A. James Clark School of Engineering

@mdmom11 for study abroad, have your son reach out to Ramsey Jabaji. He’s really terrific and goes out of his way to find programs that work best for each student. He even helped find some scholarship money to help! My son did the winter session abroad in Australia and it was amazing!
Ramsey’s e-mail is rjabaji@umd.edu. Ramsey is part of Clark and he only does programs for engineering students, so he really understands their unique requirements and challenges to study abroad. Here’s the link to the Clark study abroad office https://eng.umd.edu/global/study-abroad.

It’s really important for everyone with any interest in study abroad to PLAN early because the options for classes abroad can definitely impact the choice of classes you make here as well. So, the earlier you decide to do it, the more you can get out of it - simply by planning early. My son waited until junior year to express an interest, which greatly reduced his options because he had already taken a lot of the courses that were offered in the study abroad program. Ramsey did find a way to make it work for a semester abroad, but he decided to do the winter session instead.

@Jwoyal - I have a question. My son was accepted into the Clark School and the Scholars program. He did not get an invite to interview for anything–it that for additional students that maybe didn’t make it into the program initially but might be eligible? I want to make sure that we are not missing an interview for something that I understand he is already in (ie. we missed an email somewhere!)

Also, my son didn’t receive any merit scholarships at all. We are in-state. I was hoping he would receive at least a few thousand dollars a year, but we have not been notified of anything and it is not indicated on his financial aid page. You mentioned that you think all students receive something but, assuming we are both discussing the same scholars program (I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the “programs” and acronyms that are out there and could easily be mistaken), that is not what we are experiencing. I am wondering if I can call to Admissions to see if there’s any way to get even a little something; it sure would be a help.

Would appreciate any insight, this is all new to me. Would appreciate insight from @maryversity & @terpiedad as well!

Thank you all for your contributions to helping the rest of us keep our sanity.

@hdysaplm Is your son accepted to College Park Scholars program? I think the Clark Scholars program is new this year (fall 2019) and presumably organized/run by Clark school, but I can be wrong. These two programs are different, I think. My daughter is a freshman in College Park Scholars and in Clark school. Per our experience at the Clark preview session last year, there are two types of merit based scholarships: campus wide (such as BK, presidential scholarships with varying amounts), and departmental. I think the campus wide scholarships have gone out. Departmental ones may be subject to department timeline, etc. My daughter receives a Presidential scholarship (we are in state). Her roommate (aerospace major) receives some $ from the department or Clark school.

Found some info about Clark Scholars program which began in Fall 2018: https://eng.umd.edu/clark-scholars.

Oh my goodness, ANOTHER program! FIRE, FLEXUS, VIRTUS, Scholars Clark, Scholars (with sub-programs), Honors (with sub-programs), Gemstone, Hinman. I wish they had a chart with an explanation of all these. 8-| I’m going to have to verify but I am 98% sure he was accepted into College Park Scholars and Clark School (not Clark Scholars).

@hdysaplm The College Park Scholars Program is a university-wide living learning program (LLP). Students from all colleges within UMD are invited to participate in this program - and choose a specific LLP within the program. Students do not need to interview for College Park Scholars. The Clark Scholars Program is a fairly new scholarship program specifically within the engineering school and only for in-state engineering students. This invite only program does require an interview before acceptance. Being invited into either the UMD Honors College or College Park Scholars is unrelated to receiving a university scholarship such Presidential or Dean’s. However, most students within the Clark Scholars program typically receive some form of scholarship. I know this is confusing since many of the programs sound so similar!

Thank you. Yes, I just found some information about Clark Honors. My son was accepted into College Park Honors, which explains no invite/interview. Now I’ll have to stop nagging him to check his email “one more time!”

Info about CLARK HONORS PROGRAM (not to be confused with College Park Honors Program)
The goal of the Clark Scholars Program is to graduate 100% of program participants with little to no college debt and for these graduates to join the network of leading Clark Scholars alumni who are advancing technology through innovation.

Clark Honors Students will be selected based on factors including:

–Financial need as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and Office of Student Financial Aid.

–Prior academic and extracurricular achievements.

–Interests and/or prior experiences that align with the program components, including multidisciplinary education, research, entrepreneurship, technology management, global leadership, and social consciousness

–Prospective freshmen admitted to the A. James Clark School of Engineering during the freshman priority admission process will be considered for the program. No additional application materials are required. Students selected as semi-finalists will then be invited to participate in an on-campus interview as the final stage of the selection process.

Is there any information published on what percentage of students at Clark school of Engineering are in each of the different engineering majors - Mechanical, Electrical, etc.?

