My D was accepted into engineering and received a generous award. We have been very impressed to learn about UMD’s programs to support and retain engineering students, and, in particular, women and others who are not “traditional” engineering majors. It’s obvious that there is also a strong and involved chapter of Women in Engineering who work to support the program and its students. In addition to the highly regarded Clark School of Engineering, my D has been accepted to some other well-respected engineering programs. We are oos and UMD’s generous offer has definitely made us want to learn more and strongly consider UMD. We are very grateful for this opportunity for our D!
Any thoughts/advice/information about engineering at UMD would be appreciated.
Congrats to her on the acceptance! I’m not as experienced here as maryversity but I’ll add my quick 2 cents about the pros and cons.
My daughter is finishing her 2nd year in electrical engineering at UMD. The freshman and sophomore courses are rigorous, but she has a great understanding of the basics. The math/physics curriculum is very strong and she loved the introductory engineering classes.
Look at the Flexus Living Learning Community (http://www.wie.umd.edu/undergrad/flexus). She made life-long friends her freshman year and took full advantage of living and studying on the same floor as other female engineering students.
Only areas of concern for us in the past 2 years was getting a seat in a class and the surrounding area off campus. Classes first semester will be pre-planned but from then on, you’ll sign up for classes along with everyone else. Some classes do fill up very fast (12 seats in each of the 6 classes for ENEE) and we’ve had to waitlist each semester to keep on track. She’s got in each time but there were some long weeks of hoping a seat would open. This may not be the case for every student but, it was for us. As for College Park MD, do the research and know that the school is in a big city and has all the issues associated with it.
In addition, career advising is done as a group to begin with and then with an assigned adviser later. She’ll need to be self-motivated to ask the questions needed to navigate the major. The faster she learns to utilize the TA’s, professors and staff, the better.
If you can, take a tour of the engineering dept at UMD. It’s very impressive. After our first visit, we knew immediately this school was for her. She hasn’t looked back since.
My daughter is a freshman at ECE and loves it so far. I recall there was a Clark School preview event at the evening before the UMD admitted student day at the end of last March. You may want to look out for any event hosted by the Clark school. Congrats!
Congrats @Doublekk2! Yes, Maryland engineering is awesome! I think @terpiedad and @LotcaJH gave some great info, and the preview LotcaJH referred to is found here https://eng.umd.edu/freshmen-applicants/decide/preview-program-registration. I would definitely sign up as soon as possible, as the spaces are limited and they only have the two sessions. Assuming you are OOS, I would recommend doing one of the engineering nights over the admitted student day on March 1st. I remember that they specifically had a panel of WIE students to answer questions about that.
So, what do you want to know about engineering at Maryland? Does your daughter have any sense of what discipline of engineering she is interested in? FYI, my son did MechE for undergrad and Robotics for his masters.
@maryversity Why do you recommend the evening event as opposed to the admitted students day? We are scheduled to do the admitted day on March1 and wondering if we are “missing” something
Don’t get me wrong, the admitted students day gives a LOT of great info about the university in general, but you only get 45 min - an hour session to learn about engineering, and the rest is about the university at large. It’s a huge event.
At the engineering preview evening event, it’s a couple of hours just about engineering, far more intimate since only engineering students, there is more programmatic information, a chance to schmooze with some of the professors, a student panel so your student can ask questions directly while the parents get a separate session so that their questions can be addressed, and a tour of the engineering facilities. (Admitted student’s day has a campus wide tour but doesn’t go into engineering buildings -this tour will only show engineering facilities, inside and out, research facilities, etc)
Certainly, if you can go to both, that would be ideal. But depending on how far a trip Maryland is, it might not be practical/possible to plan to attend both. Given the OP’s interest in comparing Maryland’s engineering program to other schools’ offers, if they have to pick one, I think they would get far more of what they are looking for at the engineering preview.
