<p>I am currently selecting between UC Irvine and Cal Poly SLO for electrical engineering. Do professor credentials matter in determining the quality of the university? In Cal Poly most of the teachers graduated from not so famous schools, while the ones in Irvine graduated from Cal Tech and Berkeley amongst other famous engineering colleges. Everyone recommends Cal Poly as they think it is better for engineering.
Should I account for the professor credentials in my decision?</p>
<p>YES especially hard majors such as engineering and the sciences. A PhD is a must!</p>
<p>Yes. Without a doubt.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about these particular schools, but a better approach than looking at the degree-granting institution might be to look at the web pages of the professors and the departments and determine what kind of, and how much, external research money is coming in. What sort of research is going on? Is the department good enough to be funded by government agencies or private industries? They won’t be sending money to incompetent departments.</p>
<p>In theory, there should be a good deal of overlap between prestige of PhD-granting institution and level of external funding, but in reality a lot of other factors come into play.</p>
<p>In the sciences especially high ranking professors bring in big buck grants which enable them to employ students and gives them contacts in various industries who often employ their students. A trusted scholar in this regard in an INVALUABLE resource for grads and undergrads alike.</p>
<p>all the professors have PhD, but does it matter if it is from a better university?</p>
<p>In the sciences grants matter a lot; they’re the engine that drives the enterprise. In some other fields, especially the humanities, not so much. A top scholar in literature, classics, or philosophy generally doesn’t need all that much external support for their research which depends more on brains, ambition, vision, creativity, knowledge of the existing literature, hard work, and the ability to translate all of the above into finished product than on external grant support. </p>
<p>But I do think pedigree matters. More often than not (but not always), the top performers in a field will be those who came out of top graduate programs. And a school’s ability to attract, retain, develop, and promote the top talent coming out of the top programs is itself an indicator of where that school stands in the academic pecking order. </p>
<p>As a student, it comes down to whether you’re being taught by people who are truly at the top of their game, the people who are creating most of the new knowledge in the field; or whether you’re getting it second-hand, from people who have only enough expertise to teach the basics and to report, often in a partially informed way, on what’s happening at the cutting edge, at other institutions. To my mind, that’s an easy call: if you really want to learn the discipline, you’ll put yourself in a position to work with those who are actually doing it, not those who are reporting on it from a distance. But if the latter is the best you can do, well, there’s always grad school.</p>
<p>Difference between Cal States and UCs is that Cal States are known to be more practical while UCs are more theory. I think when it comes to engineering, what matters to you the most?</p>