<p>Hi are there any SCU engineering students or families who considered some of the schools referenced above? If so, why did you choose SCU? Are you happy with your choice? Are SCU engineering graduates competitive for top notch graduate schools. Do you get the chance to do decent internships. What are the employment opportunities like for ME graduates? Are employment opportunities limited to the Bay Area/Silicon Valley?</p>
<p>I am also interested in this topic!</p>
<p>Heya!</p>
<p>I’m a freshman, declared mechanical engineering, who just finished up first quarter, so I have limited insight to provide. What I can, though, I will. </p>
<p>SCU Engineering is very hands on. I have lots of friends at Cal and Oregon State who are mech and civil engineers and I’ve done far more than they have as far Solidworks (rendering software), design presentations, and the works go. Heck, they haven’t even started yet! Not only that, but the school just received a nice chunk of money to sponsor team-based engineering competitions open to all students – just last quarter, there was an aerospace engineering competition which required teams of six to get together and perform certain tasks, present ideas, etc, with a grand prize of $2000. I think two of the teams were composed of freshman and sophomores completely. The kicker was, this all took place under the direction of the NASA Ames Research Facility. Obviously, you know the Bay Area, and Silicon Valley, is a great place to be for any kind of engineering or business, the two schools which are considered excellent at SCU. We had several alumni come in and talk to us about their experience and current employment, and all are very well off thanks to the internships the school helped them find (one is an ME at Lockheed-Martin, some are going to graduate school on their employer’s dime).</p>
<p>Additionally, the school is probably paralleled by none other (except maybe Stanford) when it comes to class size. I think my biggest class is 40ish kids, and all of the classes are taught by professors. They’re all very available and have office hours at least twice a week. The focus is undergraduate, so many sophomores and even freshman get to work with professors on research, if they display interest.</p>
<p>95% of students will love the school. The issue is, I fall in the 5% that, after having been there for a quarter, find that the school’s strengths aren’t necessarily what they want/needed. I’m in the honors program, and have always been pretty self-directed. I love the school of engineering, but I don’t need the office hours or personal attention to do well. Nor do I need small classes. Additionally, I’m a bit prestige-centric, which I’m not afraid to admit. I always have been, and so attending a regionally well-known program vs. a well-known program nationally is tough to deal with. This is just me, though.</p>
<p>There are plenty of things I do like: the proximity to San Francisco, the weather, the campus is awesome, the engineering facilities and classrooms, the competitions the school provides, the library is a great place to study, and realistically, you won’t find the material varies much here vs. the top schools. But if you’re a person who wouldn’t be happy attending anything other than a Top 50 or Top 25, know that SCU probably won’t fill that hole in your soul. That has been my experience, at least. Hopefully somebody with more under their belt can tell you more than I can!</p>
<p>^^ Any take on the Computer Engineering department at SCU?</p>
<p>Son has applied EA.</p>
<p>Allemanau, aside from the prestige factor, would you say there are any other faults to the program? Can most grads get a well-paid job in the real world? Or were the alumni you talked to the exception? Like you, I am pretty self-motivated but I still enjoy the opportunities given by a small class size, which is a huge focus at SCU. However, I still want a program that challenges me and sets me up for success. Prestige isn’t a huge concern for me, as I plan on staying in the Bay Area after college if at all possible so as long as local companies recognize it, I’m okay. I appreciate your honesty and any other feedback you have to give would be wonderful!</p>
<p>Wow, Allemanaue that is just the type of honest insight I was hoping someone would share. Thanks very much. Do you have a sense of whether any Alum have been successful outside of the Bay Area/Silicon valley sphere?</p>
<p>@pixeljig:</p>
<p>I actually do! All of us engineers stick together at SCU, and more often than not, I’m in the design lab working alongside my comp eng friends. Engineering at SCU in general is very well-respected in the area, and the only reason it isn’t known further afield is primarily due, I think, to it’s graduate programs (they’re small and don’t turn out masses of research like Berkeley or Stanford, so US News ignores us for the most part). The university knows that as an institution of higher education in the Silicon Valley, they need their grads to be able to compete with monster comp eng and comp sci programs like San Jose State, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. No worries – they rise to the task. Your son applied EA, so it sounds like he has genuine interest in the program here. Everything they say about class sizes, undergrad research, focus on undergraduate students, is 100% true. If that’s what your son wants, then he’s looking at the right place!</p>
<p>@collegebound2729:</p>
<p>Other faults I can find so far (and again, here my experience is limited at best) is that there are some hoops to jump through. I took what must have been the dullest course ever this quarter, required for all engineers, worth a measly credit and at the expense of three hours a week. I mean, this class was a major bummer. No one liked it. But really, there’ll be hoops anywhere you go. Just keep your eyes on the prize, and in the end, it’ll be worth it. Additionally, you’ll find that the student body varies widely as far as learning ability goes. Some take a while, some take no time at all, and all of this varies by subject. Ultimately, the pace at which the class moves is determined by the students who are the slowest to learn. I think this will taper off, though, as upper division classes approach.</p>