Never mind, I found it. https://eng.umd.edu/careers/employers/enrollment

For the wonderful UMD parents who have provided so much useful information on this thread, thank you, thank you, thank you!

My daughter and I are finally visiting UMD this Thursday and Friday. It will be our first visit to the campus and we are really excited! We weren’t able to attend an admitted student day due to unavoidable conflicts, but we will be attending the WIE reception for admitted students on Thursday night, and taking a prospective student tour on Thursday afternoon.

We went to the admitted students day at UF in Friday. (UF also has an impressive engineering program). Our daughter and we have a tough decision to make, but we are grateful that she has some really great options, and are especially thankful for the aid that she received from Maryland and several of the other schools where she was accepted.

Thank you, again, for the time you’ve taken to educate those of us who are still in the throes of this stressful decision. Much appreciated!

@Doublekk2, if your daughter’s visit schedule allows and she is interested, I can check with my daughter to ask her Scholars seminar lecturer if she can sit in their weekly seminar which takes place on Thursday afternoon. She is at Science, Discovery and Universe Scholars program. Her Flexus seminar is on Wednesday afternoon after 4pm. Just let me know. Thank you.

@LotcaJH Oh gosh! Thank you so much! I just saw your post and it’s Thursday afternoon at 5:00. It was so nice of you to offer and, if I had seen your post sooner, it would have worked out perfectly! We toured the campus earlier today and are driving to Rockville tonight for a Women in Engineering reception for alumni and (I’m assuming) accepted students. @maryversity, we are at the fabulous Hotel at the University - you were right!

Yay - those words are music to my ears, lol. Glad you are having a great time and enjoying your stay! Hopefully, it is the first of many trips to Maryland…

Hi Maryversity and Everyone, My daughter has been accepted to UMD as a transfer from her Maryland Community College where she is finishing up all her gateway requirements for the Clark School of Engineering this semester… Pending receiving her grades, her admission to the Clark school will be reviewed prior to her orientation date. She is struggling with choosing her major - she is interested in so many of the majors - Materials Science, Chemical Engineering & Mechanical Engineering, even Civil Engineering, even after going to the General Engineering Information Session. It wouldn’t be such an issue to be undecided except that as a transfer with an Associates Degree she has fulfilled all her Gen Ed requirements, but her community college didn’t offer many engineering courses so she has a long way to go with all of her engineering requirements which limits her decision-making time, and she’s thinking it will take her 3 years as it is to complete them, so she’d rather not wait till the class for undecided majors to choose. When she was at Maryland Day last week, most of the engineering students were warning her that Chemical Engineering was the hardest major, so that was intimidating to her. I’d be interested in any comments about the majors and advising and job and internship opportunities. Some of the reddit boards had students advising against Materials Science in terms of more difficulty with job prospects. She has the opportunity to take a summer class for a couple of the majors so that might help. We haven’t been able to go make appointments during the week right now because she’s so busy with exams for her current classes. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Hi @mdmom44 - congrats and welcome to Terp Nation! The question of which discipline is the hardest is honestly relative to an individual’s areas of strengths. My son is MechE and that is probably the broadest foundation.

She should look at the actual courses she will need to take for each discipline in the 4 year plans, and see which appeals to her most. There is always going to be one or two courses she may not like, of course, but in general she can get a sense of what is mostly interesting to her.

https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/enma-4yrplanandcurrl-2017-2018-1.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/enme-4yrplanandcurrl-2017-2018-1.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/chbe-4yrplan-ge-updated-fall-2018.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/ence-combined-currl-2017-2018-1.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/ence-environmental-4yrplan-ge-2017-2018-1.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/ence-environmental-4yrplan-ge-2017-2018-updtd_0.pdf
https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/ence-transport-track-4yrplan-ge-updated-fall-2018_0.pdf

As for advising, I found this:

A. James Clark School of Engineering
Prospective Student Walk-In Advising Hours
http://www.eng.umd.edu/advising/transfer
transfer_engr@umd.edu

The following walk-in advising schedule is for the Spring 2019 semester, beginning Thursday, January 31st, and ending on Thursday, May 9th.

Day & Time: Thursdays 9:00am - 11:30am
Fridays 1:00pm - 3:30pm

Location: 1131S Glenn L. Martin Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
http://maps.umd.edu/map/

*Walk-In Advising will NOT be available on the following dates:

Friday, May 3rd

If you are unable to attend walk-in advising, you are more than welcome to schedule an appointment by emailing transfer_engr@umd.edu.

