Recently I’ve been considering applying ED II to either Bucknell University or Colby college for either Computer Science or Computer Engineering. Bucknell seems to have its own Engineering department while Colby offers a dual degree engineering program between Columbia University or Dartmouth. I’m not too familiar with the pros and cons of doing a dual degree Engineering program between 2 schools vs just doing Engineering at a University. I would be glad to hear your inputs on this topic.
Well, that’s kind of apples vs oranges vs banana. Bucknell has its own college of engineering, but at Colby you’d have to do a 5 or 6 year program and spend a year or two on another campus. Not that that’s bad, it’s just different. F&M has no engineering degree that I’m aware of.
Colby is the smallest school while Bucknell is about twice as large.
I really think this is a personal decision - there is no “right” or “wrong” answer, just what you prefer.
Bucknell is the obvious choice between these three for your intended majors. It is the only one with computer engineering (or any kind of engineering) natively, and its CS offerings are more complete than the other two schools’ CS offerings.
Of course, you need to check on its other characteristics, like net price and social environment (heavy fraternity and sorority presence).
Agree, no right or wrong. (3) However, Bucknell is strong in computer engineering. This should be a major factor in your decision. If you were to decide you want computer science and not computer engineering, then your key points of consideration would be different.
If you search around a bit on this site, you’ll find a host of posters pooh-poohing 3/2 engineering programs. Bottom line, it sucks to leave the social scene you’ve constructed over three years right before the start of your senior year, and many kids start out with the intention of doing a 3/2 program and then bag it when the time comes to actually leave at the end or their junior year. If you’re looking for liberal arts schools with engineering programs, it’s actually a pretty short list. You might want to also take a look at:
Union
Lafayette
Trinity College (CT)
Trinity University (TX)
Swarthmore
Or, if you want to do engineering/CS in a small, undergraduate-focused environment, but don’t care so much about it being a true liberal arts college, you could check out places like:
Olin College
Harvey Mudd
Rose-Hulman
The schools above span a pretty wide range in terms of selectivity and social vibe, so hopefully there’s some in there that might feel like a good fit for you. Good luck!