<p>As far as Bay Area alumni, those that came in were, in fact, my only sample. However, I’m from Portland, and I can’t walk a block in SCU swag without being stopped by somebody asking me if I go to Santa Clara, what I’m studying, etc. There’s a huge alumni network, not just in the Bay Area, but up and down the coast in the major cities, too. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, and Denver all have huge draws here. I wouldn’t worry too much about getting a job, especially as an engineer graduating from SCU.</p>
<p>And finally, I think you will find that you’re challenged here in a far more practical way than anywhere else. Again, SJSU and UC Berkeley have a lot of students to manage. Many of them get lost in the shuffle or won’t get the chance to apply their classroom learning because of the competition and sheer enormity of those schools. The challenge there may simply be to beat the grading curve. Santa Clara (and admittedly Stanford) has a unique vibe, thanks chiefly to the resources the school has vs. the number of students to spread those resources amongst. Professors invest a personal stake in making sure you have the tools to succeed, and the school of engineering gives every opportunity to apply those tools through competitions, research, and help finding internships. If you’re interested in further challenging yourself, may I suggest that you join the honors program? Not only does it provide some swanky benefits (early class registration is probably the best of them), but the professors will find ways to stretch you, even in introductory courses. The workload will not overwhelm, but you’ll find yourself far more intellectually engaged than in high school. If anything, I spend less time on homework now than I did last year (mostly AP load, though).</p>
<p>@luvmyson:</p>
<p>Absolutely! Even up here in Portland, I meet tons of SCU graduates by total accident. There’s a huge draw from all major cities on the West Coast (and Denver), some occasional East Coasters, and lots of international students. I will also say, though this might just be speculation, most SCU grads I’ve met, in the Silicon Valley and otherwise, are very well off monetarily. Whether this is because of the school’s network capacity or because private school tends to attract people who have money initially, I couldn’t say for sure. Clearly the majority will stay in Silicon Valley after graduation, but to give you an idea of an average sampling, my residence hall is about 60/40 Californian/Non-Californian. The thing they do best here is bend over backwards to make sure you’re successful, both in your time at school as well as post-graduation.</p>
<p>Hope my replies were specific enough! :)</p>
<p>My daughter is a senior engineering major at SCU. She will receive two bachelors degrees…or at the very least a double major…bioengineering and biology. She feels the engineering programs have met her needs very nicely. In particular, she notes the accessibility of the professors…it’s terrific. She has found them to be wonderful mentors and particularly likes her advisor. She is an “atypical” engineering major when compared to the above poster. She does NOT spend all of her time with other engineering majors (perhaps because she also spends significant time with the biology majors!). She says it is not very likely she would have been able to complete both of these majors at most other schools in 4 years. AND she didn’t declare her major in engineering until sophomore year (actually enrolled at SCU as undeclared arts and sciences…but DID take the courses necessary to fulfill the engineering degree even as a freshman). </p>
<p>SCU is not a “tech school” like Cal Tech or MIT or RPI or RIT. It is a masters university. And because it is a Jesuit school, there are still core courses outside of engineering that students must take. Our kid LIKED this variety in the coursework as it broke up the engineering “stuff”. She was also required to take some courses that were out of her “comfort zone” and found them to be quite interesting and good. </p>
<p>She agrees that an engineering (or biology) major will be sufficiently challenged at SCU.</p>
<p>Thank you both ^^ for your thoughtful responses. I think my son will find what he is looking for at SCU. He is very very happy he got accepted.</p>
<p>I have a question about the honors program. How does that work in terms of signup.</p>
<p>^ Here’s the link for the information of honor program
[Santa</a> Clara University - Honors Program - Qualifications](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/honors/qualifications.cfm]Santa”>Honors Program - Santa Clara University)</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone! Can anyone directly compare the quality of education between Cal Poly and Santa Clara? These are the two schools I am torn between.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Cal Poly…but my understanding is that it is more like RIT or WPI. SCU is more like a liberal arts college with a strong engineering program.</p>
<p>How is the faculty overall, I have applied but a friends friend who goes there says that his CS major buddies are unhappy with the Comp Sc dept. I wonder if they are biased because they were ill-prepared for a major like CS.</p>
<p>That is interesting that they are not happy with the Computer Science department. The CS department is in the mathematics department, not School of Engineering. This is the main reason why my son chose to not attend Santa Clara. Don’t know why they don’t have CS in Engineering, like most universities.</p>
<p>I think SCU have both CS(Computer Science) with Dept of Math and CE(Computer Engineering) under school of engineering. They’re two different majors. Many college that offer both CS and CE have the same way.</p>
<p>Yup. They do have Computer Engineering too. They have 3 options there plus CS in the Math dept.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how SCU compares to Irvine?</p>
<p>also, does anyone know how it compares to SJSU? They’re both in the Silicon Valley and I’m having a difficult time choosing between the two.</p>
<p>The engineering program at SJSU is of much higher caliber. What type of engineering are you looking into? CME or EE?</p>
<p>It doesn’t cost much at all either. I know someone who is in that program who says it’s a steal. Classes are really kinda crowded, though. Probably need to sit in the front all the time.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I’m looking into CE at the moment. Do you happen to know about that major in particular?</p>