Why isn't Cal Poly San Luis Obispo higher ranked?

mino74ur
Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:14:44 +0000

@bigxcman

I have actually seen the rankings (and know how to best consider them) and to boot I have interacted with students from both departments. A little critical thinking and a solid understanding of how statistics function might be a better point of reference for you. For the median engineering student, CalPoly is great, for the more autonomous student who will really work the department to go above and beyond providing the standard curriculum his or her unwavering focus, I would suggest being in a superior setting with far more research opportunities along with stronger international presence and private sector collaboration/funding. I am not an engineering student, but I collaborate extensively with them and have presented my design work to several engineering and computer science departments as a guest speaker. So I have a pretty solid objective perspective of how the departments function and what the student body is like. SLO is great job and workforce training while UCSD has a more theoretical emphasis from my discussions and observations. That is common knowledge to most of us who have taken the time to research both departments, so why not take some time and explore both departments thoroughly and if you have a pretty solid barometer to approximate the strengths and weaknesses of a department I think it will be pretty clear to you in the end and you can bring something more to the table then taste. Your ad hominem refute was really quite worthless when discussing the topic and certainly did not help the thread too much. Try spending a little more time thinking more critically about rankings which really serve to perpetuate the consumer lust of our culture and constant need for validation. Visit departments, meet people, discuss topics, formulate new ideas and share the authentic experience and opinion afterwards. Then it becomes far more valuable to all of us who are quite curious about the strength of a department. Who needs more hearsay in this world? Not I, said the fly on the wall.

@ Heidegger

I absolutely agree, cost for many in California would be a key factor and as far as reputation goes it is certainly a solid school. Though I think those that deal with the impaction and general mismanagement at the Cal State level like to be in a “feel good” situation for their efforts to justify saving the money to some degree when opting for SLO over say UCLA/UCSD/UCB which is becoming increasingly common and for middle of the road students who are “finding” themselves in the curriculum a good option. There are many programs hidden in Cal States that are outstanding and their accessibility and cost is a wonderful thing while it is still low. There are countless brilliant kids using them to their advantage and squeaking out their cracks relatively unaffected by the bureaucracy they are notorious for alienating students with in the larger campuses. If I was in high school and wanted to go into engineering to discover my specialization SLO is a better choice, but for a student who is highly focused and well researched with a narrow concentration a bigger research uni has countless advantages provided they know how to “play the game”. Either way stigmas are a shame and far better left unattached.