Hi everyone,
Well I’m accepted to Drexel, mechanical engineering 5 years (3 co-op). I have a hard time choosing to go to drexel or not, so I decided to talk with you guys and get some advice. I have some doubts and questions:
1: The most important reason of attending a university, as we all know, is the academic part. How good is the quality of Drexel education? The professors, The classes, … . Please just don’t say they are good or bad, explain a little bit. You know there are some kind of teachers that can change your life, help to distiguish your abilities,open your eyes,… well I know that kind of persons are hard to find but are there any in Drexel?
2: The reserach oppurtunities? How are they? Are there plenty? Are they innovative and cutting edge? Can I work on my own project?
3: What about the Co-op. well I want to go to graduate school, so are these co-op programsjust beneficial to students who want to find a job or can they be beneficial for me too? Are there any reaserch co-ops? are these co-op paid?
I know these are a lot of questions, but I would appreciate if you help me on these. Thanks so much for taking your time.
I also was accepted to the 5 year 3 co op program. I’ll share with you everything I have found and my general opinions on certain matters. I won’t be able to reply until after my lunch though. Until then, where all are you deciding between and where are you coming from?
Okay here we go:
- Honestly, this is a very vague question for not wanting a vague answer and the answer depends a on the student as much as it does the professor. I'll give it a shot though and hopefully it helps:
Professors have different teaching styles and different students react to different approaches. For engineering at Drexel, I have heard the undergraduate quality of teaching is pretty solid, there are a lot of teachers who actually enjoy teaching and spending time with their students. Of all the different student review websites, engineers respond to the teaching quality at Drexel in a very positive light more often than the other departments. It is also a private school so they don’t try to “weed” you out as much as a school would at a state university where the class size is pretty large. The physical class sizes at drexel are typically smaller for engineering as well, which to me is a plus. There are great professors at this school who perform leading research in areas. From my own observations, it looks like mechanical engineering is pretty heavy in nano technology and sustainability at Drexel. However there are several branches of mechanics out there with Drexel’s attention. The worst professor you’ll get is a foreign research professor who may not speak English very well, but coming from engineering at Texas A&M University, I can tell you with confidence that this situation is pretty universal to engineering schools, especially ones that are tier 1 research universities. These professors are typically geniuses in their fields and are at the university to lead research and only teach as a byproduct. Go through http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/campusRatings.jsp?sid=1521 and you can see what people say about different teachers at Drexel. I have only heard of one pretty awful teacher that everyone says to avoid and it was upper level mechanical engineering. Found that one on Facebook though. The students run a mechanical engineering group that you can join if you decide to accept Drexel and set up an email. All of their groups require a Drexel email to join. So there is a pretty reasonable system set up already to avoid bad professors. Plus the linked website should help out quite a bit.
- Drexel is a tier 1 research university, which means research is well funded and enthusiastically supported. You are going to have to look at the different professors and the different interests they have and see if any match up to yours. The research department has their own page on the Drexel website. I would recommend going through Drexel's expansive website and not only find the research page, but everything else. I learned a lot just by reading all of the articles, student interviews, and research accomplishments they post on website articles, bumping this school from a mid major to a top choice for me in a day. Typically to perform research at any university,you have to have a sponsor (investor) and a lead professor. The research website lists investors and what they are looking for and has a process you go through to apply to do research. Its not as much freedom as you would probably want it to be in regards to doing your own research but this is also how it is at most universities, especially when you are an undergraduate. You have to research what people are paying to be researched and have a Phd willing to put his/her name on the research with you to get it published. You probably have a higher chance at Drexel to perform research by yourself under a professor as an undergraduate than you do anywhere else. Undergraduate research is a huge opportunity here like the co ops where as at most other schools, its a minor feature/option for students.
- I asked the same thing on a graduate board and was given some pretty solid perspective on the co op to grad school situation. Co Ops don't hurt you. No one is going to look at a student who has done three co ops and rule them out of grad school for doing them. However, research can be preferred over co ops when applying. The only exception is if you work in a research lab as a co-op. There are several national and private research laboratories across the nation that use interns. So you can get paid and still be competitive in grad school applications. It really just depends what you choose to do as a co-op. You need to be proactive in interviews and ask about what kind of work you will be doing and make sure you avoid a job fetching coffee. If grad school is your goal, you can't just be applying based on salary, salary is not a good indicator of research potential as it turns out haha.
If you have any other questions or anything, feel free to post back! I am going through the same process of gathering information and its nice finally finding other transfer mechanical engineers considering Drexel if not going already. I ran into another guy on facebook from New Jersey who accepted recently.
Hi @MechanicalFox,
thanks very much for replying. You provided me a huge amount of information which was very important to me.
Well I’m an international student from Iran and I’m only accepted to Drexel university, but the problem is that I didn’t get accepted to Drexel global scholarship and our family does not have enough money to cover the costs (approximately $30,000). So I don’t think I’m gonna attend Drexel and I will stay in Iran :(( .
Good bye to all of you. 
But again I want to thank you for writing, Maybe this thread will help others.
Sorry to hear that! The price definitely seems to be turning away a lot of engineering students this year. You can always see if you can defer to the next year or always reapply. Best of luck to you in your endeavors!
I agree on the comment about "The price definitely seems to be turning away a lot of engineering students this year’. We are definitely one of them. Even with a $$15K scholarship, that brings the COA to low $50’s which is not competitive as compared to say UIUC or UDelaware (even w/o merit aid). So Drexel was out of the running early, we only applied hoping for a substantial merit to make them competitive with other highly ranked schools COA.
thanks, but good luck to all, I’m sure Drexel is a great school
