Hi - I am looking for information regarding the 2 engineering programs. If you or a family member have attended either one of these schools I would love to hear your experience!.
My son got his chemical eng’g degree at Bama. What do you want to know?
Are you instate? What are your stats?
<<<<<< from a former UNC grad. Even though I had fun at UNC, I wish I had gone to NC State.>>>
So, you’re the parent?
Hi mom2collegekids Yes, I am the parent. We live in Tennessee, and are looking at UAB, UA, and UTK. My son seems to like UA and UAB the most. Questions about UA - we have visited the campus 3 times and have yet to have an encounter with a professor on the organized tours. This is different than our other experiences at every other school. UA has been rated as the #2 college where accessibility to professors is low. I want to see if I can find more facts about that given that the college is so large. Also, was it easy to get the courses your son wanted? Was he in the honors college at UA as well? I can ramble on with more questions but I will start there. I guess from a future employment perspective, do employers tend to recruit equally from all the engineering schools in the southeast? Thank you for responding. My son has great stats.
Have you set up a tour through the Honors College at UA? If not, and you’ll be back to Tuscaloosa, you should, and tell them you want to speak to an engineering prof. My daughter wasn’t an engineering major (she was Econ/Finance/Math - so in the business school), so I can’t help you there, but I can tell you that she had no problems accessing professors and found most of them to be extremely helpful. Perhaps because UA’s graduate school isn’t as large as some others, most profs tend to be very undergraduate-teaching focused. Again, my D didn’t take any engineering courses, but she never had a problem getting courses she needed. There was a very popular elective in the Honors College that she needed to wait a couple semesters to get into, but requirements were no problem. Priority registration helped with that.
Yes I have! It was informative and my son likes the program. I did read on another post of a student that went into the honors college and was notable to get all of his/her classes. Regarding tours, we did have an engineering tour, however the professor was not available and we heard from a PHD candidate in that discipline (she presented his presentation, it was not very informative). Thanks you for your information, we will continue to dig into this. UA is my sons first choice as of today. He has already been accepted to the university for next fall.
My son is now in his final semester as a Civil-E student at UA.
Before he made the decision to attend we toured twice. Our first visit was arranged by our regional recruiter. We met with the honor’s college, had an honor’s ambassador assigned to us that we had lunch with, toured the honors dorms, and toured the engineering buildings. I believe it was UA’s fall break during that visit and the prof that routinely met with students was not available and we met with an assistant prof in the department. That was also a ‘less than informative’ meeting.
We opted to tour again when classes were in session and had the visit arranged through the honors college - I specifically told them we only wanted to focus on engineering and didn’t need another campus tour or tour of the dorms. I requested that my son get to sit in on an engineering class and also requested a meeting with the co-op office. All requests were arranged. My son sat in on an introductory class and the instructor took time after class to speak with myself and son about the degree program and where that class fit in. We met with the department head, which was a much more informative meeting than the original meeting with the assistant prof. We toured all the engineering buildings again with an engineering ambassador trained to provide tours specifically of the engineering department. And we had a great meeting with the head of the co-op program. The second visit was definitely worth the time we invested.
My son didn’t always find it easy to get the course he wanted as some of the electives in the civil-e department are not offered very frequently, but he was able to get courses he needed with no issue. Sometimes it just took looking at the current offerings to see what the options were that met the requirements instead of trying to plan too far ahead. (Example my son took the introductory class on steel and the introductory class on concrete. He preferred the class on steel and wanted to take the second semester, but it was not offered this semester, so he is taking the second semester of concrete which fills his requirement).
He was also able to get into some of the in-demand honors classes, such as photography I, although he did have to try a couple semesters before he finally got into the class. Meeting the requirements was no issue at all, meeting the requirements with the desired classes could be a challenge, but then sometimes that pushes students to take a class in an area they hadn’t considered before which can be a positive.
