utep vs utsa

If given only these two options, which one would you choose? What school do you think is better academically overall?
I’m interested in engineering and want to go to a school that has friendly student body (students that help each other out instead of sabotaging others; collaborative students in lab) and few non-native (hard to understand) professors.
Thank you for your time to answer my questions

Just curious where are you from? I think that would matter. As someone who lives along the border (Rio Grande Valley) I would strongly suggest UTSA. San Antonio is much “better” than El Paso in many ways. Plus you have San Marcos & Austin close by.

I live in El Paso, but my friend’s brother goes to utep and said that professors are difficult and hard to understand. l don’t mind going out of town. Thank you Frank!

I live in the RGV & at the present time it is so bad there, I’m glad I got out of the RGV.

Why is it bad? I heard they merge universities and open a new medical school down there.

Apart from the cartel violence that is spilling over, the medical center is not even started yet, so it will be quite a while. I attended UTPA in the past & believe me it was a mess. I also had/have friends that work(ed) there & they preferred to work at South Texas College, the nearby community college simply because it was better orgranized. I hope Guy Bailey can turn it around, but at the present time UTPA/UTRGV is a mess.

Go to UTSA. The campus is very nice and there is much going on there in an effort to raise the profile of the school. UTSA also give you access to San Antonio, arguably the nicest city in the state.

“arguably the nicest city in the state.” Yes, arguably.