<p>Unless you've visited Purdue and loved it, I say go to UCLA.
This is because you may end up not liking Purdue, which is gonna be suck for you as you will be paying out-of-state tuition bill. Plus, it's cold there.</p>
<p>I am graduate of Purdue's EE department. I know very little about UCLA outside of what two friends I had have told me about it. Both had positive experiences at UCLA but neither were engineers.</p>
<p>I was <em>NOT</em> impressed by my experience at Purdue. Things like college ranks and reputation might be important to some employers, but they do not necessarily reflect the actual experience you will have. I made my decision to attend Purdue based upon two factors, I was an in-state student and I had heard that Purdue's engineering department had a great reputation.</p>
<p>College rankings are somewhat misleading. They tend to focus more on what the professors have accomplished (i.e. number of papers published, awards won, etc.) than anything else. They do not accurately reflect the quality of the learning experience by any means; it just means that the professors teaching the material have accomplished something in the field.</p>
<p>You might ask, who wouldn't want to learn from the best? Unfortunately, how much a professor knows about a subject has little relevance to his ability to convey that knowledge in a clear, concise, and effective manner. A significant number of professors were completely inept at teaching which made classes boring and often required substantially more work to learn the subject matter than should have been necessary.</p>
<p>Some professors were downright awful and should be kept out of the classroom. One professor, who is now deceased (something that many students actually CHEERED about - to give you an idea of what people thought about him), routinely told us we were stupid, that we needed to work harder, that we were cheaters, and other lovely things. Another professor was quite possibly the most boring man to have ever walked the Earth and has probably not smiled in over thirty years. His teaching basically consisted of him mumbling some things to himself. Yet another professor graded a project that approximately half the class could not complete (due to various reasons related to the class/equipment/software not because of a lack of trying) without taking that fact into account, so many students received a 50% or less. I could go on and on but ultimately Purdue's strength is also its weakness.</p>
<p>A fair amount of the material you will learn is absolutely useless. You may very well have to BS what you actually learned if you want to appear as though you are qualified for some jobs. I remember talking to many companies and I felt as though Purdue left me extremely unprepared for certain jobs that were hiring new EE grads. I feel that a lot of important things are left out of the curriculum. It could be that I didn't take all the "right" courses but nobody will provide you with such information and you realistically only have so much time and can only take so many classes. I did take a more broad selection of classes than some people because I did not know what kind of job I would want to pursue so I felt it would be wise to get at least a basic understanding of as much as possible.</p>
<p>During my senior year I questioned if I even wanted to be an EE and wished I had picked a different major instead. There were quite a few others who shared my same point of view to varying degrees. When I first went to Purdue I seriously considered the possibility of pursuing a graduate degree in EE but at the end I could not get out of there soon enough.</p>
<p>This is not to say my entire time at Purdue was a waste. I did learn some problem solving skills and learned how to work well with diverse groups. When you graduate you will definitely be able to work on a team with just about anyone and can persevere in solving problems.</p>
<p>There are definitely quite a few opportunities for you to make the most of your experience. You can work on a lot of different projects (EPICS for example) and can potentially land an internship doing research or as a lab assistant. I think if you are truly interested in engineering (i.e. you are choosing engineering for some reason other than it will land you a job making $50k+ to start) you will definitely want to look into some of these opportunities as it will probably greatly enhance your experience and make you learn that much more. Or you can just take the required classes and graduate with the same piece of paper.</p>
<p>I did enjoy the labs quite a bit. I would frequently learn more in the labs than in the actual lectures. The labs were generally well thought out and could be completed in the allotted time unless you ran into some issues or did not know how to do something. If you knew the material well you could finish some labs extremely quickly and it would reinforce what you already knew.</p>
<p>If I had to do it all over again I would probably not go to Purdue. I would put more thought into the decision and look at other schools more. It may be that I simply had too lofty of expectations and set myself up to be disappointed.</p>
<p>UCLA may be no better and could possibly be worse in many of these regards. My suggestion is that, if possible, you talk to some students from both universities (not the tour guides the universities may give you). Also, don't believe anyone who only has an endless number of positive things to say (other than you will work hard) as such a person is either incredibly naive or is sugarcoating the story.</p>
