Caltech Chemical Engineering - My Story

[masterman]

For those of you who are considering Caltech Chemical Engineering for the upcoming year, I wanted to share my story with you. Please note that I'm not here to persuade your perspective of Caltech one way other the other - but simply to share facts about the chemical engineering department that I wish I had known before coming here.

 

I chose to attend Caltech above many other top tier schools for reasons not particularly relevant to this post. (I'd be more than willing to discuss that at a later time if anyone would like.) Overall I would say that Caltech is a fantastic graduate school. Everyone here is truly dedicated to research and learning at an extremely fundamental level. And I find myself extremely privileged to be able to attend this university. But frankly, thats where the feel goods end. 

 

In order to compete more seriously with MIT, Caltech has been looking to expand the number of graduate students per class (historically around 10) in recent years. They truly achieved their goal this year, with my class starting off with 22 students - admittedly a little larger than the department would have liked. Knowing the size of our class was quite large, a number of my class mates became extremely concerned that the qualifying examinations (equivalent to prelims at other universities) would be used to weed out people. Having been called to a special meeting with the head of the department, we were each all completely assured that the quals would be on par with other years tests. Sparring the nitty gritty details, the quals were far from equivalent to other years tests - in fact my advisor said they were the hardest (across all three subjects) that he had seen in his entire time in the department.

 

Three weeks ago my class consisted of 22 people. Now it is 17. 4 people (two women and two males of international descent) were asked to leave the PhD program for the MS program - two of them without actually failing the exams, they were just asked to leave for no particularly discernible reason. Another class mate left the department for the Bio E program. Now there are rumblings that the provost might be filing a lawsuit against our department, citing an infringement of Title 9.

 

Needless to say, I am beyond frustrated with this department. While I do not regret my decision to come to Caltech as I love my advisor, and my research project (reasons one should choose a graduate program). My fellow classmates are also some of the most loyal, intelligent and interesting people I have ever met. However, collectively, I think that the department has a "they're just a disposable grad student" type of mentality. That we're just an added cost to the department. I truly believe that the department had every intention of using the qualifying exams to cut a number of students from the program, and for this, I have little faith that the department won't continue to do so in the future.

 

I find it dispicable that those in charge of the department would use such horrific means to simply to balance their budget with such a reckless regard for young individuals lives. Especially after explicitly telling us they would not do such a thing. As I'm sure you all know, applying to, getting into, and ultimately being in graduate school is an extremely emotional (and expensive) process. To end the PhD careers of so many people (with a letter delivered to our mail boxes at 6pm on a Friday night, after the department was closed, without any prior warning and discussions for those who were pushed into the MS program) for their inability to answer 6 questions is an absolutely asinine, and frankly, completely unprofessional and unreasonable system.  Frankly, I am glad to hear that the provost has got wind of the situation. As I am afraid that without proper oversight, the department could spin further out of control.

 

Anyways, I could continue this rant for many more paragraphs. But with that, I will stop. I hope that those of your who are considering the Caltech Chemical Engineering program will find this informative and useful.

 

 

[Radian]

That was a really nice experience you shared with us. I am sure there are so many people out there who are hoping to enter this rather small but highly ranked school without considering such facts.

 

I do believe that it's funny for them to compare for those big schools since their research expenditure is not even close to a school such as MIT.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Radian

[chemeng24]

That's unfortunate. I hope you were one of the luckier ones to pass and move on. That is really a bad look for the department. You didn't get a bad feeling during the visiting weekend? I know a few people who did and decided not to attend.

[masterman]

I actually loved the department during my visit. I was skeptical when I first arrived at the beginning of the visiting weekend as I didn't know much about caltech, but it was what really swayed my opinion to come here.

[foreverfree]

Thanks for sharing--actually this is one of the reasons I might be less likely to go there if accepted, but as their research aligns perfectly with my interests I wanted to apply. They're obviously a great school but things like this scare me...they seem to have a bit of a reputation for things like this.