So firstly, my current career goal is something along the lines of being a sustainable energy/environmental engineer. One question I’ve been asking myself is whether to directly major in environmental engineering or to maybe major in electrical and use that education to become an environmental engineer (because I’ve heard that doing something similar with mechanical and aerospace engineering is beneficial. If anyone knows what majoring in environmental engineering is like or is an environmental engineer I would appreciate it if you could me information on your experiences and what you may have done differently.
I am from New York and while I do consider distance in making my decision, ultimately I have to favor my education and career potential. I have a choice between five schools: U Wisconsin, SUNY ESF, RPI, U Minnesota and Penn State Harrisburg. I’ve talked to an alumnus of my high school who attends RPI and they say that while the school has lots of connections with large corporations, they possibly oversell themselves and the poor social life can impact your education. After aid, RPI would still cost me around $30k a year. ESF would be my cheapest option and I also have a couple of people I know already committed to going there in the fall of 2019. They obviously are a great school for the environmental aspect of my career but I’m not too sure I would get the greatest engineering opportunities there. If anyone has any experiences at ESF that would be great in helping me decide. U Wisconsin is also another great choice I have despite the distance and after aid, it would run me about $16k a year. They have great engineering programs and a beautiful campus. If anyone has been in the engineering program at U Wisc I’ll listen to anything. UM and Penn State are the other options. In my opinion, U Wisc is just better than UM overall because it’s a similar distance still has great engineering programs, and is cheaper than UM ($27k) for me. Penn State is relatively close but I wasn’t accepted to the main campus, and it would cost me about $23k per year. If anyone knows whether Harrisburg would still be worth my time over say U Wisc, ESF, or RPI I’d appreciate how you feel about Penn State regarding my career goals.
Again, I’d also like to know whether environmental engineering over electrical is a wise decision because that definitely influences my college decision. My apologies if I sound ignorant in any way but I can admit that I haven’t put enough time into such an important decision and I’m posting this close to deadlines.
Congrats on creating so many opportunities for yourself!
A lot of environmental stuff draws on concepts from chemical and civil engineering, while sustainable energy may draw on mechanical and electrical concepts. Mechanical is the broadest branch that, while some think of it as gears and motors, is really about the conversion and transmission of all forms of energy. Do you know yet where your interest may be?
Also, you mention $16k for UW-Madison. What is ESF?
ESF is the SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry and it’s located right next to the Syracuse University Campus. I’ve heard it’s a good environment (no pun intended) and one of the teachers at my high school actually attended school there. I don’t really know where I want to go with engineering. I had always thought mainly about sustainable energy but there are of course other environmental engineering areas I wouldn’t mind, but I know I can’t do everything
Wisconsin is the top choice at $16k. Highly regarded engineering program plus a great setting and great Big Ten sports and social culture if that matters to you.
I can’t say how much ESF costs yet because I applied late on a space available basis and I’m yet to receive an aid package, but if their cost of attendance is $27,635, then after the Excelsior scholarship and pell grant, it would be close to $10k I would think
UW engineering is top notch. But ESF’s offerings are so different that it would be hard for me to recommend one or the other based on cost.
Because ESF is so unique, I can’t offer any good advice from an engineering perspective. Some people have had luck comparing institutions by looking at job placement results. May be helpful to call the career center at each school, identifying yourself as a prospective student, to see what types of environmental jobs placements they make.
Both Minnesota and Wisconsin have some caveats about remaining in the engineering program. At Wisconsin you will have to meet GPA progression requirements to stay in your chosen program after freshman year. At Minnesota, there is a technical GPA to enter your major. The Wisconsin requirements don’t sound so bad…until you get there. My DD at WI has had to contend with kids who have had multiple science APs and dual credit enrolling in lower levels classes they’ve already taken to get good GPAs and then setting the curve too high for students who are new to the material. And she’s had a run of bad luck with getting professors who give the most C/D/F of any teaching the class. Are you an excellent test taker? Good because some classes are 80%+ graded on exams. And do you have a documented disability that will allow you extended testing time? Because a struggling test taker without one will watch as classmates get twice as much time (and then listen to them gloat about their good grades). Do you have exam conflicts for time off exams that vary each semester? If so, you will be assigned to alternate exam times and you will be given the harder test version. Possibly one that is more carelessly edited and so has mistakes that mean it’s impossible to get full credit on questions. There is a lot of tutoring touted as available, but it took her 1.5 semesters of trying to get into the best tutoring sessions. Do you have to work? You won’t have time in your schedule to squeeze more than about 6 hours a week of employment. The struggle is real and this is the experience of a top student with AP and honors classes, top 1% of HS class, STEM prep, and decent SATs. If doing iver again, would definitely choose the cheapest ABET program that allows full continuation in the chosen major as long as academic standing is good (meaning C’s or better everywhere). I think UMich allows this, not sure about SUNY ESF. Labs and classes have been good at Madison. But the GPA requirements for the weeder classes will likely have my DD transferring.
Do not let various “rankings” make this decision for you. Rankings are largely based on the size of the graduate school and the number of their PhD’s who go into education.
From the perspective of employment, you want an ABET accredited program. The environmental programs typically are taught out of CE departments and (pardon me CE’s) are generally not as academically challenging as EE and Chem Eng programs.
Take “treschicos’s” experiences to heart. Challenging academics are good, but your interests really carry you into the interdisciplinary world of environmental studies. Not all ABET programs are the same. The Pen State program Environmental Systems Engineering, is ABET accredited and IS interdisciplinary. The ABET tag is important here.
They have all majors at Pen State. Could you change to EE, if so how? What if you went from the ABET environmental program to EE? Can you adjust focuses within the ABET accredited environmental program? Also take a close look are their GPA criteria for staying in the major. Good student environment and the quality of the program are not defined by GPA’s. GPA’s are largely a gate keeper for control of the number of majors, not necessarily the quality of the program. This is a common problem in all these very large universities. See https://bulletins.psu.edu/search/?scontext=programs&search=environmental+studies
The ESF program may be very good. Find out if it is ABET approved. What other options are available after admission?
Learn what you can directly off university websites by asking the right questions.
I can speak a little bit about ESF. Their environmental engineering program is ABET accredited and very good. The issue with ESF is you can’t change your mind and switch to EE or ME because they offer only a few, specialized engineering degrees. Another issue is that the Excelsior scholarship requires you to work in NY after you graduate, so you have to be ok with that restriction. Also have you visited the campus? It is kind of an unusual setup because it is a very small campus surrounded by the much larger Syracuse campus. If you want to attend a small school where everyone is passionate about the environment then it is a great choice and it will probably be your cheapest alternative.