<p>The important part is that you don't put too much consideration into something like a ranking. If you do well in any engineering program you can expect to get a decent job. While it may be easier to get into certain companies if you go to a certain university, going to UCLA will not preclude you from many engineering jobs solely because Purdue has a better reputation. Reputation and ranking should be a factor in your decision but do not make your decision solely based on it.</p>
<p>any UCLA EE student wants to share his views because I've gotten into EE at UCLA and I need some guidance aswell.</p>
<p>PurdueEE--></p>
<p>What do you do now? When did you graduate? How did you like the classes? How challenged were you? Did you like any of your professors? How big were the classes? How did you like your other peers? How did you like the campus itself? How did you like the facilities and dorms? What did you find yourself doing in your free time? How much time did you spend on homework?</p>
<p>Thanks for your previous response, and hopefully you can also include the views of your peers (especially those in EE) in your answer.</p>
<p>I graduated in May '08 and am currently seeking a job I will not hate within the engineering field. A lot of engineering jobs are really disappointing if you actually want to do something interesting or meaningful. A vast majority of jobs available to new graduates fall into the realm of maintenance or sales (although these are not the only types, but rather the most common from what I've seen). I have looked into many jobs so I'll briefly touch on those two types just because they are so prevalent:</p>
<p>Maintenance jobs are generally set in an outdoor industrial environment and you have to fix stuff when it breaks (or prevent it from breaking). You will generally have some mechanics, electricians, or whatever is necessary working under you and they do the majority of the actual fixing. It's not manual labor but it's probably as close as you can get to it while still being an engineer.</p>
<p>Sales jobs involve a lot of travel and brown nosing. Travel may sound appealing but it's not sightseeing; you're going to be doing work and if you don't like the thought of driving around a lot or having to go to airports a lot you may want to steer clear. This is not a door-to-door type of job and you will not work on commission but rather will be salaried.</p>
<p>I liked some classes and hated others. It largely depended on the professor (but not always). Some classes actually felt worthwhile and you'd learn a lot of relevant information. Others seemed entirely pointless the entire way through and you never saw any practical applications for the things you were learning.</p>
<p>Some professors were great at teaching and could nearly get the subject across to someone taking a nap. Others were awful and put everyone to sleep and/or could simply not make a point. In general I would say that there were more bad professors than good ones and I was not impressed by the quality of the teaching on a whole. However, almost all professors (and more often TAs) were willing to provide help in office hours if you needed it. </p>
<p>I was not too challenged. I probably could have gotten involved in more projects if I wanted a challenge. I definitely could have tried to understand some things better or more fully if I had wanted to. There is definitely a fair amount of room to create your own experience, if you want to just slide by and get the piece of paper you can do that. Alternatively, you can put in more effort (sometimes significantly more effort) and get involved in some project, explore the subject matter more in-depth, or whatever floats your boat.</p>
<p>My fellow students were great. Some were definitely not motivated in the slightest bit and working with them on projects was always an interesting experience. Others were very motivated, some of them so much so that it was overbearing when trying to work with them. Everyone I encountered was friendly; some are definitely more social than others.</p>
<p>The engineering facilities were OK. I do not have a good basis for which to compare Purdue to other schools but I did not have any serious complaints about the equipment other than some of it did not work and you would waste time trying to figure out what was wrong with a circuit only to eventually find out your problems stemmed from faulty equipment.</p>
<p>I spent little time in the dorms as I lived in an apartment and so did almost all of my friends. So, I cannot give you a fair assessment of dorm life. The facilities for extracurricular activities were adequate. I was not impressed but at the same time I did not have any real gripes. My free time activities varied by season. I am not a fan of cold weather so in the winter months I spent a lot more time inside playing video games and watching movies with friends. In the warmer months I would play some sports (just with friends, I never joined clubs). Many times after class I would just want to relax and take it easy.</p>
<p>Homework load varied wildly from class to class. Two classes had at most about 1 hour of homework each week. Some classes had substantially more. No class really had mountains upon mountains of homework outside of maybe one big project. On average I would say you can expect around 4 hours of homework per class per week. However, there were definitely times (although not many) when I went to class in the morning one day and did not come home until later the next day.</p>
<p>Personally, right now I take 19 credits and I have enough work that by the time I get home from school and get something to eat, relax for an hour or so - I could easily do school work until I go to bed... wake up and do it again tomorrow. In other words, I just don't have enough time to finish everything, at least not finish it as well as I would like to. I do schoolwork on the weekends, hours of it, every weekend. Half the time I don't fully understand what the hell I'm doing and yet I'm still supposed to be doing more, learning more. Granted, my goal this term was to get a 3.8+ so perhaps that influences the amount of time I spend doing things, however, I would actually prefer not to be challenged like this.</p>