When we were looking at schools, we actually attended both, but Maryland is only just over a 2 hour drive for us, so it was not a problem. So, if you are in the position to attend both, keep your plans to attend the general admitted students day but also sign up for engineering preview. If you have to pick one, I would make the same recommendation for you also to go to engineering preview and skip the general admitted students day.
@terpiedad@maryversity@LotcaJH@SoofDad Thanks so much for your thorough and helpful responses! You addressed many of my questions and concerns. I truly appreciate your assistance.
@terpiedad We do have questions about the areas surrounding campus and I appreciate you touching on this as well as class availability. I read about Flexus and really like the idea. If my daughter is a scholar, then Flexus is not available to her. Is that correct?
@maryversity My daughter has the same interests as your son! At this point, she is planning to major in MechE. My older daughter is a junior in engineering at another university, majoring in Electrical and Computer, and Biomedical. She has taken my younger daughter to visit her Robotics lab, an area in which they both have a strong interest.
I also appreciate the comments about attending one of the engineering previews. We were not aware of these events. Although we want to see the larger campus, @maryversity, you are correct that we are focusing on what the engineering schools have to offer.
Thank you, again, for making yourselves available to answer questions. It’s very reassuring to hear from parents of current students in engineering. By the way, we are in Florida. Many thanks!
@Doublekk2 Please pardon me by jumping into reply about Scholars vs. Flexus. My daughter is in both CP Scholars and Flexus living and learning communities. Flexus is open to all female engineering freshmen regardless if she is invited to participate in any other campus wide living and learning programs. You will need to apply for Flexus by April 1, I believe. Hope this helps.
@maryversity Thank you for the information regarding the Engineering Preview event. I also was unaware of it’s existence but my son is now signed up for it in advance of Admitted Students day. Appreciate the link!! Not sure where the disconnect was for that piece of info, but super glad to have it now! So Thank you again!
@Doublekk2 - The area around campus is a lot better than it was in 2014 when my D started. There are new hotels and restaurants and UMD is working with the City of College Park to make even more improvements. My D and her friends never had any problems in the surrounding area.
It is true that all students need to exercise common sense. Don’t walk around alone off campus late at night/early morning. Don’t get drunk. Stay alert…
Since graduating, my D has been working at UMD and lives in a diverse neighborhood about 2 miles south of campus. Most days she rides the UMD shuttle bus to work, No problems.
FYI, the UMD Campus Police department is Internationally certified and has jurisdiction in the City of College Park.
Speaking of new hotels, if you don’t mind paying a little more for convenience and luxury…since you will likely need an overnight stay with an evening program…may I suggest The Hotel at Maryland? It’s literally across the street from the engineering section of campus and it’s gorgeous! However, it will set you back about $200 or so a night. If you want something more reasonable that is just “down the road” from campus, I would suggest the College Park Hampton Inn. It’s basic, but acceptably so, per my princess standards. The Hotel? Oh my, I stayed for homecoming and didn’t want to leave…
As for the getting a seat in the classes you need, I will tell you that waitlists are common. For required classes that everyone needs, once a waitlist gets to a certain number, they will add an additional section. It’s honestly not a big deal in hindsight, but I remember it being nerve-wracking (more so for me than him, lol) the first time it happened and figured that with a waitlist number in the high 20’s it could be a problem. However, a couple of weeks before the semester, when people start changing their schedules and additional sections are added, the waitlists move quickly and he got in, no problem. It was more of something that happened in the first couple of semesters.
For electives, well that’s trickier. The only classes my son never got a seat in were the most popular gen ed options…but he did get all his desired electives for engineering undergrad degree. However, since he was doing grad level classes his senior year (he was able to do B.S. and Masters in 5 years total), he wasn’t able to get maybe one or two of his first choice graduate electives (but he got his second choice which he was still happy with) because priority went to grad students and he was still an undergrad at the time he was trying to take them.
For any other engineering students reading this post, just want to comment on the living aspect for Flexus and Scholars. The Women In Engineering (WIE) program is different and does allow students to reside in another LLP community such as honors or scholars.
However, the male version of Flexus, called Virtus, requires that anyone participating in Virtus needs to live in the assigned dorm, Easton.
