girls wayyyy hotter in ucla :p
girls wayyyy hotter in ucla :p
USC is #1 in Olympic T&F and Outdoor WC medals
Unlike all the other posters who may be swayed by the global Berkeley brand, I actually have an undergrad degree from Cal (admitted BSEE, graduated BA Math/CS), and would advise you to avoid it like the plague.
Cal is a monster factory school, with zero attention or resources available for the typical undergrad. You have to fight for everything, including getting in to core classes, and the budget continues to be cut every year. Needless to say, counseling and advising are non-existent.
Furthermore, it is overrun with certain grade-grubbing and not very fun to hang out with ethnicities, and has become extremely segregated by race - I saw this with my own eyes a few months ago. Worse in that respect than when I graduated in the 1990s. Not strong on the hot woman front either - certainly not compared to UCSB!
Cal's great reputation is historical, and based entirely on (dead by now) Nobel-winning faculty, and more generally on graduate-level research. The reputational spillover to the undergrad schools is entirely unjustified.
Also, the grading at Cal is very hard.
If against my advice you go to Cal:
- Find a group living situation, either the co-ops or the frats. If you're not a frat kinda guy, get on the co-op waiting list today.
- Try the "Persian Burger" at Bongo Burger.
- Read the Study Hacks blog.
Good luck.
jeeze, when things get hard, bitch about it why don't ya? AND pull the race card too!
it has been written wrote:
jeeze, when things get hard, bitch about it why don't ya? AND pull the race card too!
Cal was long ago. I got a grad degree from a better school, and I'm quite happy with my life now. And I support Cal grads when I meet them. Heck, I even wear blue and gold!
But when asked for advice ... well, I don't see the reason for anyone else to suffer unnecessarily.
In the unlikely event you went to Cal and had a different experience, I'm sure the OP would welcome your perspective.
Perfect, perfect answer.
Unless your parents are making you study Nuclear Engineering or Nuclear Physics *AND* you want to work in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Iran to help free mankind of Nazi-Zionism *THEN* you don't need to go to a University of California campus. Hope this helps.
cant decide wrote:
I am stuck between these three and thought I would throw it out to Letsrun just to hear some opinions. My original schools I was considering were Berkeley, UCSB, UCLA, Cal Poly and Chico but I've narrowed it down to just 3. What are the pros and cons of each? I know all 3 have good engineering. Any suggestions/thoughts/opinions?
Just curious why you threw out UCLA, assuming you were admitted? It's got the best all around environment of any of those on your short list and solid academic clout. Cal, UCLA, UVa, and UMich are routinely considered the best public universities in the US, but UCLA isn't the ridiculous, megalomaniacal, pseudo-intellectual, liberal bastion that is Cal, the campus is attractive, Westwood is a very cool town, you're close to the ocean, the student body is attractive, and there are lots of trails in the nearby mountains. Admittedly, football has sucked for awhile, but it's got a rich hoops tradition.
As for running, I agree with others who advocated prioritizing your academics and pedigree, but it sounds like the school is also bringing its distance program around in any event. Back in the day, they had 8:3x steepler Mark Junkermann and 13:50ish 5k man Mark Dani, so it can definitely be done around Westwood. Lots of racing options all around LA too. Just a cool place with the best of everything. And UCLA opens doors.
I'll assume, as the other responders have, that you are also going to be running on the college team. Having made a similar decision as you (many years ago), I will suggest this: Where would you want to go if you weren't running? If you can answer this honestly, it'll more than likely lead you to the correct decision.
What happens if you go to Cal, but you get weeded out in your intro classes because of all the smart foreigners (and natives) and huge class sizes?
Everyone is arguing over which school is the BEST! But that's not the question. The correct question is, "Which school is the BEST FOR YOU?" There's academic, running, social, and financial concerns that you need to consider. But the biggest part of the answer is: The school where you will be happiest! Where do you WANT to go? Where will you most enjoy and be successful for 4 years?
You eliminated UCLA from consideration? Seems that you are too stupid to survive college no matter where you go. Probably should skip it altogether and join the army. The army has running, right? Or, did UCLA eliminate you?
Cal poly gets ranked higher by companies looking to hire engineering grads. Other schools are fine but poly has smaller class sizes and instead of reading about how to do things, you actually do it.
