Any insight on the chemical engineering program at Pitt? We are touring Pitt and Ohio state in a few weeks. My son is OOS, 3/551 , 35 ACT. We live closer to U of I and Purdue but son is looking to move away and go somewhere that the rest of his graduating class isn’t going
Specific questions? My chemE grad is home and I can ask him.
At least you have a terrific instate option. I can’t speak to the quality of the program although I’m sure it is fine. The Pitt campus is very different. It felt like a university city vs. a campus when we visited. Not a bad or good thing just different. It’s in a great area of Pittsburgh. Unlike many cities where venturing off campus put you in some shady areas Oakland is a very nice area of Pittsburgh. CMU is within walking distance if you with to visit there as well. Ironically my D is a ChemE at Purdue. We are Ohio residents and she chose not to apply to tOSU for the same reason as your son wants to go out of state. She preferred the campus of Purdue to the feel of Pitt but that’s a personal decision. She is a sophomore and is very happy with her studies, the school and the opportunities it’s afforded her. Good luck!
The main difference between the ChemE program here and any other major (here or most likely elsewhere) is the “pillar” structure that they take to approach their core classes. Instead of having 2-3 core classes per term with some additional side classes (labs, electives) ChemE has a single “pillar” class which counts for 6 credits (instead of 3) and cover a lot of material. I can’t remember how often they meet but I believe it is 2-3 times a week for up to 3 hours at a time. These are huge group classes which are taken with your entire class within the department (except for sophomore year which is too big to fit in a room, so two sections are offered but taught at the exact same time).
Beyond that, specific questions you have would probably help. My boyfriend just graduated from the ChemE program and could give insight into his experience, just as @amandakayak mentioned with her son.
Take a look at Case Western Reserve too. They give excellent merit aid, and probably better ChemE program than Pitt or OSU.
^ All 3 of my kids were offered generous merit to CWRU (but net COA was still higher than Pitt) and chose Pitt over it because the research facilities and options - esp if you are leaning more to biotech or materials engineering, are much more substantial than CWRU. The NIH funding that Pitt gets is massive compared to CWRU (I can find you the link if you are interested). When we visited the CWRU chemE lab, experiments were on carts that were wheeled into the lab area when being worked on…which seemed very limiting. Beyond research and the facilities, the student-happy factor played a big part in choosing Pitt.
We are touring case western on this trip as well as univ of dayton, Ohio university, Ohio state and carnegie Mellon .Trying to get a mix of large vs small schools, rural vs urban. I don’t have specific questions really since I am not sure yet what to ask. . The chemE son will be a junior and we are just starting the process. Engineering seems confusing and complicated and it’s hard online to determine each programs benefits. Purdue and university of Illinois have great reputations and I am familiar with them. Not so true of the Ohio and pittsburg schools
that pillar structure sounds tough.
@perch1024, make sure you put Pittsburgh in your GPS, or you might end up in Kentucky or Kansas (Pittsburg). 
It is and it isn’t. On the one hand you are in your core classes with your entire department so you can rely on everyone for help and advice. And because of the way the pillars are laid out (i.e. 1 is always in the fall, 2 is always in the spring, etc.) you can always ask for help from older students because they are guaranteed to already have gone through it.
They are actually changing the order of the pillars for next year (there was a design pillar taught senior year that is being bumped up to sophomore year because internship/co-op companies complained about lack of design experience from the students) but certain pillars are definitely harder than others. Either way, the pillars can be passed if you put appropriate time and work into them. Some pillars are entirely comprised of group work so finding some good, motivated friends in your class will also be beneficial.
@perch1024 Case and CMU are similar. Both were at one time approximately 50 years ago, two separate universities. One a technical university the other a liberal arts university who combined. They are similar in size and concentration. CMU may have a slightly better reputation and that area of Pittsburgh is nicer than the area that Case is in. We liked Case’s campus better and they are known for better scholarships and financial aid than CMU. Both have bright, academically oriented students. If you don’t have Pitt on your schedule I’d recommend at least visiting. You can walk to the campus from CMU. It will feel different than any of the others. Dayton, tOSU and Ohio University will all be very different from one another. You have a very large urban campus, a mid sized private in a smaller urban setting and a mid sized state school in a very bucolic small town setting. Good luck.
