<p>My S is trying to narrow down which school to go to. At one end of the spectrum Cal Poly SLO is known for its "learn by doing" approach. At the other end of the spectrum, UC Berkely is said to have a highly theoretical approach. Where does UCI engineering fit on this spectrum of a theoretical approach as compared to hands-on, especially mechanical engineering?</p>
<p>probably very close to ucb. all the UCs do.</p>
<p>Thank you, that is what we thought but it is good to have our instincts validated.</p>
<p>What type of program do you think is best for your son? My son is accepted at Cal Poly and UCI for Materials Engineering. He is waiting to hear from other UC schools, but he is leaning towards Cal Poly. We love Irvine, but he wants to stay closer to our Bay Area home. Decisions…decisions!</p>
<p>Hi momofmv,</p>
<p>There is really a huge debate between the CSU’s practical approach and the UC’s theoretical approach. Here is a quick, yet very rough spiel I have on this topic. If you want to know more, we can have more of a discussion.</p>
<p>Learning by doing is a great approach as you get a lot of hands on experience. Companies love to see it because they know the students have prior training to using a certain tool, device, or program (material science kids use MATLAB and maybe drawing programs). This shows that the student is ready for industry as they have gotten their hands dirty in a company’s field. In addition, the student is ready to attack jobs that industry wants because they already have the skills to do so. (These skills could be already knowing how to use a certain tool).</p>
<p>On the other hand, the way UCs teach is a way that spurs a student’s ability to “think”. Students will be thrown theory and be required to attach questions of application with a theoretical background knowledge. This is where the thinking comes in – something very important to surviving graduate school and the world of designing. So what’s the difference between designers and non-designers in industry? Well, non-designers are considered developers where they develop ideas made by designers, or they develop products that have already been designed. Development includes product engineering, test engineering, etc. Basically, you slowly “improve” a product instead of thinking one up. Unfortunately, you need a graduate degree to get into design these days, and UCs do a great job at preparing someone for graduate school.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that UCs are research institutions where there are professors willing to take in undergraduate students at any time to do hands-on projects. This can be done before senior design, but it is entirely up to the students to take initiative to find a professor.</p>
<p>(warning—>BIAS: I have heard from many of my friends at Cal Poly SLO that they aren’t enjoying the college life as much as UC kids.)</p>
<p>jas0n, could you elaborate what part of college life that your friends in CalPoly are not enjoying? My child have acceptances in UCI, CalPoly and a private so far and hasn’t made up mind yet. Although not engineering major, but would like to here more to help the decision making. Thanks.</p>
<p>Momofmv and Watermark and Jason, we are very torn. Our S has indicated that he will probably want to go to grad school. Altohough and intensely hand on approach sounds attractive, without theory and jason points out we worry about being prepared for grad school, on the other hand all theory and no hands on would not prepare one for the workplace.</p>
<p>Ideally a balanced program with thoery and hands-on incorporated would be great. We are having trouble finding such a place…that we can afford. He has been waitlisted for ME at Cal Poly so that is probably not a realistic option for him. He has been admitted to UCI and UCD, we are waiting to hear from UCLA. He has also been admitted to Santa Clara in the ME program. Despite the fact that Santa Clara is small and doesn’t have the name recognition of the UC’s, we were very impressed when we visited. Its philosophy/curriculum seemed to be a good balance between theory and and hands on. Its lab facilities are not just computer simulation labs. When we visited UCD it appeared to be highly theoretical.</p>
<p>Jason are you saying that students can get hands on experience at UCI if they are willing to aggressively seek out such opportunities but that this would be in addition to the rigourous curriculum at UCI? How helpful is UCI regarding internships and jobs? Do you know the average gpa of UCi undergrad engineers? Do you have any sense of what percentageof last years graduating class got jobs, went to grad school or are still looking for work? It sounds like you are happy with your choice of UCI? Have you been able to get your classes? How competitive or collegial is it among the students?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for any input/insight you can provide. This is such a tough time.</p>
