@smokinact That’s a good question. To be honest, I personally don’t find the workload terrible. That could be because of my major, or maybe that my high school prepared me for it. I can’t really gauge if there’s a mismatch between the workload and the students. I honestly don’t think the work is difficult if you manage your time effectively. Obviously, college students struggle with that.
In terms of fostering non-academic activities, Case does a good job of sponsoring events. I personally think the cultural events are the most fun.
With regard to workload and difficulty of classes, can anyone comment on majors in the school if arts in sciences, specifically history, classics, American studies or similar majors? Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.
@Blueskies4ever I’m in the college of arts and sciences and while engineers may tell you that we don’t do any work, this isn’t true. It just helps engineers feel better about themselves ;). Anyway, I have a friend who’s a political science major and he usually has a book to read about every week along with a couple essays. History majors obviously have a lot of reading, often doing 3 chapters a week which doesn’t include primary source readings.
STEM high school, is just high school. College engineering work is much more difficult, especially if a kid skips calculus 1. Kids should be REPEATING calculus at a school like Case Western, which is the same difficulty as MIT or Carnegie Mellon or Georgia Tech. Anyone who tells a child to skip calculus 1 has not taken COLLEGE calculus one. High school is very easy compared to Case Western. I hope now parents get this and don’t keep complaining and whining about how HARD it is. You are paying for a hard school for your child. If he did not want a hard school, then how the heck did he pick Case Western? He may belong at an easier grade inflated state school, (not all are easy, choose carefully if As are what the child wants!!! ) where he can get As will all the other dopes that will get marketing jobs. If he actually wants to BE an engineer, he needs to work harder.
@nirvanafan007 how is it attending a school where the majority of students are engineers? How challenging is it to find your people? Why did you select Case? Asking these questions because my D would be more humanities focused.
@Undercovermom1 It can be very annoying. They complain a lot. They think they’re high and mighty. However, I don’t find it challenging to find people involved in the humanities or in the arts and sciences. Many of my floormates are humanities majors. I work in the Sociology department as a research assistant so I’m constantly around the humanities types.
I chose Case for three reasons: 1) They’re one of a very, very small list of good schools that offer cognitive science, 2) financial aid, and 3) campus environment (medium student body population in an urban setting).
I would HIGHLY encourage your daughter to look at the professors in the departments she’s interested in and read about their research interests. I didn’t know this when I was applying, but research interests generally determine the focus of the department. For example, most–possibly all–of the faculty in the cognitive science department are focused on linguistics. As a result, there is a higher proportion of linguistics-related cognitive science courses. Also, in every COGS class I’ve taken thus far there was an inordinate amount of focus on language. Don’t get me wrong. I recognize that linguistics is highly influential with regards to the study of the mind. However, there are other areas that contribute to cognitive science, and I think the department at Case overlooks them somewhat. tl;dr: make sure your daughter’s interests align with the faculty’s interests because it’ll make for a better, more intimate undergraduate experience.
@nirvanafan007 thank you for your thoughtful reply. How many students would you estimate have been in your largest lectures? Have you found yourself taking advantage of the urban location (venturing off campus) regularly or is it more of a bubble?
@Undercovermom1 My biggest lecture was 225 students. Everything else ranges from 10-70ish.
Personally, I like to venture off campus a lot. I can’t speak for anyone else really, but in general I’d say that students will venture as far as Coventry or Little Italy, which are both about 1-2 mile walks from campus depending on where you’re at. What’s great is that all the museums are literally 5 minutes away and we have free access to them. The only one that requires a train ride or Uber is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Train rides are also free, so I may see a movie with friends at Tower City or buy produce from the Westside market.
@undercovermom1 If your D is humanities focused, her classes at Case will be small seminars with lots of personal attention, usually between 7-25 students. The large lecture classes are in engineering and some of the sciences.
Case campus is actually really pretty, in a 500 acre cultural area that includes 5th best orchestra in america, a serious art museum, other museums. Case architecture is pretty modern. Walk around with google street view … or visit.
Walking distance to new uptown area with lots of restaurants and new Cleveland Institute of Art on north side and Cedar-Fairmont on the south side. Little Italy. Free transit pass to take into downtown, to the airport, to west side market.
I see that PR thing on Huffington Post, but I can’t really picture ugly having been true even before all the new buildings and Uptown … unless you absolutely must have Ivied halls from the 1700s (and can get in).
How is the job placement prospects for Computer Science grads, @nirvanafan007 ? Additionally, how does Case Western stack up against similar schools such as Georgia Tech and Purdue?
Additionally, how difficult is it to maintain the eligibility requirements for merit scholarships? I’ve heard some horror stories where some private universities lure students with a hefty scholarship, but make it almost impossible to maintain good grades, and remove the scholarship.
Case’s campus is not ugly. Not entirely sure about PR’s methodology there. Cleveland is an old city that is being revitalized. University Circle is an incredible neighborhood to reside in. I think PickOne1 said it best.
Companies love the School of Engineering. A majority of the companies at the university job fair looked for engineers.
Case’s CS is good, but I don’t think it’s as good as GT or Purdue. With that said, I feel as if the CS classes at Case are comparable to any other university’s CS classes. On the other hand, I think the breadth of course offerings are not comparable to other universities. For example, I’m interested in human computer interaction and UX–Case has maybe one class that is related to that field. There’s probably way more courses and areas to explore at GT or Purdue.
Sorry, I forgot to answer that last part! According to the website, a scholarship recipient needs to have good academic standing (2.0+) and good disciplinary standing (no suspensions).
I haven’t seen any stats for GPA, you might have to do some fishing for that. I believe the average is about a 3.0. That’s just what I hear.
I’m going to be honest and say that many do not complete engineering. Many students are overly ambitious, i.e. they’re BME and premed, and as a result they reconsider their options by the end of the first semester. Others get their first Cs ever, and since they’ve never thought a C was an actual grade, they crumple.
I am not an engineer but all of my friends are, so although I’m not immersed in it everyday I do have a good sense of what it’s like. Even more so because I’m minoring in artificial intelligence.
I can’t really speak to the support for engineering students specifically, but there are a million and one tutors for every class eager to help out their fellow classmates. Also, Case is very collaborative and not cutthroat at all, so as a result people realize that they’re all struggling together and it brings people closer in an ironic way.
My questions. (Got admitted in CWRU with decent scholarship)
What is the GPA requirement to maintain scholarship?
How hard it is to maintain that GPA?
Are there other opportunities available on campus to get make additional money (such as research, working on campus etc…)
The GPA [requirement[/url] for Full-Tuition (Andrew Squire, Albert W. Smith, and Alexander Treuhaft), University, Michelson-Morley STEM, and Bolton Scholarships is 2.0 (in other words, good academic and disciplinary standing). For other scholarships, they say, “Recipients of scholarships other than those listed above should refer to their scholarship award letters for specific scholarship retention criteria.”
There are on-campus jobs (especially if you have work-study, but even if you don’t). Some examples are peer tutoring, leading SI sessions, grading, working at the call center, and being a tour guide. Obviously, a lot of these won’t be available in your first semester. There are research opportunities, but the school doesn’t do very much to help people find them (they say “just email professors”—I don’t know if this is more or less than most schools offer, and I guess I’m biased because I’m scared to talk to professors and I thought there would be more of a structured program).
