I am going into my junior year of collage as an undergrad. I am currently at johns Hopkins majoring in mechanical engineering. I got into both Carnegie Mellon and Brown as a transfer student but I have had a lot of trouble figuring out which place would be better. I decided to transfer from Hopkins because socially I have not been happy. I am a very quirky out of the box type of girl and I love art and fashion. I want to pursue a carer in wearable technology. I have not clicked with the a lot of the people at Hopkins because a lot of the people I have met are very ridge and not super out there and different. I donât care about which school has a better mechanical engineering program because the program at Hopkins is amazing! I just want to go to a place where I will be genuinely happier and fit in with the engineers around me more. Iâm worried that Carnegie mellon might be too similar to johns hopkins with the student body, especially the engineers that I will be surrounded by. Can anyone give me there opinions on the different environments of the two schools?
âI am a very quirky out of the box type of girl and I love art and fashion.â
Brown.
why do you think brown?
Brown specializes in out of the box, independent people who want to make their own way. A lot of people choose Brown specifically b/c it has the one of the most flexible curriculums amongst the competitive colleges.
My daughter is a CS major at Brown, and there are certainly âout of the boxâ students in her department. I canât speak for engineering but if you take a look at these links for Brownâs Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, maybe it can help you get a feel of the place. There is a link to contact them at the bottom of the first webpage.
http://brownuniversityswe.strikingly.com/
https://www. face book .com/BrownSWE (remove the spaces)
At Brown you would also have access to RISD which would be another selling point.
My daughter was also a math-cs major at Brown and she is artistic and musical. I think it would be a great environment but I also donât know anything about ME there, but the CS dept is very strong. And arts are strong and you will find people interested in fashion. Have you visited the engineering dept or the college at all? I know you can take some classes at RISD which might be good for design but I donât know what kind of prereq you need. I think you may have to submit a portfolio but I am not sure. CMU is an excellent school for engineering, have you visited?
i have visited both schools but its just been a complicated decision. I was accepted to Brown spring and CMU fall. I know that CMU is better for engineering but like I said Iâm just looking for an atmosphere that I will fit in and be happy 
also as an engineer the open curriculum at brown doesnât apply.
Youâd match the campus culture at Brown, but youâll be able to find a group of people you fit in with at CMU.
CMU does have a lot of similarities with Johns Hopkins, but CMU is also known for great theatre/music/design programs. There are plenty of âdorky computer nerds,â but also a lot of the imaginative, artsy types that Johns Hopkins might lack in.
do you know this from experience about cmu knittergirrl?
^From the CMU Class of 2018 FB page I was in last year (didnât attend due to cost), I noticed a surprisingly high amount of out of the box/creative people.
Seriously though, with a campus so big, youâre bound to find a group of people you click with. Just put yourself out there and do what you can to join a group.
ahhh, this is so confusing 
If you decided to go for the spring semester, what would you do in the meantime?
Open curriculum may not apply to you- you already know that Engineering is a very structured course. You asked about the student body as a whole, and the students attracted by the open curriculum tend to be more like what you are saying you want.
Yes, I know from experience. One of the reasons why I chose to attend CMU is because, although I want to go into a semi-technical field, I also do have an interest in the arts. There are a lot of interdisciplinary programs between arts/humanities and tech, which is really neat. The diversity of programs they have really does draw in an interesting mix of students.
Youâll definitely be able to find a group of friends at either school, so, what about all the other factors? Which campus did you like better? Which program seemed more suited to you? Etc.
I wanted to go back to johns hopkins to continue my studies in the fall if I go to brown. There are a lot of complications that come with going to brown in the spring since I have some learning disabilities and am on a reduced course load, browns acceptance time and requirements for the degree puts me back about a year in graduating.
Again comparing programs is kinda hard because at hopkins I was able to finally create an amazing engineering program that lets me go to art school to learn about fashion and wearables. I knew that either school (brown or cmu) I would be sacrificing the really good curriculum I created with an advisor. So again itâs really up to my happiness and being able to enjoy my experience than just getting a good education.
I have visited both schools (once each). CMU is a bit far from home and I am concerned with the way the school is structured with the different colleges within it and if its hard to meet people in other departments.
I liked that RISD was right by brown so I could study fashion but Iâm concerned since I am a transfer and have to take a certain amount of credits to get the degree if RISD courses wonât count and then I wonât even get to use that opportunity.
As long as you live in on-campus housing and participate in activities outside of class, I donât think youâd have too much trouble meeting people in other departments. Iâd say the worst thing about the structure of CMU is that itâs hard to get into classes outside your college, but even that can be worked around especially as an upperclassman since you get better priority for courses. I donât know that much about it, but thereâs a program at CMU called IDEATE which is basically interdisciplinary technical programs or classes. Maybe youâd be interested.
It sounds like what you have going at Hopkins is really great, but I understand why youâd want to transfer.
This is something you can easily verify with Brown but from my memory, you can take up to 4 courses at RISD essentially no questions asked. I donât see why this would be different for a transfer student. I imagine the industrial design department at RISD could be useful for a course or two as well: http://www.risd.edu/academics/industrial-design/
yeah I called admissions, youâre right! they will accept 4 courses.
knittergirrl, my concern is that I donât want to rely on meeting people from outside activities, I know I shouldnât compare but that didnât work at Hopkins so Iâm more of counting on meeting people in classes that I will connect with. Since i have some learning disabilities I spend a great deal of time getting through work so I donât have a lot of free time outside of class to try a ton of things. And IDEATE looks familiar. Are you still a student at CMU?