<p>Also, Momofmv what did you guys like about Irvine? We haven’t visited there yet.</p>
<p>We visited Irvine last summer, love the campus. As a parent, we just feel safe/secure there.</p>
<p>luvmyson, does your son plan to go straight to grad school after under, or planing to work a few years before go back to school? If he wants to go straight, then I would suggest UC, pretty much as Jason has been stating that UC might prepare student more towards that. But if he wants to work first, he might be able to further his theory thru the practical work experience. Then whether UC or CalPoly won’t make much difference, but whereever can have a good job placement matters</p>
<p>Right now he thinks he wants to go straight to grad school, but we are wary because our older son said the same thing, now that he is a Jr. in college, wants to work for awhile before grad school.</p>
<p>Regarding Santa Clara, there’s where our private acceptance. So I definitely know the torn feeling. It’s hard not to fall in love with Santa Clara. The only thing they lack is the name recognition. Well, and the price. But its business and engineering program is well regarded in Calif. at least Bay Area. Can’t beat the internship opportunity and job placement there.</p>
<p>Personally, I prefer work a few years before go back to graduate school. The graduate study is more focus in certain area. Whatever one learn in undergraduate is really limited. only by going to the real field, one knows what’s going on. By working a few years first, one can find if that field is what he wants to pursue further.</p>
<p>I attended the Summer Engineering Seminar last summer at Santa Clara. I have to admit that I wasn’t really impressed with the program. The professors we met with were boring and didn’t try to engage the students in learning what they were teaching. It was a bunch of gibberish and they didn’t answer our questions. However, the camp was sponsored by Santa Clara and the professors volunteered to help out at the camp. I did go to one of their labs once for nanotechnology, which was really cool.</p>
<p>It is my opinion and it is biased, but just letting you know my thoughts if you consider Santa Clara.</p>
<p>We know the feeling. We did fall in love with Santa Clara. The program seems very solid, the people both students and faculty were very welcoming. This is so tough. The price is an issue but we are confident he can graduate in 4 years. We’re not so sure if that is probable with the public school option and the budget issues they are facing.</p>
<p>Thanks Collegebound. Were they regular fulltime professors from the School of Engineering?</p>
<p>I didn’t get to meet all of the professors helping out since you chose which lectures you wanted, but I will list who I’ve talked to below and my experiences with them.</p>
<p>Dr. Terry Shoup - Mechanical Engineering
[Santa</a> Clara University - Department of Mechanical Engineering - Faculty & Staff - Terry Shoup, Ph.D.](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/engineering/me/people/shoup.cfm]Santa”>http://www.scu.edu/engineering/me/people/shoup.cfm)
When I went to Dr. Shoup’s lectures, they were interesting, but he started to get boring. (We did have to see him for 1-3 hours each day). He was more exciting than the other ones and I felt like he had more knowledge than some of the other people. He is a really nice guy and I found him approachable. We never did any fun experiments though - just listened to him talk.</p>
<p>Dr. Chiesa - Civil Engineering
[Santa</a> Clara University - School of Engineering - Civil Engineering - Steve Chiesa, Ph.D.](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/engineering/ce/people/chiesa.cfm]Santa”>http://www.scu.edu/engineering/ce/people/chiesa.cfm)
This guy is pretty interesting. I don’t remember much, but I do remember him being friendly and “in your face” kind of guy - in a good way. He did teach and let us try out making our own bridge through a computer program.</p>
<p>Dr. Healy - Electrical Engineering
[Santa</a> Clara University - Timothy Healy, Ph.D.](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/engineering/ee/people/healy.cfm]Santa”>http://www.scu.edu/engineering/ee/people/healy.cfm)
Dr. Healy can sometimes ramble and complicated things, from my experience. However, I only met him once through a Solar Technology lecture. His lecture was hard to understand and the activties we did weren’t as fun as I’d like. (We were recording the waves of the sunlight and there was another camp making solar tech cars… Could say we got jealous)</p>
<p>Dr. Dholakia - Graduate
