<p>OK can someone compare CMU vs. Lehigh for engineering? I'm talking about not only academics, but social life, workload, food, etc.... really anything. I'm really torn between these two schools and I need some help. Anything will be a big help for me.</p>
<p>I don't have time to get into everything, but these two schools are verrrrrryyyy different. To begin, one's in the middle of no where and the other is in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>sigh. i hate lehigh. lehigh is just one big party school. you get drunk in the evening, you go to sleep drunk, you wake up drunk, you go to class drunk, etc...</p>
<p>I have friends at both, so I will give you some insight on what I know from them. Lehigh has a good engineering program, is very campus oriented, and lots of partying (more than just on the weekends). CMU also has a good enigineering program, not extremely campus oriented (people go into Pittsburgh and on to the other surrounding campuses a lot), and a mix of social life (people who party hard on the weekends to people who hangout and go into Pittsburgh often on weekends to people who sit in their room studying on weekends). That is mine two cents on these two schools. However, before you decide you like one school better than the other, make sure you get into these schools because you never know with college admissions today.</p>
<p>Thx for the replies so far.... keep em comin!</p>
<p>All I got to say is:
<a href="http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/cit.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/cit.html</a>
<a href="http://www.lehigh.edu/careerservices/employers/documents/UndergraduatePlacementReportfor2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.lehigh.edu/careerservices/employers/documents/UndergraduatePlacementReportfor2004.pdf</a></p>
<p>Average Salaries:</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering: 58k median CMU vs 52k Lehigh (Only high of 57k) Lehigh's high end salary of Chem E is not even CMU's median. High for CMU for Chem E. is 61k.</p>
<p>Civil Engineering: 47k median CMU vs 43k Lehigh.</p>
<p>Computer Engineering/ECE: 59k CMU vs Lehigh's 48k and 49k. High of ECE is 89k for CMU vs highs of 62k and 74k for Lehigh. BIG difference as ECE does not even report bonuses/annual/starting from the many students who go into the business world.</p>
<p>Computer Science: No contest. I almost feel bad for posting this. CMU's 71k median and 85k max vs Lehigh's 54k avg and 74k max. CMU's median salary is comparable to Lehigh's MAX.</p>
<p>Mechanical Engineering: 53k avg for CMU vs 47k for Lehigh.</p>
<p>Materials Science: 53k for CMU vs 50k for Lehigh.</p>
<p>Employers: Vastly different. No Google/Microsoft nor other certain prestigious companies (or not the same frequency) for Lehigh as for CMU.</p>
<p>Final line: In every single major, CMU reels in more prestigious firms and higher salaries.</p>
<p>FB17, </p>
<p>I can lend my 2 cents since I went to Lehigh and my son just graduated from CMU (I've been there many times but obviously don't know as much about CMU as an actual student). Been awhile since LU but Im sure the overall atmosphere is still the same. After Lehigh I went to UPenn for 4 grad years so I'll prob bring up a couple Penn comparisons too.</p>
<p>Lehigh and CMU are totally different in their "feel".</p>
<p>Academics: Lehigh has a heavy workload esp engineering, I was engineering 3 semesters before changing majors. I think CMU's workload is probably heavier. LU engineering is well regarded in the East, but CMU is a jump stronger on a national and international scale, CMU is well known top 10 and Lehigh is maybe #40 or so if I recall. You'll get a great education at LU engineering but CMU is a more academic school and I'd give the recruiting edge easily to CMU. CMU imo wins hands down with regard to academics, faculty strength, overall prestige.</p>
<p>Social life: they couldn't be more different: </p>
<pre><code> Lehigh has the full array of activities, sports etc but it is true it's very frat/drinking oriented, so if you're into that (and mostly that) you'll have a blast. There are a lot of partiers there, they are very happy, I had a good time, but most work hard/play hard, there aren't too many deadbeats. But a lot of alcoholics. The city or town of Bethlehem is fairly useless, there's a few bars and places to eat in South B but basically it's glory days are long gone. There's a part of central B that's been redone, it's nice but not big. Although they're always working on increasing diversity, and they certainly have since I went, it's still mostly a rich white school.
CMU has frats and in some ways they are central to social life but it's not anywhere to the extent of Lehigh. CMU has a bigger mix like knows11 said...there are plenty of work hard/play hard types at CMU but there are more work hard/work hard types at CMU than Lehigh. It's perfectly fine at CMU to spend Fri night studying/programming/in the studio. Lehigh has a higher proportion of partiers than CMU. But CMU surprisingly has its share. The big difference is the city of Pittsburgh. It's not NYC but still a great small city with LOTS to do (GIANT plus over Lehigh imo)...museums, shopping, coffee shops, restaurants and bars, professional sports, all that city stuff. Much much more diversity at CMU, the student body resembes UPenn in this regard.
