<p>alright so i know there are a ton of "UCLA vs. other college" threads already, but oh well. here it goes.</p>
<p>any advice? i'm a mechanical engineering major and i know cal poly has great undergrad engineering, and UCLA is more research based. both are great in engineering, but i also want to consider the school as a whole. school pride, quality of life, how much is there to do in westwood/downtown SLO, etc. it seems like UCLA is more more exciting than cal poly, but can anyone else give me some advice of why UCLA beats cal poly?</p>
<p>Like Band mom says - a visit to both campuses should seal your decision. </p>
<p>UCLA football/basketball versus CalPoly ???</p>
<p>Westwood versus SLO - not much of a comparison.</p>
<p>CalPoly SLO's a good school so I'm not knocking it but just commented on a couple of points you mentioned. UCLA also has a very highly ranked engineering program.</p>
<p>Academically I would say that UCLA is more research based and SLO would be more hands-on. Just what I've heard from other people. I would assume UCLA would be a better school if you planned on going to grad school and want to do research. Again this is only from an academic standpoint. IMO I think UCLA would be socially more awesome, but then that has a lot to do with preference. Visit both for sure though, usually one will click.</p>
<p>I'm in the same boat as billabongswimmer. I'm trying to decide between slo's architectural engineering or ucla's civil engineering. I would feel stupid turning down a great school like ucla, but i heard that slo's program is better for this major. On the other hand, if i chose ucla, i might regret not going to the school that potentially had a better program. I've visited both schools in the summer and ucla by far has the nicer campus and westwood is awesome. This decision really sucks. more prestigious, social, and rigorious vs. better program and less competative.</p>
<p>Please do everyone a favor and just go to UCLA... seriously... Not to put down Cal Poly, but great program or not, I doubt it stands up to UCLA.</p>
<p>I researched both schools yesterday and today for a total of about eight hours. Every thing i found was the same as what i've heard, so it didn't help all that much in the end. The thing that's pushing me towards UCLA now is what i found out about the architectural engineering program at cal poly, which is the major i applied for. It turns out engineering 'in general' is good, but because architectual engineering is fairly new and developing, employers aren't really hiring them. The civil engineering at UCLA, however, will definitely guarentee some sort of job after graduation, b/c civil eng. will always be in demand on the job market. So, yesterday i was on the fence between the two schools, but today i've done a lot of thinking, and think im gonna go to UCLA. billabongswim, hopefully something comes up in your favor as it did for me today. The best thing to do, that helped me decide, was talk to some of the current eng. students at both schools. It brought everything into perspective for me.</p>