Best places to run out of your choices with the best atmosphere towards runners. Plus, ucsb is filthy and cal is full of stuck up brats.
I am not on the team but know it's historically had more xc success recently than cal and ucsb. Hard to get on the team but there is a new club that got started.
Just some thoughts
Where the hell is Cal Poly?
Is this in reference to Calvin Poly the railroad tycoon? Came here off a Bing search and I'm a bit confused.
chabot wrote:
Go to Cal (ie the best academic school of your choices). If you can get in to better schools (ie Stanford, the Ivies) go there.
Running is a vapor that can disappear overnight.
I went to UCSB, and a HS competitor and friend went to Cal Poly. Both of us got into better academic schools but turned them down for "the running."
I got into Cal, but turned it down because Cal sucked at running at that time, and I thought I was going to be an Olympian.
We both had good fun running and enjoyable times, but we both marvel to this day over how stupid we were.
And don't listen to people that say "you can get a great education anywhere." Society doesn't value that. The dumbest guy from Harvard is going to have a much easier time being successful than the smartest guy from UCSB, simply because of the Harvard brand and the amazing people he forms connections with. Obviously this difference is less between UCSB and Cal, but the general point holds.
Play the cards you are dealt the best you can. Meaning don't go to an inferior school with the mindset that you can still be successful. You can, but why put yourself at a disadvantage right out of the gate?
Last point: my cousin went to Stanford. When we meet people, and the inevitable college questions come up, "I went to Stanford" is met with "ooh, wow." Instant respect. "I went to UCSB" is met with, "oh that's nice."
1) why would you want to associate with people who so quickly and shallowly judge you based on your college choice?
2) yes, it will be easier to get a job with a harvard degree than from somewhere else. However depending on where that "somewhere else" is, you may save a lot of money going to the smaller school. For example, my state school, after room/board is 15,000 a year. Harvard is about 50,000. So, per year, that is $35,000 less dollars I am spending. Multiply by 4 to save $140,000 over 4 years (and many students take even longer to graduate than that these days). You graduate at the same time, and harvard student Y makes $15,000 more a year than state school student X. Then, after 9 years and 4 months of being someone's ultimate b!tch and studying his way through college, having no college experience or fun in the process, student Y is finally on top of student X in the game of life (or, who has more money. And yes-that is what it is all about-whether you admit it or not).he has squandered away his twenties. And who knows, there is still a chance that student X could get a lucky break, and student Y get a bad break, and then student X starts out gaining student Y in money for the foreseeable future.
If you honestly think that spending an absolutely outrageous amount of money for school is automatically going to get you a better and more high paying job, you are a naïve 16 year old who still has straight As (thus far, at least) through your sophmore year in high school and think you are going to be wayy too smart for your state school, and would never lower yourself to such a level.
IF you are smart enough to get into an ivy league school, then you may well be smart enough to get either a full ride academic scholarship or half ride scholarship to go to college free or half off.
In the above example, if student X went to school for free, then he would ( by virtue of not owing money for student loans) start out at +$200,000, making the time for student Y to catch up 13 years and 4 months.
All are arbitrary examples, but illustrate some simple yet true real life situations.
I have known many, many rich and smart people, and 1 went to an Ivy league school.
If your parents are willing to pay and they are millionaires, then go for it.
Otherwise no one else will really care, and you are just screwing yourself over.
Running-wise it's more or less break even ... you will get good coaching at all 3 schools, and good competition (all D1). We still don't know if the OP is even running in college, so enough of that topic.
Engineering-wise, if I had to do it all over again, I would have gone to Cal Poly. I was undergrad engineering at UCLA, and as a grad student at Poly, my undergrad engineering roommates were learning much more hands-on engineering than I had at UCLA. As a previous poster stated it's "Learn by Doing" at Poly, whereas the UC's are all very theoretical. The Poly way is much more valuable.
Reading this post was like watching a high school kid grapple with quantum physics. High er: Seriously, good luck, but this is my vote for the OP to not pay attention to your post.
It's not exactly that you've said anything that can't be true. It's more that you've tossed a bunch of variables on the table without acknowledging most of them.
The OP is probably running in college because I think only athletes would know their admissions to these schools at this time.
Kelly Mac at Cal Poly has great legs.