</code></pre>
<p>CMU "feels" much more like a school like Penn than it does Lehigh. You might like Lehigh if these types of schools appeal to you: Colgate, Dartmouth, Bucknell, Penn State, Cornell. You might like CMU if you like these schools: UPenn, MIT, Johns Hopkins, NYU.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Final line: In every single major, CMU reels in more prestigious firms and higher salaries.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmm, thats interesting, but the truth is, if you are a hard worker and a brilliant person, you will succeed no matter where you go. Also, maybe I'm ignorant, but I've never even heard of Lehigh; i think I'll look it up.</p>
<p>Edy, that logic is so general that it can be applied to anything. IE: Bill Gates didn't even finish college. Why don't we all just drop out?</p>
<p>However, the op wanted information and used the title "CMU Vs Lehigh". </p>
<p>Sure you can succeed at Lehigh. People succeed without going to college. People even succeed with handicapped status and being mentally retarded.</p>
<p>I merely provide the stats. It's all a numbers game and I'm just saying you have a much better chance (%) of becoming more successful at Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.break.com/movies/lehightape.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.break.com/movies/lehightape.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://view.break.com/78488%5B/url%5D">http://view.break.com/78488</a></p>
<p>Hmmmm.....lehigh looks pretty fun if nothing else</p>
<p>no results for Carnegie</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Spring Carnival at Carnegie > anything at Lehigh</p></li>
<li><p>Fun is a relative term. A great campus and a great city along with other college students, bars, nightclubs, shopping districts, the incline, and cultural/arts centers is more fun than anything I could have anywhere besides LA/San Francisco/Miami/D.C/New York. </p></li>
<li><p>Pittsburgh is a great city and the nation's #2 college town after Boston. Lehigh is in... NOWHERE! <a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.explore%5B/url%5D">http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.explore</a>
<a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.neighborhoods%5B/url%5D">http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.neighborhoods</a>
<a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.fastfacts%5B/url%5D">http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.fastfacts</a>
<a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/menuitem.93ebadf834f3c3c019300710d4a02008/%5B/url%5D">http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/menuitem.93ebadf834f3c3c019300710d4a02008/</a></p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon has a deep and profound history/tradition. Some include: <a href="http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.traditions%5B/url%5D">http://my.cmu.edu/site/admission/page.traditions</a></p></li>
<li><p>Seriously I have never heard of Lehigh before this thread and many people have not either.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
Edy, that logic is so general that it can be applied to anything. IE: Bill Gates didn't even finish college. Why don't we all just drop out?</p>
<p>However, the op wanted information and used the title "CMU Vs Lehigh".</p>
<p>Sure you can succeed at Lehigh. People succeed without going to college. People even succeed with handicapped status and being mentally retarded.</p>
<p>I merely provide the stats. It's all a numbers game and I'm just saying you have a much better chance (%) of becoming more successful at Carnegie Mellon.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>True true. However, I didn't say this before, but I meant that there are more important things to look for in a unversity than just how much money you'll be able to make once you graduate. For example, I'm quite interested in CMU due to neat stuff that I've read about the School of Computer Science there, and I'm interested in MIT due to the cool atmosphere and b/c several of my role models went there. Surely, AcceptedToCollegeAlready, money wasn't your sole reason (and probably not the main reason either) for going to CMU, as I can see in your above post.</p>
<p>As a recommendation, I would say that if you are interested in Lehigh and CMU, visit both (if it's possible) and then make the decision.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree. I listed fun/activities above but I refrained from mentioning it in my first post as others seemed to have already mentioned the social factors and differences between the colleges.</p>
<p>I also had CMU and Lehigh as finalists, even before going on my trip to visit colleges. Finalists doesn't mean that much for Lehigh though, it was merely my backup in case I didn't get into CMU for early decision. In terms of atmosphere, I thought Lehigh was pretty but not as interesting socially. I don't mind frats or anything, but that was pretty much all they had. I would get bored there pretty fast, especially considering that CMU also beats Lehigh in terms of creativity hands down. I think both schools offer an excellent, well-rounded education, but CMU specializes in arts as well as in engineering. There are a lot of advantages to being exposed to many different types of people and many different types of knowledge. CMU beats Lehigh hands down, but Lehigh is a somewhat similar school in some ways, and is an acceptable alternative... in case you don't get into CMU. All you really need to do to see the difference is to visit both schools, and most likely you will make the decision I did. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thx guys for all the help! Anyone else have anything to say?</p>
<p>yeah, whats Lehigh?</p>
<p>FB17, CMU has some great qualities, it's true. But so does Lehigh. I know some engineers from Lehigh and they are happy, successful people who love their alma mater. I think you just have to see where you can accomplish your goals, feel comfortable and afford to go. Good Luck!</p>