<p>I do not think I am ready to just jump in to a huge university, but might be fine in a year or two. I am being told now to consider a small liberal arts school that has a 3-2 program with a great engineering school. This sounds like it might be perfect for me! And with my stats, I could potentially earn some good scholarship money.</p>
<p>I thought I would post about it here and see if anyone has much to say about this plan. Is this a good thing to consider? Or not such a good idea? It would kind of change how I am approaching things.</p>
<p>A lot of students start out at LACs wanting to be part of a 3-2 program, but for various reasons very few follow through. Some don’t make the grades to get into the program, others want to stay on campus for senior year for academic and/or social reasons, and others come to realize that a 3-2 degree is not the best path to their educational goals.</p>
<ul>
<li>Many students find it hard to transfer away from the “3” school, especially if the “3” school was chosen because it was a smaller environment than the “2” school.</li>
<li>3+2 programs would have five years of school costs, with financial aid uncertainty at the “2” school (don’t really know until transfer time, and if the “2” school is private, it may be less generous for transfer than for frosh).</li>
<li>Check carefully as to whether transfer admission to the “2” school is automatic for making a certain GPA or a competitive admission process.</li>
<li>Some “3” schools have only a limited choice of majors for students doing 3+2 programs.</li>
</ul>
<p>Doing a planned transfer is fairly common among many students who start at a low cost local community college and then transfer to a state university as juniors.</p>
<p>There are also some smaller schools that offer engineering as a major. MIT, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd are obvious ones, but they are very selective. However, there are less selective engineering-focused schools like the “Mines” schools in South Dakota, New Mexico, and Colorado, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Worchester Polytechnic, Olin, Rose-Hulman, Stevens, PINYU, Rensselaer, etc… There are also smaller general schools with engineering like Bucknell, Swarthmore, Lehigh, Case Western Reserve, Smith, etc…</p>
<p>Some students change their minds and stay at the LAC to finish the BA (after 3 years, they are reluctant to leave or no longer wish to get the 2nd degree). For others, it works fine.</p>
<p>After going through a 4 year engineering program, I would say that I would not recommend someone go through the 3-2 program if they are doing engineering. There are a lot of courses in civil engineering starting sophomore year that courses later build on so it would definitely be tough to finish an engineering major in 2 years even with core classes.</p>
<p>Also, a lot of students find out that engineering isn’t what they want to do after the first 2 years at my college and end up doing something else as a result of intro engineering classes they took the first 1-2 years. You don’t get that opportunity with the 3+2 program.</p>
<p>I agree with pierre. Not best for most students for many reasons.Better pick a school with eng and other options from the start. Also many eng students like to get into the various competitions.</p>
<p>Agreed, there has to be a strong rationale for you to go 3-2 (for example, you want to get another degree at another university that doesn’t have engineering). If you are worried about large engineering schools, there are some great engineering schools that are pretty small.</p>
<p>You do the 3-2 program because you want to go to a “LAC” and earn a LAC degree, in addition to your engineering degree. The LAC you prefer, doesn’t offer engineering, but with the 3-2 program, you could still attend. Yes, it does add a year, but you do end up with 2 degree’s. </p>
<p>It’s not what I would recommend to my D, but then I don’t put much weight on the LAC degree, being a “Large Public Flagship University” trained Engineer…but she is tempted by the option of grabbing an English degree, experiencing a small LAC collage, and then finishing her engineering degree…(though I don’t think she’ll go that route, for many of the reasons already listed).</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t love the idea of a planned transfer or a 3-2 program. With a planned transfer, either you would be happy where you are and won’t want to leave or you never would have made any big emotional attachment to the first school because you knew you’d be leaving early and neither is a great choice. And the 3-2 program will be one extra year of college (and tuition). That said, a number of mid-sized and smaller schools have very fine engineering programs including: Lehigh University, Villanova University, Lafayette College, Bucknell, Union College, Trinity College ¶, Clarkson University, CalTech, URochester, RPI, Manhattan College, and WPI to name a few I know of offhand.</p>