My son went to the job fair his freshman year and was very disappointed, but looking at the attendees this year it seems to have grown significantly over the past 5 years. I’ve recommended over 20 companies that will be in attendance for him to speak with this year. He was able to get a co-op through the school (he interviewed with 3 companies) and got 2 summer internships looking on his own. It has never seemed to be too difficult for him to find opportunities even though we were limiting our searches to locations where we had friends or relatives so he would not have to pay for lodging.
DD is a civil and architectural double major at UA - she will graduate in May. She took 2 courses over the summer (and also worked for civil eng dept/professor/research) to be able to complete the double major. 2nd semester junior year, when professors are looking to ‘replace’ their graduating student assistants is a prime time for upper division students to snag a position. DD was able to work up to 40 hours/week over the summer; hours are limited during fall/spring, but she is really busy too - works as much as she can fit in. She has had two really nice, well paying internships over two summers with two different civil eng firms (and one has an office in the city she wants to live in). After freshman year at UA, paying for 12 month apartment rent, so staying/working/studying this past summer in Tuscaloosa was effective for her.
I’m not sure really how much contact she has with professors. Many that she has don’t have office hours posted, but she has found talking to them before/after class, email, catching them when they are in their office…
She met with dept head when she was working out the courses for both majors (both are in civil engineering - some courses overlap on degree plan requirements, but also what would be best upper division electives for her to take, what will be offered, etc) - he actually said he wanted to meet with the double majors, but evidently she was ‘missed’.
DD did decide on civil engineering after attending SITE (student introduction to engineering) which UA offers to rising HS juniors and seniors; they offer three one week SITE sessions. UA doesn’t really advertise because the sessions fill up quickly. So she rotated through facilities and learned the studies in eng/CS the summer before her HS senior year.
DD had a medical situation and actually passed out in a civil eng class a few weeks ago - I asked her if her professor knew her and her reply “well he knows me NOW”.
Is son interested in Biomedical Eng, and that is why UAB, or is it he likes B’ham? DD1 attended UAB, but it was for nursing and graduated BSN with honors. UAH offers a lot with engineering, but UA offers the flagship experiences.
I’ll give a story about the professors. My son graduated last year. He got a job offer from a company he never heard of. One of his professors, head of the department, tipped off a friend of his at this big defense contractor. Said you have to talk to this student of mine. DS got an email asking him to come in. He went on the interview mainly for the practice. He was totally impressed with the company, and they offered him his choice of departments on the spot. He ended up choosing a different job, and they told him to call them anytime in the future if that job doesn’t work out. DS never applied, never even heard of the company. This all came from his professor. Who, btw, we met with when first touring the school arranged by the honors college.
I have a CS grad from UA and a senior there now who is getting his EE major. My CS student knew his professors more than my EE major, but then the CS department is/was smaller (he graduated in Dec. 2015). One of my Cs son’s professors recommended him for a position in Northern California, which is where he now works. My EE son wants to work in the midwest so had to find his own internships here, and probably his own job upon graduation.
Neither of my sons had difficulty getting the courses in their majors they needed, however new freshman might have a different experience. Both my sons said they were glad they were/are UA students.
Good luck to your son. Roll Tide!
<<<
we have visited the campus 3 times and have yet to have an encounter with a professor on the organized tours. This is different than our other experiences at every other school. UA has been rated as the #2 college where accessibility to professors is low.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Much can depend on when you visit…during summers or weekends, chances of meeting with profs will be low. I would set up a engineering tour and include a request to meet with a couple of profs.
Ive never heard that accessibility to profs is a problem. Where did you hear that? I’ve heard the exact opposite…that profs are student-friendly.
[QUOTE=""]
I want to see if I can find more facts about that given that the college is so large. Also, was it easy to get the courses your son wanted? Was he in the honors college at UA as well?
[/QUOTE]
My son never had any trouble getting classes. He easily could have graduated in 3 years, but stayed for the 4th year and took extra classes for interest…some Italian, more spanish, etc.
Yes he was in the honors college.