CalTech vs CalPoly?

rocketDA
Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:32:45 +0000

Caltech is the west coast’s version of MIT. It is not a spinoff, however. It has its own unique student body and is renown for producing some of the top mathematicians and scientists of our time. Caltech (in my opinion) has a far superior engineering program to CalPoly, though Caltech is very heavy in the theory of such things as the intrinsic study of engineering sciences… like a rigorous approach to electronics and fluids rather than a directly applicable one.

I get the feeling (from working with grads from both places) that Caltech students know a lot more of the “why” systems do the things they do. It is a different level of understanding… which you’d only get at a few institutions in the States. If you’d like to contrast MIT and Caltech things get a little fuzzy. Though they have very similar applicant pools (pretty equally qualified) many consider MIT an institution that has a slight engineering flare while Caltech has a slight science flare.

I’m not saying that Caltech is necessarily better than CalPoly for everyone, though. If you don’t want all of the rigorous “why” background (like a scientist) and you really want to jump into more applicational engineering CalPoly may be better for you.