Purdue vs. UIUC vs. UC Irvine for Mechanical Engineering

College Search & Selection
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Just to add, I am considering UCI for my son for CS over Purdue though I am OOS for both and have to pay way lot more for UCI. But I am considering UCI because we live in Seattle and he wishes to live in West Coast for job and UCI has better weather and ease of travel back home and we can visit him too. So you are in better position than us as UCI is only half an hour drive from your place. And I believe this matters in college selection and ranking and cost is not everything.

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Cant agree more. These are the reasons we are leaning more towards UCI for my son for CS over Purdue though we are OOS for both and UCI is lot more expensive than Purdue. But everyone has different personal choices. Choose what your heart says and what is better for your son. Donā€™t go my rankings I would say.

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But you are just as likely to get a west coast job from Purdue. Purdue places more CS grads s In the west than any other region. And thatā€™s impressive for a MW school.

So choose UCI but not because itā€™ll help you stay west.

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Very well said. Thanks for putting it all together.

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Thatā€™s great to know. Thank you!

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Thank you! Yeah. Honestly I think college ranking does way more harm than good.

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I agree. They create huge influence which might be negative sometimes.

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https://www.cs.purdue.edu/corporate/placement/index.html

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I have a bias for UIUC. I am not knowledgeable about ME (DH was IE), but I have a couple of suggestions.

First if your son is truly interested in CS, be sure to understand the implications of being admitted as an ME major.

Next if he wants the ME degree but is interested in things like robotics I would check out/compare the RSOs that are available at his accepted schools. I would also check if those organizations are selective (require an application/interview process). You donā€™t want to learn that opportunities your son are interested in have difficult restrictions.

I did a quick Google and found this at UIUC.

Lastly I want to point out the benefit for engineering students of attending a university with a very strong College of Business. There are opportunities to engage in business organizations on projects with students from different colleges within the university. Iā€™ll link a couple of them. (Note: I believe these have application/interviews early in the semester so an interested student needs to come to campus prepared.)

Congrats to your son. I hope he visits UIUC because it has a lot to offer the motivated student.

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