<p>I was going to say “no one”, but sadly that’s not the case.</p>
<p>Many if not most of the Caltech undergrads I’ve known regretted it but all of the grad students have loved it.</p>
<p>hmm… how interesting with the Caltech drad vs undergrad differences in experience!</p>
<p>It shouldn’t be surprising though. Caltech institutionally cares a lot more about their research output and therefore graduate education than they do their undergraduates.</p>
<p>As a general rule, most schools don’t torture their undergraduates past any sane person’s breaking point either…</p>
<p>So which coast has better ice cream? Hagen Daz apparently has offices on both coasts.</p>
<p>Vermont’s best, forever.</p>
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<p>Just a note, this doesn’t mean they care about their graduate students. This just means they want us to out as much stuff ASAP without much concern for our sanity either. :)</p>
<p>Classes here as a grad student are also rather odd. First, undergrads are some of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. Second, you’ll take classes mixed with undergrads. Therefore, professors assume grad students have the same rigorous background as all the undergrads, so we get our butts kicked in most classes. It’s especially rough if you’re in a field that takes classes outside of your department. For example, I’m an engineer from undergrad, but I’m stuck taking graduate quantum mechanics and solid state physics with grads (and undergrads) from the physics program.</p>
<p>While we don’t have very good ice cream here, we do have fantastic pizza. I definitely trying some from the wood-fired oven in Chandler if any of you visit. Sadly it’s probably the best pizza in Pasadena.</p>
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<p>I had some of that when I was visiting GALCIT last summer to work with some of the guys at the T5 tunnel. I must admit, it was pretty good. Easily the best I’ve had at a university dining hall. Whatever it was that I ate at the outdoor dining setup next to the Athenaeum was pretty good, too. I especially liked that they served beer and wine there.</p>
<p>wow, reading these posts make me want to reconsider applying for Caltech undergrad. I thought it had one of the best undergraduate engineering programs?! Is there anyone who experienced their program and could share what its like?</p>
<p>The Rathskeller is pretty nice. We like to go there after IM softball games during the summer. The food at the Ath is far and away the best, though. Pretty much any time I’m offered a free meal there for showing someone around campus I’m happy to oblige (for anyone that visits, the strawberry lemonade and chocolate lava cake are the best). :)</p>
<p>If you want proof Caltech doesn’t cater to grad students, just take note the Red Door Cafe, the coffee shop on campus, closes at 5:30 PM.</p>
<p>limetega, my belief about Caltech for undergrad is if you’re one of the top 25% of the class, it’s the best place in the world to go to school. If you’re in the 25-50th percentiles, it’s alright. If you’re below 50% you’re going to be so far behind for the entire time you’re here you’d have been much better off going elsewhere. I’ve TAed a ton, and it’s really sad when I see these amazingly bright kids that have learned a ton, but still understand very little because they’ve been playing catch up the entire time they’ve been here.</p>
<p>Cal Tech is extremely difficult and rigorous.</p>
<p>In terms of CS (if that’s what you are looking for), you have Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon (in no particular order), then you have the rest of the field.</p>
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<p>Perhaps getting in is extremely difficult and rigorous, but the engineering curriculum itself covers the same material, to the same depth, as any other solid engineering school. I have done comparisons myself between Caltech and University of Arizona, for example, and there really isn’t a notable difference in curriculum. Grading curves are a different story, but typically there will always be a small handful of high achievers in any class who will set the curve.</p>
<p>I imagine the real difference may be that the average Caltech student is much more likely to go above and beyond the required courses and take on advanced elective classes prior to graduation. Correct me if I’m wrong though.</p>
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<p>This is likely true if you look at the basic curriculum. However, ultimately the individual classes may or may not branch into more advanced material more quickly, and at the prestigious research universities, they usually do. The structure and material covered in a class is held to a basic standard for ABET purposes and this is usually published online in the course catalog. Ultimately, though, the actual meat of the course and how far beyond that minimum you go depends on the professor, and the professors at the more prestigious schools often like to go more quickly through the material and therefore cover more advanced topics near the end of the semester. The professors at these schools are typically there because they are top researchers, and the top researchers almost necessarily have a very rigorous approach to their work and this also shows up in their teaching. They tend to be sticklers for the complicated math and physics that underpin a subject, which also tends to get some students lost.</p>
