Small school for engineering vs. big state flagships

College Majors Engineering Majors
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My son plans to major in computer engineering and has been accepted to a variety of schools. We live on the East Coast, but he would like to work in Silicon Valley after graduating. He’s weighing the merits of huge state universities against the much smaller programs at a couple of catholic schools. Specifically, he is weighing Ohio State, Arizona State, University of Alabama, Cal Poly SLO, Pitt and Northeastern on the large side and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and University of Portland on the small side. There is lots of information about the large schools, and we have visited them. They have great facilities and the students seem to be recruited by major companies. On the downside, the classes can be large and TA’s aren’t always so great.

There is much less information about Loyola Marymount and Portland. We haven’t visited them, and we don’t want to waste the money on visits if the engineering programs are inferior. We know the classes are smaller and not taught by TAs, but other than that it is hard to tell how good they are or what people do after graduating. Loyola Marymount is offering big scholarships that would bring the cost down to around $20,000 a year including room and board. Any information about these schools’ engineering programs would be much appreciated – specifically, are the degrees respected by companies? In a more general sense, I wonder what people think about about the advantages and disadvantages of being in a program with thousands of engineering students vs. a liberal arts school with just a small number of engineers?

All the schools would be affordable for us, though Alabama is least expensive with the OOS full-tuition scholarship. ASU and Ohio State have generous OOS merit scholarships. Cal Poly OOS and Northeastern with a scholarship would be about the same cost per year, though few students seem to graduate from Cal Poly in less than five years. (S was accepted to Santa Clara, but the small scholarship makes it unaffordable.)

Cal Poly seems to send a lot of graduates to Silicon Valley. Would students from Ohio State, Alabama, Northeastern or Loyola Marymount have obstacles in getting hired there?

Thanks.

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I can’t comment specifically on the bigs other than Cal Poly. My son is a Poly student, so know there’s a bias. He did though choose it from out of state after being accepted to large and small, prestigious and not, with lots of merit money from all, except CP. Doesn’t offer much.

Unlike the rest, Cal Poly does not have a doctoral program. Nearly all their resources are directed at undergraduates. As a result, he’ll never be taught by TAs. Class sizes are small. My son’s Calc class has 25 or so students. The biggest lecture hall on campus holds just a bit over 200. Also, there’s big and there’s BIG. CP has about 17,000 students. ASU…70,000. I like both UP and LMU, but both will be underresourced compared to the rest. Lastly, proximity plays a big role in engineering. Recruiters that will never go to the others will go to CP. It doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to get a job in the valley out of the others, it will just be tougher.

Getting out of Poly in four years has been historically tough. Their registration system and course availability are changing though, which will mitigate some of that. The other half is largely in the students hand. If they dodge 8AM courses or professors that aren’t their first choice, they’ll graduate later. Engineering is so cumulative that you are at a standstill if you do those things. It also helps to bring in good AP credit and/or dual enrollment credit.

San Luis Obispo is also an amazing spot.

Where CP won’t hold a candle is football. There is nothing quite like being at a big time FBS football game.

So, knowing what he’s looking for and where he’s been accepted, Poly seems like the best choice, albeit from my biased prospective. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions about Poly.

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@eyemgh Thanks for the detailed response. We visited SLO a year ago, and it was my son’s favorite campus and town among all the schools on his list. Loved the overall vibe of the school and the engineering department, the smaller class sizes, “learn by doing,” the companies that recruit there, and of course the weather. (though, like I said, we haven’t seen LMU yet. LMU wasn’t on his radar at that time).

The main reason CP isn’t a clear No. 1 is the difficulty of switching majors. While he believes he is going to like studying computer engineering, and he has long been obsessed with all aspects of technology, if the reality doesn’t match expectations it would be nice to know he could switch to something else, possibly business. Changing majors is apparently no problem at the other schools, but it sounds like it could be very tough or impossible at CP, depending on the new target subject. Also, he sees the trimester vs. semester schedule and the CP registration system as drawbacks compared with some other schools. Still, all of CP’s positives might outweigh this.

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@LeoJobs21‌, Those are legitimate concerns, but in all aspects may not be as bad as you think.

Changing majors is not guaranteed. There’s a reason for that. Poly admits by major, meaning you only compete against your specific major to get it. When you want to switch, some departments look at how you would have stacked up against the cohort of the new major had you originally chosen that. It keeps people from backdooring into a more difficult major to get into. In reality, changing is not that hard and certainly not rare. He’ll have to have good grades and several quarters under his belt. After that, switching, especially to an easier admit major like business, won’t be a problem.

