Not to stir up any rivalry or hatred, but which school is better for Civil Engineering? Are they more theory-based or hands-on?
Both are stellar. Viterbi and Samueli both are deeply rooted in SoCal. It’s splitting hairs and their basically tied. HSSEAS is quite personable and classes are small at the lower div major specific level on up. Both are more focused on theory and hands on experience comes from lab classes and clubs. Alumni support are high for both and career fairs are full of employers. unfortunately there is no clear winner as both schools are essentially the same.
One thing to consider, if you may wish to transfer OUT of engineering (it happens), USC is pretty easy to switch to most other majors. UCLA is much more restrictive due to budgetary issues and may not offer as wide a range of options.
It’s also easy for most students at a USC to take courses in a wide range of fields, even though they’re not majoring in those other areas.
USC has a wholly separate career center from the rest of campus and frequent engineering job fairs.
@HImom Both UCLA and USC have frequent engineering specific career fairs and Ucla has its own seperate career center right next to the luskin conference center. Ultimately the op should follow the money or where he/she fits in better as academically and resource wise (engineering only) the schools are on par with each other. Ucla engineering has a much different feel than the L&S majors. All Ucla engineers have dedicated faculty advisors from the get go
It’s not that hard to change out of Engineering as long as you do it in the first two years and you’re in good academic standing. It might be slightly harder to switch to an impacted major, but your options aren’t limited as long as you do it within the time frame that L&S wants.