<p>This alludes to what RacinReaver is talking about where those that manage to keep up can really excel, especially when it comes to setting up for graduate school, but it leaves a fair number of people playing perpetual catch-up for topics that may be and often are esoteric and only useful to some people.</p>
<p>This is precisely why I always emphasize fit over prestige when folks come on here wanting to know only how to get into the most prestigious schools. Ultimately if you want to work for Boeing, they aren’t going to care if you can calculate the form of a Mach stem by hand, but whether you know the basics and can apply them to make engineering decisions based on what the computer, experiment or your team gives you. Ultimately then you are best off going to a school where the companies that interest you recruit and where you can succeed academically. For some, that makes Caltech, MIT and the likes an excellent choice. For others, they would be a disaster.</p>
<p>That said, Arizona is a good school so I wouldn’t expect it to be a slouch anyway.</p>
<p>If the advantage of Caltech etc. undergrads is that they teach graduate courses, then there really isn’t that much of an advantage to going to a school like that for undergrad if you have to get a graduate degree afterwards anyways. There is no real advantage to making your life more difficult for yourself if there is no benefit to doing so.</p>
<p>Most of these schools don’t play favorites with “pure-breds”. Quite the opposite, really - a lot of schools want to encourage diversity of thought, and so they don’t let undergrads stay at their school for a PhD.</p>
<p>The advantage of Caltech isn’t that they teach graduate courses to undergrads (they’ll do this at any school that offers graduate degrees). The advantage is you’ll be pushed to your limit, and quite possibly further, and, if you’re on the upper half of the heap, you’ll likely learn more there than anywhere else. Undergrad isn’t just about placing yourself for grad school or the first job, it’s also about learning the skills that’ll help you excel throughout your career. If you’re the right kind of person here, you’ll certainly get that. Then again, Caltech isn’t one of the schools that makes good students great, or even great students excellent. It’s a school that takes the excellent and makes them the best.</p>
<p>(Most departments at Caltech do actually let their undergrads stick around for PhDs. It’s a sort of extension of “failing in,” which is where a student does so poorly their first year or two at Caltech, their GPA is too low to transfer to any other schools they had applied to for undergrad. So, they wind up sticking around barely scraping by. Similarly, a lot of really smart students, who would otherwise be top of the heap at most other colleges, will finish with a relatively low GPA for grad school (somewhere around 2.8-3.3), and won’t be accepted anywhere. They’ll often have connections from working with professors at Caltech, and they’ll be able to secure a position in the PhD program through their known abilities in the lab instead of the typical application process.)</p>
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<p>This is somewhat of a generic statement, with a fair bit of handwaving involved. I am not saying you’re wrong here - Caltech is a great school. However, if you could provide some explicit examples of how Caltech students are “pushed to their limits”, far beyond what students at other schools experience at the undergraduate level, I am sure all of us here would appreciate it.</p>
<p>The best engineering school is the one you feel most comfortable at! You don’t have to go to the top ranked school. I have an engineering degree from a top ranked big 10 school and they prepared me well to do cutting edge research, but that’s not necessarily where the jobs are. I ended up being over qualified for the type of work I ended up doing (telephony at AT&T Bell Labs back in the day when landlines reigned supreme).</p>
<p>I have worked with engineers and tech people with degrees from all over, including local ITT tech schools. Some of the best engineers I’ve worked with came from lesser known schools. The latest tech person I have been working with has a degree from Northwestern. I was shocked when I found out, he is totally average. Not even close to the caliper I would expect from a top tier school.</p>
<p>A degree from a top school may open some doors, but good engineers come from all over, and engineers are good at figuring out who is a quality engineer regardless of where they got their degree. After your first job, it won’t matter much where you’re degree is from unless you have your heart set on doing research.</p>
<p>It’s almost like the saying they have for doctors. What do you call a person who finished last in medical school? A doctor!</p>
<p>It’s the same for engineers, once you have your degree it’s what you do and accomplish that will open doors for yourself.</p>