So, what to choose if you are a male engineering student? Honestly an individual decision. Virtus is a great program to provide really strong support for the first two years of engineering with block scheduling, in-house (dorm) tutoring, career planning, etc. My son chose to do Scholars because he liked the proximity of the Cambridge community to engineering buildings, so he did not get to do Virtus. He figured there would be enough engineers in his program and the community that he would have no problem with finding study groups. However, if you are on the fence, I would consider Virtus because of all the built-in support (or as a friend said, all the bells and whistles).
@maryversity This information is so helpful! My daughter registered for one of the engineering preview evenings last night. I was able to get a good rate and made a reservation at the Hotel! Due to conflicts that cannot be changed, we are not able to attend an admitted students day. Thanks, again, for telling me about the engineering previews!
@Doublekk2 The main draw to Maryland engineering for my son was specifically because it was the most cross-disciplinary training. Yes, he’s MechE, but he has an interest in EE and programming as well because of his interest in robotics. So take a look at Maryland’s MechE coursework (https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/enme-4yrplan-ge-2016-2017.pdf) which, in addition to potential electives, and standard MechE classes, and CAD also includes the following classes as requirements for MechE students: Electronics & Instrumentation I, Electronics & Instrumentation II, Vibrations, Controls, & Opt I, Product Eng & Manufacturing, Intro to Materials Eng, Vibrations, Controls, & Opt II, Integrated Product P & Design.
While technical electives change every semester and there have definitely been additional, really cool choices in robotics offered, here’s what’s offered this year alone:
electives offered Fall 2019:
Applied Machine Learning for Engineering and Design- Learn how to apply techniques from Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to solve engineering problems and design new products or systems.
Assistive Robotics- Fundamentals of assistive robots used in a wide variety of ways to help humans with disabilities. Three application areas will be covered: (1) Rehabilitation robotics to recover motor function from neurologic injuries such as stroke, (2) Prosthetics to enable mobility function in amputees, and (3) Social robotics for cognitive impairment and developmental disorders such as autism. Theory behind different control systems employed by assistive robotics, as well as the mechanical design, sensors & actuators, and user interfaces behind representative robots in the respective areas. Guidelines for designing assistive robots. Ethical and regulatory considerations in the design of assistive robots.
Mechanical Design of Electronic Systems-Design considerations in the packaging of electronic systems. Production of circuit boards and design of electronic assemblies. Vibration, shock, fatigue and thermal considerations.
Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering; Mechatronics and the Internet of Things
Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering; Medical Robotics
Classes in Spring 2019
Engineering Design Ideation
Control Systems Laboratory -Students will design, implement, and test controllers for a variety of systems. This will enhance their understanding of feedback control familiarize them with the characteristics and limitations of real control devices. Students will also complete a small project.
Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering; Bio-Inspired Robotics
Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering; Flight Dynamics and Simulation
Special Topics in Mechanical Engineering; Remote Sensing
@Doublekk2 Adding to the Scholars and/or Flexus decision, it’ll require a bit of research and ultimately depend on your student. My D was in arts scholars her first semester and decided the return on investment just wasn’t worth it (for her).
She applied for one of the science scholars programs and was chosen for arts. They want you to join a program that’s different from your major to broaden your college experience. I’m sure this is fantastic for most students but, engineering is very demanding, and she found that art scholars cut into her study time a bit (going to movies, performances, meetings…).
Flexus was a different story. The meeting and presentations were focused on women in engineering. She would have an impromptu study group just for chemistry or calculus. She was surrounded by girls in the different engineering majors and learned how their programs were structured (some even changed their majors). The return for this program was very high.
@Doublekk2 - so glad you got a good rate at the hotel! No worries about admitted students day…when I get a chance I’ll give you info on how to set up a full campus tour - since you will be there overnight might as well make the most of your visit! It’s a beautiful campus and well worth seeing it as a whole…and credit actually goes to @LotcaJH for bringing up the engineering preview …I just gave the link/info!