I can’t speak for anyone but my son, but he loves the quarter system (F, W, Sp, Su). He
Iike’s the pace and the variety. What drawbacks does your son see?

Lastly, registration. Ahhhh…registration. It an effort to make it easier, it’s actually more cumbersome. There’s so much information at your disposal that it can be overwhelming. They developed an online tutorial that your son should do if he chooses poly. Much of the difficulty of the past though will be gone by the time your son enters.

In order to keep it “fair,” Poly developed a rotation system based on last name. There are 12. You would get each one once throughout your career at Poly. There were classically two terrible draws. Twelfth rotation as a Senior needing specific classes to graduate, but couldn’t get them and Twelfth as a Freshman in the Winter quarter. My son had the latter and got all but one of the classes he wanted.

They have made major changes though to the system. This past year, they gave students with Senior status automatic priority no matter what their rotation number was. Starting during your son’s first year, the rotation system will be gone. Registration will be done by class standing. For the first quarter, he’ll be blocked into his schedule (it will be set for him by his department). Then starting with the Winter quarter, he’ll choose his own schedule. If he brings in enough credit, like my son did, he’ll get a jump over many of his class mates. This is the way it’s done nearly everywhere.

I hope that explains things.

LMU and UP are both pretty enclave campuses. LMU sits on a hill and is open and modern. UP is a classic red brick sitting on top of the river bluff. They are both in a less desirable part of their cities. With that said, there’s really no BAD area of Portland. LMU is close to the airport. It’s much safer than USC. If you visit, I think you’ll find the facilities pale compared to CP.

Good luck!

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From my reading/research, SLO is a great option. But I know lots more about Northeastern.

Northeastern’s co-op program is excellent. Take a look at this link to get an idea of the examp;e co-op employers http://www.coe.neu.edu/co-op-experiential-learning/co-op-advantage Then dig more to see if there is much NEU co-op opportunity in CA. (Any co-op is helpful. But on in geography of most interest could open more doors in the future.

Sorry - I don’t know much about the others. However I think for Alabama you can find info on other areas/threads in CC.

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eyemgh Good to know about the changes to CP’s registration system. Hadn’t heard that. Sounds like they are nicely simplifying it. As far as the quarter system, my son has viewed it as a drawback because, given the perceived difficulty of the registration process – including worries about often having to “crash” needed classes that are technically full by showing up and convincing the teacher to let you in – going through it three times a year vs. two would be extra stressful. You finally get your schedule set and just a few weeks later the whole process looms again. But it sounds like the reality is much less burdensome than that. As far as switching majors, again it’s good to hear that the reality isn’t as bad as the worries. But I do have one question on the logic of needing good grades to make a switch. If a student is struggling with grades as an engineering student, isn’t that a good reason to be allowed to switch out to an easier major like business, as long as the student originally had the numbers to get accepted into the business school? It wouldn’t seem to serve anyone to prevent a change under those circumstances. Thanks again for the info. Very helpful.

colorado_mom That’s a very impressive list of co-op companies at Northeastern. Great to see that. Thanks for the link. We went to Boston a month ago and my son was scheduled for a full day of meetings at Northeastern. Unfortunately, there was a 20 inch dump of snow that day, and the school had to close, so no meetings. We did get a chance to walk around on the campus the day before. Very appealing. Nice part of the city. Hoping to reschedule in coming weeks. One thing we are wondering is whether the co-op program hinders social life at school because of students continually leaving for six-month stretches. You make a friend, and then you or they are gone for half a year. But again, as with the concerns about CP, maybe that isn’t the reality.

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“One thing we are wondering is whether the co-op program hinders social life at school because of students continually leaving for six-month stretches.” - Great question. For CA internships in your case,… maybe. But many students stick around Boston and often even live on campus (housing used to be guaranteed through at least 3rd year). The public transit options from campus are awesome (train and bus)). I’ve even heard some say that they have more time for ECs during co-op, since no homework and evening hours free.

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Is it single phase or multi phase? A multi phase registration system lets all students register for a portion of their courses before anyone gets to register for the rest of his/her courses. This allows all students an early shot at their highest priority courses (typically courses in their majors). Additionally, a registration system can allow only specific classes of students (by major and/or class standing or level) to register during the first phase, with others only being able to get onto the wait list.

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@ucbalumnus‌, good question. I’m not sure that is known yet. At least, it isn’t known to me and I can’t find it. Either way, it will be better, and like most schools, probably not perfect.