Dr. Dholakia teaches at a graduate level, according to the website. I have to say that this was not the best lecture I had there. Nobody in the class could understand what she was talking about and she didn’t seem as approachable as the others. Many people slept during the lecture. However, we did go to the lab and see the nanotechnology with her!</p>
<p>Mike Rasay
I don’t think this guy teaches at Santa Clara but he is amazing at robotics. He’s young and he’s very helpful and understanding. If your son is interested in robotics at all, he should find a way to contact this guy. I think he might work in a lab at Santa Clara.</p>
<p>Dr. Wright - Mechanical Engineering
[Santa</a> Clara University - Department of Mechanical Engineering - Faculty & Staff - Wright](<a href=“http://www.scu.edu/engineering/me/people/Wright.cfm]Santa”>http://www.scu.edu/engineering/me/people/Wright.cfm)
I had Dr. Wright for a Corrosion lab. She took us to this old style cool looking lab place and she made corrosion more intersting than I had expected. I had learned about it before, but she really embraces the subject and makes it fun.</p>
<p>Lastly, there were these two teachers… I can’t find their names anywhere. They created this Java program and tired to teach us… It turned out that their own Java program failed and had problems so that wasn’t impressive.</p>
<p>Looking at my previous post. I guess I said the professors were boring because those were the ones I remembered most. It gave me a bad impression about Santa Clara. Thinking about it now, some of the professors weren’t bad. I think my experience with Dr. Dholakia really confused me and discouraged me from nanotechonology. Also, the “end of the week project” we had to do wasn’t impressive - make a car out of foam and use rubberband power - which also discouraged me from the session I attended.</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>There are a lot of questions so I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. First off, I want to introduce myself so you can better understand my point of view. I am a fourth year electrical engineering major at UCI (originally from San Jose) who has been accepted to the M.S. electrical engineering program at UCLA for fall 2010. During my undergraduate years, I have participated in research for over a year with grants and fellowships to earn extra money, and I am the current president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) on campus. As of now, my research experiences have brought industry representatives to pay special attention to me because I have skill sets beyond the curriculum of undergraduate studies (communications and networking). </p>
<p>Watermark:</p>
<p>My friends at CalPoly in engineering tell me they arent too fond of the program and social life there. They often drive to UCSB where their friends are at or go home when they get the chance. However, my sample is definitely small. But I can vouch for UCs because they tend to have very involved campuses as one can see with the flagship schools of UCLA and UCB. Although the other UCs are ranked lower, they are very much similar to flagship schools in terms of how things work.</p>
<p>luvmyson:</p>
<p>If one takes advantage of the opportunities at any campus, they will have that balance of theory and hands-on that is necessary for achieving both sides of the engineering spectrum. However, I would like to present the advantages UCs have over the other schools of interest. (I do recognize I am very biased, but my undergraduate experiences are unforgettable).</p>
<p>First off, UCIs material science and engineering (MatSci) program is relatively small, yet exploding exponentially as a current professor is campaigning the major. We have a large sum of students double majoring in MatSci and mechanical/aerospace because the requirements have been strategically structured for it to require only 6-8 extra classes to double major. UCI and UCD can be represented equally in my following argument. At UCs, there are typically 30+ full-time professors that are required to teach and research at the university since UCs are research institutions. At CSUs, there are usually only a handful of fulltime faculty doing research while the rest of the professors are lecturers who may be from industry. Because UCs have fulltime faculty that are REQUIRED to do research, there are many opportunities beyond the classroom to gain real hands-on experience as opposed to minor hands on experience in classroom lab settings. Personally, I have acquired thousands of dollars to fund my research – an advantage that all research institutions have. On top of that, a critical part of getting into a well known graduate school is the acquisition of letter of recommendations. Letters from UC professors, since they are all in the field of academia, look much better than lecturers, especially because students may create working relationships with them instead of purely classroom relationships (keep in mind UCs rarely hire lecturers in engineering). I can say that, if it werent for my letters of recommendations and research experience necessary to write a real statement of purpose for graduate school, I would not have been accepted to UCLA. In addition, one of my advisors is an adjunct professor who works at Boeing half of the week. Because of this, he is currently helping me find some opportunities within Boeing because I have just the right skills for his division. Just remember, professors have ties to industry.</p>
