<p>Hello all,
I know this topic has been discussed in the past, but I haven't found anything recent on it. I was accepted to both and I'd like everyones opinion on which school is better acedemically for mechanical engineering and why. Also, which has better intern opportunity in the aerospace/defense industry. Any info would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!</p>
<p>bump</p>
<p>bump n stuff</p>
<p>anyone 
?</p>
<p>Both are good schools with very good ME programs. Compare the Cirriculum for each and see if there is a huge difference in the type of classes. If not, your decision will come down to which campus you like better.</p>
<p>Academically there is probably not going to be any difference in the undergraduate education at either school. Since you are interested in internships, contact the career center at a school to see what companies recruit on campus.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses!</p>
<p>Do you prefer southern or central California? They are academically equivalent, but their social scenes are a little different. Irvine is upscale suburban, beachy, sunny, techy, “clean”, professional, while Davis is small town, aggie,
earthy, research oriented, progressive, and less mild temperature-wise. I’m sure there are a lot of other suitable adjectives, as well, but the difference in these two schools is about vibe, not academics. </p>
<p>Davis is the classic “college town” - small town dominated by its college. Irvine is a large, spread out suburb. Nearly all UC Davis students live on or near campus. UC Irvine is much more of a commuter school. </p>
<p>personally davis</p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of UCI freshman live on campus. It’s not a commuter school although a fair number do go home some weekends.</p>
<p>I dig (UC) Davis a lot – the essence of the Central Valley, which helps feed the state, country, nation, world. (UC) Irvine is a little too master planned. Each seems to take on its surrounding areas. I also like more of the esoteric sciences that Davis offers. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses guys. i have lived in southern california my whole life and can’t really imagine what it would be like else where… i am game to try though! i guess it will come down to what i feel like when i visit each college… </p>
<p>so there is little or no difference in there mechanical engineering program? </p>
<p>
Like someone mentioned above, you can go to the webpages of the ME dept and see what classes you will take to graduate. Since these are sister campuses the list is likely to be about the same, although there may be slight differences in electives. Fundamentally, though, ME programs at any college are going to be about the same because they are acredited by ABET which standardizes the content. An engineering degree has so many required classes there isn’t a lot of room for freelancing.</p>
<p>As for quality, perhaps what you mean by the question, these are 2 schools that enroll similar students and are sister campuses of the same Univ system. You’re just not going to find a lot of difference academically, although you can find rankings (which usually disagree with one another, BTW) in which one is ahead of the other on some irrelevant measure; it doesn’t matter to you how many NSF members one has vs the other or how many peer-cited papers one has produced compared to to the other (to give examples of ranking), what matters is what you learn in the undergrad program.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to get away from home; since you’re in SCal go North. I’d say the opposite if you were from the Bay Area. About the only academic reason I could think to prefer one over the other is if one of them offers a 5-year MS program but not the other. In that case, go to the one that offers it. If neither or both do, then irrelevant… Also you need to look into who recruits on campus, although my gut feeling is the list will be similar</p>
<p>DD is from southern Cal and absolutely loves the ambience of Davis. Plus she visits SF and Berkeley multiple times to see her friends. I vote for Davis. </p>