<p>@Anyhope, My son loved the MatE dept at Cal Poly. It is one of the smaller engineering departments and had a “family” fell to it. By his last two years, much of his social life a college was with his fellow MatE’s. He graduated almost two years ago, and he just recently went on a Vegas weekend with his old MatE clan. He really liked <em>most</em> of the MatE professors too. If there is any way you can get there, I’d highly recommend going to Admitted Student Day of Open House and spend the afternoon with the MatE department. My son was so impressed that day, with everything about the department, he knew immediately that this was the school and department for him. Here’s the newest published flowchart for Mate’s:</p>
<p><a href=“http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/site_media/uploads/majors/mate/mate11-13flowchart.pdf[/url]”>http://eadvise.calpoly.edu/site_media/uploads/majors/mate/mate11-13flowchart.pdf</a> </p>
<p>I see that they have modified it since 2007 when my son started, to make the freshman year a lighter load. (It used to be 17 units each quarter of freshman year!) Good luck! And don’t worry too much about change of major. Just have your son add the first MatE class to his schedule (if he decides he wants to change into MatE) when he has his enrollment appointment in August (?). And if he’s sure he doesn’t want chemistry, he can drop a class that wouldn’t be applicable to his desired major. They won’t officially let him take any action to change majors until after his first quarter at CP, but it would be helpful to go ahead and take the introductory class for his desired major.</p>
<p>Oh, I think all of his fellow MatE grads got engineering jobs out of college. Mine works as a Materials Engineer for a small company in Santa Barbara and his first year there he spent many weekends driving up to SLO to hang out with his friends that where still there (5th year). It seems that many CP kids hate to leave SLO! Mine wanted to stay there, but the closest job he was offered was in Santa Barbara which is not such a bad place to live either!</p>
<p>Best wishes to your son!</p>