difficult to change tracks so you should look into that as well.
Impaction is defined as having more fully qualified applicants than the school has space for. The ability to graduate on time is unrelated.
Impacted programs have classes that fill up because there are too many student in a particular major. I imagine if there are too many engineering students for certain classes, they have to wait for the next round though may be given priority if they had tried to enroll previously. That could delay their finishing in 4 years.
Aerospace engineering at SJSU is impacted as is Civil. He could have trouble changing from Aerospace to Civil if he wanted to.
http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/static/admission/frosh-f2015impact.html
No, impaction is not about taking too many students. It’s about having too many applicants for the slots they have.
http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impactioninfo.shtml
Per the link in #6, “All majors at SJSU are impacted for freshmen, meaning that all applicants competed for space in the major, based on the CSU eligibility index at the time of application.”
The ability to get classes and graduate on time is based on budgetary constraints (or lack there of).
Cal Poly for example is impacted in every major. Their enrollment has increased, while at the same time it’s easier to graduate on time. It’s because they now have the funds to offer enough class sections for the student demand they have.
I would expect the same at SJSU.
I see. Except if you try and change majors right?
The campuses declare majors to be impacted so that they can limit the number of students in the major to what the department has capacity to teach. If they do it right, there should be enough space in the needed classes for all students who are allowed into the major, although the classes will be full enough that students cannot be picky about time of day or instructor.
Low graduation rates often relate to admission selectivity, but CSUs also have high numbers of students from middle and lower income backgrounds who may have to work to afford school, so they may have to take light full-time loads (12 units) instead of full full-time loads (15-16 units) needed to graduate in 8 semesters or 12 quarters.
Some CSUs have four year pledge programs (additional advising and registration priority) for students who commit to following their majors’ course plans. SJSU CS makes reference to it; for other majors, ask the department if such exists. CPP, CSUB, CSUSB, CSUFresno have four year pledge programs for most or all majors.
Not really. The reason changing majors is difficult is related to the fact that they admit by major and there’s a huge amount of variability in the selectivity between majors. They make major change difficult to prevent students from backdooring into a selective major. So, what you’ll typically find is that an aerospace can move to business, but a business can’t move to aerospace.
But could he move from Aerospace to Civil if he wanted to easily?
Easily, no. He’ll have to jump through the normal hoops. Successfully, likely.
Depends on how impacted civil is. At SJSU, civil is fairly heavily impacted:
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ (compare thresholds for civil and other majors in the frosh and transfer impaction results links)
http://engineering.sjsu.edu/student-resources/success-center/change-major-policy
@ucbalumnus, impacted is being misused here. There’s no such thing as “fairly impacted.” It is or it isn’t. All it means is that a major gets more applicants than they have slots for. That is how the UCs and CSUs define the term ‘impacted.’
However, some impacted programs at SJSU, like computer science and animation, are more impacted than others, such as environmental studies and global studies, based on the thresholds given for frosh and transfer admission.
Whatever the reason, the 4 and 6 year graduation rates are fairly low.
Chico State - 23% 4 year, 64% 6 year.
Sacramento State - 7% and 46%
San Jose State - 9% and 57%
UC Riverside - 48% and 73%
Something out of the ordinary has to be happening to keep your 4-year graduation rate in single digits.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1197
It’s clear that student preparation impacts graduation rates, but so do bottleneck courses and students earning excess credits.
As I understand it many of these colleges are commuter schools where local kids are preferred for admission. Students work their way though these schools often and take longer to graduate. UC Riverside is at a different price point being a U of California school and not a Cal State college. U of California campuses offer masters and PhD programs. Most Cal State schools cannot offer graduate programs. This limits the number of advanced classes in some cases.
San Jose State is a standout for engineering. You can major in mechanical engineering at any campus and get a job in the aerospace industry. You may want a masters if you pursue an aerospace career. Civil engineers may work for municipalities or consulting firms. Civil engineers often become professional engineers by passing an exam. They are often licensed to do certain types of work. The two careers are quite different. Read more about civil and aerospace engineering but pick your college based the overall quality and cost.
I don’t know anything about the listed schools, but sometime schools have low 4 year graduation rate due to co-op programs (example - Northeastern).
@ucbalumnus, I’m not sure more or less impaction is relevant, unless you’re saying level of impaction is a proxy for selectivity. I don’t know that it is at SJSU because I don’t know if they admit by major and whether or not they use and algorithm. At Cal Poly, level of impaction is not equivalent to difficulty of acceptance. Aerospace admits accepts more of their applicants (less impacted) than Psychology (more impacted), but the algorithm acceptance threshold is higher for aerospace than psychology. Switching from AE to psych would be far more likely than the reverse.