Interesting about the history of both CWRU and CMU. I never knew that.
I looked both up on Wiki and I was mostly right. Case Institute of Technology merged with Western Reserve University in 1967. Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in 1965 which did research for the government and was NOT a LAC. I don’t want to mislead.
Mellon Institute of Industrial Research actually was originally founded as a department of the University of Pittsburgh (its first dedicated home is what is now Pitt’s Allen Hall) and the institute was spun off as an independent non-profit research institute that served as a defacto Pitt department until it merged with Carnegie Tech in 1967. The Mellon patriarchs (Thomas, Andrew, and Richard) were all Pitt alumni and major benefactors of the University of Pittsburgh. They had nothing to do with Andrew Carnegie’s technical schools during their lives. In fact, if naming conventions existed in the 1920s as they do today, the Cathedral of Learning would likely be named Mellon Hall.
Mellon Institute actually mostly did research that was contracted out by industry, not the government. It was spun off as a separate non-profit from Pitt and when companies began moving their research in-house after WWII, it started looking for a academic partner to merge with. There were several reasons why it didn’t merge with Pitt, including the fact Pitt was in the process of becoming a state-related university following a period of financial turmoil, along with, allegedly, an unwillingness of Pitt to incorporate Mellon into its name. In any case, Pitt still has several faculty with labs in the Mellon institute building which is located adjacent to Cathedral of Learning/Heinz Chapel grounds next to Pitt’s Bellefield Hall, as the two universities jointly sponsor a variety of institutes that find at least part of their homes there. Interestingly, in more recent years, there has been somewhat of a return to the trend of companies outsourcing their research.
Don’t feel too bad for Pitt. Pitt’s highly regarded and ranked School of Information Sciences was originally founded at Carnegie Tech. Such is the mixed and collaborative history of two universities that at one time attempted to merge and whose campuses literally blend together at points.
Thanks everyone. Your comments are very helpful. I was looking for different campus styles and feels, different neighborhoods and sizes all with chemE programs, all within a few hours drive of each other. From your comments above, looks like my son will get a good idea of which best suits his personality. My older education major son wanted a large, urban public school until we started touring and is currently attending a small, suburban liberal arts school. Go figure. For engineering, What types of questions/ things should we look for or ask?
I would ask several questions. 1. Are you accepted into a specific major within the School of Engineering or are you accepted into the College of Engineering and you apply to your specific major at some future date? 2. Do they have areas of specialization? (Some schools have ChemE programs which lean towards Environmental issues others towards specific industries?) 3. What type of research are professors doing in ChemE and can undergraduates do research? 4. Do they support cooperative education programs (if this is important to you)? What type of programs do they support (ie. # of terms, months etc.)? How difficult is it to get courses if you are co-oping? (engineering is pretty sequential if you miss a course sometimes it can affect more than just one course). 5. Finally what companies recruit at your campus for Chemical Engineers? Good luck.
On top of that.
- What kind of companies do students from your program place into (for internships, co-ops, and full time positions upon graduation)
- Which graduate schools do your students matriculate to (if graduate school is of interest to you)
- What is the academic atmosphere like (competitive or cooperative, this makes a huge difference)
- How many students are in the program vs. the school (is it evenly split between departments or are certain departments always more popular and why)
- What kind of background do your students have (are most students coming in with loads of APs, are the first year classes very basic, is there a mix of academic background, etc.)
- What is a typical 4-year course structure for the program
- How accessible are the professors (do they enjoy teaching or focus on research)
- What kind of TAs are given to the students (grad students with no background, the teacher is the TA, etc.)
Many programs have enrollment mgt on certain majors - so when you decide
at the end of freshman yr to major in chemE or bioE, that they only accept X number into those programs. Pitt
does not - students are accepted into the school of engineering and can choose any major within the school.
Thanks all for the advice!! great questions. I’m starting a list! I cant wait to take our tours.
I cannot speak to Pitt’s ChemE program but my uncle attended Notre Dame and got his ChemE there. He got a lot of his college paid for by the Navy and became a nuke officer aboard subs. He got out after 6 years or so and took a job running an assembly line and now is an HR manager.