<p>My son is planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He has already been admitted to UC Davis under the ELC gaurantee. He has also been admitted to Loyola Marymount. He is also interested in Cal Poly SLO and USC. We are trying to help him narrow/evaluate these schools. Our older son attends a cal state university and has had a difficult time with professors in the math and science classes who speak English very poorly. Can anyone coment on the quality and caliber of faculty at the aformentioned schools as well as the issue of professors who speak English fluently or not?</p>
<p>Any Update - did your son decide?</p>
<p>All the schools that you mention above are great schools. With regards to native English speakers…well, academia is the great equalizer in our society and there will always be a lot of foreign born teachers and TA’s at every school. The United States draws the best and brightest Globally. This is what makes us strong and diversity is very important. Having said that, I know that Cal Poly SLO is often criticized for its lack of diversity among its student body. Wikipedia states, "According to an investigative report by the Los Angeles Times, in 2004 Cal Poly had the lowest rate of underrepresented minorities among all 30 California public universities with comprehensive undergraduate programs and was described as a “largely white, middle-class campus”;[8] this same report stated that “Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is the academic star of the CSU system.” This may extend to its faculty – not sure. I used to teach at USC and there should not be any problems with the level of English among its staff. One thing that I must say, engineering and the sciences attract foreigners because English is not the most important factor for success. If your son is planning to be an engineer, I hate to say it, but he should get used to accents and fast as many of his colleagues in the future will not be native speakers of English and many engineering jobs (some of the best ones actually) will take him to foreign countries in this Global Economy. Don’t want to sound cold – but that is the reality. My son will major in engineering and in High School he spent an entire summer in a non-English speaking environment doing an internship at a Japanese IT consultancy.</p>
<p>luvmyson is a 2-year old post.</p>