You may also visit the following link to view Ms. Hayes’s advising appointment availability: go.umd.edu/hayes_advising.

https://eng.umd.edu/undergraduate-advising-academic-support-uaas

Here is comparison of coursework https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/Basic%20Science%202017.pdf
and found this “virtual” information video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDqkCidboc&feature=youtu.be

There is a lot of events (how to prep resume for engineering, etc) for career prep available through https://eng.umd.edu/careers and job openings at https://eng.umd.edu/careers/careers4engineers

Hope this helps

Thank you so much, Maryversity, she’s looked at all of the 4 year plans and most of this info. It would be talk to students in the programs but it’s a hard time of the year to arrange that.

She will still have plenty of time to talk to people her first semester. Foundation courses are pretty standard across all disciplines. She needs to remember what’s right for others is not necessarily going to be right for her.

I’m pretty sure my son once said he thought Electrical is the hardest discipline. He doesn’t have any interest in chemistry, but he can do it. Depending on who you ask, if chemistry is the one C they got, then they would perceive Chemical engineering as the hardest. Make sense? Engineering is no walk in the park and it really requires a passion - and passion is unique to every individual. Everything else follows.

As I said, my son is MechE and I would describe him as a tinkerer. If I brought something home that was cool, I could count on him disassembling it within minutes of seeing it, because he needed to know how it worked. What he does now is he designs parts, PCB boards, etc. So, if she is a tinkerer, MechE is a great choice for her.

If she likes construction, roads, tunnels, dams, bridges and water systems, she should look at civil. I don’t know any chemical or materials science engineers to give you any insight into those fields. However, while I’m not sure how accurate this is, it’s something that might give her a little guidance https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2017/engineer-quiz-eweek.html

Thank you so much Maryversity. She took the quiz and got Environmental Engineering, describing herself as is both a tinkerer and logical/designer and looked at the courses and technical/specialization electives for Mechanical Engineering and got excited about it. She also checked out Civil and Materials, but right now Mechanical is her first choice, and she is meeting with an advisor for the major next week. She’s a little nervous about how the great number of students in the department is - How has your son found the class sizes?

There are basically 3 sizes of classes.

The largest ones, in lecture halls, are the basic foundation courses that are common to many majors/disciplines. They meet twice a week for lecture with the professor 2-3 times a week with the huge group (120 -150 students?) and once a week for discussion section. The discussion section is anywhere from only 20-30 students, so it’s more personalized and is the opportunity to break down any problems or get more detailed explanations of topics raised in the lecture.

The medium ones are getting more into things specific to your major and have a similar meeting arrangement (sometimes with but mostly without a discussion section) but the lecture is typically 40-60 students.

The smallest classes are usually the highest level classes that are electives and can have as little as 15-20 students.

Of course, there are some exceptions, such as freshman English, that fall into the smallest class category. You should also know that the best profs are not reserved just for upperclassmen…you can read about the philosophy for the “keystone” classes here http://www.keystone.umd.edu/about

My son never mentioned class size as a problem for him because the discussion sections give the small size class opportunities to learn more difficult concepts. I will tell you that the key to surviving big lectures is to actually attend them (I’m being serious). That’s where students get into trouble - no one is taking attendance, so it’s easy to skip a class. Once you skip one, it’s easy to skip another…and so it goes.

My son’s secret to success as a student was always attending lectures. He may not have liked a particular class here or there, but he always went (at least that was his claim, lol). He is pretty disciplined, so I do believe it, actually. His strategy was to be actively engaged in a lecture (to the best of his ability), go back to his room and do his problem sets right away (instead of blowing them off like most students do) and then he was free for the rest of the night to have fun (which he did!)…students that put things off ended up with having to read the textbooks to learn what was taught in lectures. My son does not like to read, so he found attending lectures to be less painful than reading and a more efficient way to learn the material. Sounds simple and logical but you’d be surprised how much discipline it takes to attend class when you are away at school and mom isn’t around to nag, lol.

The other key to success is to really take advantage of professor’s office hours. It takes a while to overcome the high school mind set of not going to the teacher after hours, but going helps tremendously and profs really appreciate that students show an interest in doing well/learning the material. The profs at Maryland are generally very approachable and love to help students. They often give career advice as well.

Tell your daughter that there are always going to be a couple classes that are not to her liking but are required (I want to say it was dynamics or maybe thermodynamics that were my son’s biggest challenges?). MechE is very broad which is why it’s so popular - it can translate into a large variety of job options. Yes, MechE has the most number of students as well, but that also means more people to study with, and larger variety of electives to choose from.