Hey asmithe, I think Cal Poly's CS program is great for people coming from non-CS background like yourself. I have a bachelor's in ME and not many decent schools accept students without much coursework in CS to their Masters programs. Now, you will be required to complete about 80% of the undergraduate CS courses before they will formally "accept" you into the MS program (but you will have graduate student standing so it's pretty easy to enroll in classes). So if you haven't done any CS before, expect to spend about 1 year taking the lower division classes before actually moving on to grad level classes.
There are both personal and academic motivations for me to transfer to NYU. Strictly speaking about academics, keep in mind that Cal Poly does not have Ph.D. programs so they won't have much research going on. If you want to encounter top research professors you won't find them here. However, as you mentioned, they're really hands on and the courses really prepare you well for industry. Being close to the bay also helps attract a lot of tech companies here. Fall quarter's job fair had big names like Apple, Google, etc. there. Also, the tuition is cheap here compared to other UC's, Cal Poly has one of the highest ROI for your money.
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions, good luck!