<p>I would now like to discuss the other choices: Cal Poly and SCU. Cal Poly is a university that industry does respect so career fairs and job opportunities are abundant because Cal Poly is linked to both norcal and socal companies. On the other hand UCD is heavily connected to norcal, and UCI is mainly connected to norcal (this does not completely limit one’s abilities to get jobs in different areas after graduating though!) SCU, being in the bay area, is highly connected to norcal because of the pristine location, but the student enrollment and student organizations are scarce compared to CalPoly, UCD, and UCI. I would like to vouch for student organizations as they are the ones who create ties to industry and bring representatives/engineers to campus. They also connect students to their professors. As a board member of IEEE, I have brought MANY job opportunities to my fellow members. They can confidently say IEEE is the reason why they are employed today. As everyone says in industry, Its who you know, not what you know. As an engineer hoping to go into my PhD and acquire a design/research job in industry, I would highly recommend UCs, but one must be ambitious and goal driven to harvest the plentiful resources provided at UCs.</p>
<p>Phew, that was a long one. I hope this helps.</p>
<p>-J</p>
<p>something to keep in mind about engr programs in general:
in order to be ABET certified, you NEED to participate in some kind of senior design project, unifying all those “theory” classes. and realize that no competent employer is going to expect a freshly minted undergrad to have any “real” experience in working. get the theory in school, learn the ‘trade’ on the job.</p>
<p>and what jason said was true about letters of rec. particularly with graduate school, letters of rec are everything. the fact that students in calpoly and stuff arent around research isnt a major factor against you though as you would think. there are professors that do research there. additionally, grad schools realize that those students come from different areas. summer REU programs typically draw on these types of students as they dont have research opps at their home school. there are plenty of graduate students that came from those schools (SLO, pomona, etc), even at UCI. </p>
<p>as for the mat sci department, dont worry. material science is a really interdisciplinary field. mechanical E/chem E will the heavily related, as will chemistry and physics (people seem to separate engr and science… i duno why…).</p>
<p>Wow! great discussion going on here!</p>
<p>luvmyson: We loved the campus at UCI because of the beautiful, modern architecture and the layout of the main campus which is a round a large green space. It seemed very easy to get around! The area around the campus is very nice as well. It is Newport Beach! We went to a nearby park for lunch and watched a friendly coed softball game. The airport is very convienient as well. </p>
<p>Jas0n: Thanks for the excellent information about UCI and congratulations on getting into Grad school at UCLA! I think the engineering department sounds great at UCI and truthfully my son would probably excell in the more theoretical approach to learning. The hands-on part may be more of a challenge for him. The probelm is that UCI is a plane ride away from our home and his little sister! Also the cost is an issue for us because we will not get any financial aid. Cal Poly is a great deal and the fact that getting a job is very likely after graduating is very tempting. Do you think the Materials Engr. field is a good one to go into? It doesn’t seem as popular, but my son likes the idea of it being more open ended than some others and he can specialize later when he finds something he really likes. We think he may go on to grad school though and hope that going to Cal Poly won’t hurt his chances of getting in somewhere. </p>
<p>Thank you for your advice. I am sure everyone who reads it really appreciates you taking the time. Again, congratulations on all of your accomplishments and good luck at UCLA!</p>
<p>I think your son should start out as any engineer and actively figure it out when on campus. Being an engineer in a public school is all about taking initiative if you want a successful future. I think he should start by joining in on this discussion so we know his side of the story =].</p>