<p>Im an admitted transfer coming in Fall '12 as an EE major. So far, from what I have read on Cal Poly’s website, it says there are basically two GPAs on file: the Cal Poly GPA and the Cumulative GPA. I understand that the Cumulative GPA is the Cal Poly GPA and the transfer GPA (which I got in with) put together. </p>
<p>My question is: what GPA would a school like UCB or Standford look at if I were to apply to their graduate engineering programs? Would they put more of an emphasis on the Cal Poly GPA since it shows my performance on the actual engineering “stuff” rather than my cumulative GPA (since it includes grades from general education classes like English, Speech, Biology, etc)?</p>
<p>The aforementioned engineering schools would look at your cumulative GPA (which spans your entire undergraduate career) and your Major GPA (in this case EE GPA).</p>
<p>Cal Poly GPA is not the main focus here for graduate school. You are competing against others applicants based on your undergraduate academic performance, as well as, how you fared on your engineering studies. Prior to the budget crisis, lots of students take extra non-engineering classes to pull up their cumulative (overall) GPA, so engineering GPA cancels out this effect.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response ickglue. I been reading your posts and noticed that you are in fact a Cal Poly EE almumni and I wanted to ask if you did any internships or research related work while attending Cal Poly? And if so, did you have to go to San Jose/San Francisco/Los Angeles (since I figured that SLO is a small town and therefore wouldnt be hosting internships there)?</p>
<p>I did 2 internships during my time in Cal Poly. One in National Semiconductor (NSC) located in Silicon Valley, and another with a startup, C-Cube Microsystems, also located in Silicon Valley. So most likely you will end up working either in Silicon Valley or LA area for your internship/Co-ops. This won’t be an issue since many top engineering firms recruit at CP throughout their hiring seasons. </p>
<p>The NSC internship was secured through Cal Poly career office. It was pretty straight forward process as long as your grades are decent, since they all recruit heavily in Cal Poly engineering.</p>
<p>The C-Cube one was secured through a referral from a Cal Poly friend who graduated 1 year ahead of me. He referred me to the gig. I joined them as a chip design engineer upon graduation, as employee 50. And we eventually went IPO, and by the time I left, we had 1200+ staff in the company.</p>
<p>With respect to research, I actually worked with my thesis adviser to carry out a solid state superconductor research project while I was a senior. It was a great experience because I got to conduct some really fundamental research on the physics of superconductors. And end up building a lot of the instruments required to carry out the research from scratch. Also, it was actually REALLY fun because I had huge amount opportunities to make things levitate. So don’t believe people when they mock Cal Poly of being a technician school because we don’t carry out cool research. It is really up to you to pick something that has a strong research component. </p>
<p>I had a grand experience in Cal Poly, although I lived in terror academically speaking most of the time. :)</p>