<p>All in all, I don't know what constitutes a challenge for other people, but for me it means working hard to achieve my goals - I get that here. I also have to completely disagree that you could just slide by in school here - that's a joke in my opinion. Regardless of whether you want to do well or not, there is too much work and the material is too hard to just slide by. The people I know who try to slide by have failed out, failed individual classes, or cheated their way by. It's not like you can easily learn this stuff - I have trouble even when I put in a lot of effort. I can agree that some of the professors leave something to be desired, many of them speak horrible english - therefore, they can't really be all that engaging. But I really think that that is probably true in any engineering program.</p>
<p>I don't want to sound like a commercial for Purdue lol, UCLA may very well be just as good a school. However, I can tell by the questions that you're asking that you're looking for the same things I was looking for when I chose to come to Purdue. I have not been dissapointed. If you put in the work here doors will open up for almost any engineering job that you want, you will learn a lot and you will be challenged.</p>
<p>purduefrank would you say your experience was better than PurduEE's? I have heard from many websites and readings that the teachers at Purdue aren't the best and that they are either focus all the time on research or don't speak English well. I also am interested a little on what people do off campus? I have heard that west lafayette can be a little boring after a while.</p>
<p>Virginia</p>
<p>Yes, I would say that my experience has been better than his/hers. If you read some of my other posts in different threads that will become apparent pretty quickly.</p>
<p>However, let there be no mistake - Purdue is not perfect. I do agree that there are problems with a number of professors, namely, many of them don't speak english very well which makes it harder to understand them, harder to pay attention to them, harder to justify going to every class, etc., etc.. As I've mentioned before, I also have hated the weather here, but it shouldn't be any worse than virginia - if that's where you're from. West Lafayette isn't the best, but it's also not that bad - there is stuff to do and if you have time to do things other than school work it's easy to have a good time. </p>
<p>It really just depends on your other options and what you really want out of school? For me, Purdue is great and I am happy to be here...</p>
<p>Just the answer I am looking for. A good list of pros and cons. I'll probably try to sit in on a class when i visit to see if i can handle the teachers.</p>
<p>Purduefrank,</p>
<p>can you give any more insight into honors program for 1st year engineering, class size, difficulty?
Did you participate or not? Know any one who did, pros and cons? Is there one particular professor who teaches the classes and how is that professor rated?</p>
<p>How would you rate professors overall?</p>
<p>Also, what dorm would you recommend for 1st year? Are a lot of your classes in engineering buildings that you would want to be closer the eng or does it not matter?
Thanks</p>
<p>Sun for rooms from what I have heard in other threads and my view of the website school map I would choose either Owen, Shreve or Earheart.</p>
<p>Sun</p>
<p>I really can't comment on the honors program - bc I never was in it. However, I have heard that it's hard and I know a few students who switched into the regular classes because of that. The biggest thing to think about is that there really is not a whole lot of benefit in taking honors classes as far as getting a good job etc. Employers care about your GPA and your EC's, both of these will take a hit if you take honors classes. I'm not advising you on what to do or anything, but just keep that in mind. I have found school to be difficult here, more difficult than I had anticipated - I have a fairly high GPA, however, I work very hard and study a lot - I personally could not justify taking any honors classes, I just don't think the benefits would add up for me. </p>
<p>As far as the dorms go, my favorite is Shreve - it's new, close to the gym and one of the better dining halls. I wouldn't really take location into consideration because I really don't think it would matter all that much... However, there are some dorms that are closer to the engineering buildings, but they are older dorms and I wouldn't recommend them over Shreve just because they are closer.</p>
<p>PurdueFrank,</p>
<p>Thanks for info.
What eng. major are you in? How would you rate professors in general? And do you know who teaches the honors program, by any chance?</p>
<p>Do you find you walk to classes more often than buses? It must be brutal in wintertime --</p>
<p>I just got a pamphlet on learning communities... do you recommend them?</p>
<p>I'm in IE. In general there is a lot of variance in the professors - some are very good, others are horrible lol, some are in between. I have no clue what a learning community is so i can't comment on that. You will use the buses for sure, but the bus stops by the dorms have buses come like every 5 minutes, you could miss the first two and still make it to class on time, however, you can also walk if you want - it's not that far. I don't know who the honors profs are, I would contact the school to find out and then look on ratemyprofs dot com or something.</p>