This is just a quibble, but I think that opportunity is exactly why so few students actually complete 3+2 programs. You are surrounded by fellow students, almost none of whom want to be engineers. You have all the allure of the LAC. The lack of support and attractiveness of other options seems to lure most who start a 3+2 program away.</p>
<p>What exactly is your concern? That would help focus your options. </p>
<p>A school like University of Rochester which is a very liberal arts like research university, has decent engineering, and very few requirements outside of engineering. It is a place that affords you the opportunity to experience a liberal arts like atmosphere with the opportunities of a research university. They also have a competitive “5th year free option” which allows you to study another area in depth though not get a degree. So for example, you could spend 5 years there, get an engineering degree, but also get the liberal arts education that you want in the humanities for example. Since it’s the education not the degree that provides the value in the humanities, it seems like a win-win option.</p>
<p>Attending a big univ is not as scary as it may seem. many are laid out VERY sensibly so that a student is contained in an area based by his major. When I attended a large UC, I rarely ventured onto most of the campus. </p>
<p>Engineering majors tend to be taught in a cluster of buildings. core classes are often minimal (and may be covered by APs). Core classes that are needed, are often taught in buildings that are also rather clustered (such as bordering a Quad), so again, the student isn’t traipsing over 1000 acres a day. </p>
<p>If you were to find some schools that have dorms surrounding the school so that you can choose one near the buildings of your major, you will greatly reduce that “big school” feeling as you’ll be spending most of your time in a smaller region of the campus.</p>
<p>Just to give you an idea of what I mean. click on this link <a href="http://smg./user/feenotype/media/0qAJj-cropped.jpg.html%5B/url%5D">http://smg./user/feenotype/media/0qAJj-cropped.jpg.html</a></p>
<p>This is a 1000+ acre campus. But, the academic bldgs are inside that black rectangle grouped by type. Then eng’g bldgs are in the upper right, the Humanities are in the upper left, etc. The outer bldgs are dorms, admin buildings, etc. </p>
<p>Now, as I said, the eng’g students’ bldgs are all in the upper right corner area of that rectangle. The related math buildings are just under that. </p>
<p>The dorms that many eng’rs select are just above the rectangle. So, as you can see, even tho the campus is very big, the engineering student is “contained” so to speak in a small area of campus. It’s like their own little world. They even now have their own Engineering Quad (not fully shown in pic because this pic is a few years old and was “in progress” at time of pic).</p>
<p>oh poop…the link no longer works. Anyway…the point is that you don’t have to be intimidated by large schools especially as an eng’g major. You’re going to likely be in one area of campus most of your time.</p>
<p>*The first time I went to Texas A&M, I could not…</p>
<p>The first time I went to Texas A&M, I could not stand it. It was huge. I felt lost. I felt like I could not find my way around or figure anything out. I was there for my brother and not me, this was…*</p>
<p>Ok…so this is where you’re coming from. A campus visit to a large univ would be intimidating. Everything and every bldg is thrown at you at once. It’s impossible to know which way anything is. </p>
<p>It’s not like that once you have assigned classes and you know which few bldgs are yours. My older son was a bit like you and had come from a small private high school. Once he got his schedule, he “walked” his schedule the day before classes started to make sure he knew where everything was. After that, it was a piece of cake.</p>
<p>That said, there are smaller univ that have full eng’g.</p>
<p>There are plenty of small and mid-sized engineering schools. MIT has less than 4500 undergrads and the campus is 168 acres. WPI has less than 4,000 on 80 acres. RPI is also pretty small. Lafayette, Union, Olin College of Engineering, Tufts, U. Rochester etc.</p>
<p>Rochester’s “Take Five” option is free *tuition<a href=“not%20other%20costs%20of%20attendance”>/i</a> for an extra year or semester, and is only available to students who would otherwise complete graduation requirements in eight semesters. Students have to apply to the program / scholarship.</p>
<p>South Dakota School of Mines & Technology may be what you’re looking for. While the engineering at SDSMT is exvellent, their social science and liberal arts professors know their stuff and are quite popular with students.</p>
<p>The school is a compact and tidy campus situated in a beautiful part of America.</p>