<p>I've narrowed my choices down to either Cooper Union or Bucknell for engineering. Which school is more prestigious for engineering? Which school has more connections and a better alumni network?</p>
<p>forget about prestige for a moment. Are you reall willing to go to a school like cooper, where it's basically all/only engineering? To give up having the perspective of non-engineers in your classess? Personally, that aspect of Cooper scares me.</p>
<p>bumping it up</p>
<p>whoops. I forgot your question lol. I've heard differing opinions, but I believe Cooper is considered more prestigious</p>
<p>
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you reall willing to go to a school like cooper, where it's basically all/only engineering? To give up having the perspective of non-engineers in your classess
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Personally, I don't think this is a big deal. You say that it's scary to give up having non-engineers in your classes. Well, no matter where you go for engineering, whether Cooper or Bucknell, or anywhere else, your engineering classes are (obviously) not going to have too many non-engineers. I don't know about you, but I haven't found too many English majors who are taking Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics, have you ? </p>
<p>Let's face it. As an engineering student anywhere, even at a broad school like Stanford or Berkeley or Cornell, your life is going to be consumed with engineering. Most of the people you will be interacting with are other engineering students. Most of the people you will see are engineering students. Cooper is no different in this regard.</p>
<p>In fact, I would argue that Cooper's location in downtown Manhattan means that if you want to interaction with non-engineers, you can do so just as easily as you could at a rather isolated (but broadly-based) school like Cornell or Stanford. If you go to Cooper, you can basically fulfill any of your hobbies or your personal interests by one subway ride, because you have all the resources of New York City at your disposal. If you go to, say, Cornell, sure, you there are lots of non-engineers arount, but the fact is, for the most part you're confined to Ithaca. I'm not saying that's a bad thing (in fact, I know many people who really like Ithaca), but I'm saying that if you want non-engineering interaction while you're a student at Cooper, I don't think it's that hard to find, due to Cooper's location. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, if you're tired of New York, you're tired of life.</p>
<p>I'm so glad you posted that Sakky.</p>
<p>The bulk of interpersonal interaction I experienced in college took place in the dorms, and in the various nightspots near campus. In both of these places engineers were the minority at my school.</p>
<p>The bulk of engineering classes were with engineers of course, but a large part of my educational program was outside of my major. And not that much meaningful interaction took place in classes anyway, for me.</p>
<p>Who I was actually living with was far more important, and in the dorms engineers, while well represented, were a minority.</p>
<p>Whether this is good or bad depends on you.</p>
<p>excellent posts everyone. I was afraid of going to cooper due to the lack of academic diversity but now that I think about, it really doesn't matter much if you're an engineer.</p>
<p>for the training and the cohort.........your only choice.</p>
<p>what do you mean by cohort?</p>
<p>Other students of same interest and talent. The place to discuss in depth the issues of your craft.....smart engineers and architects.</p>
<p>Take note that the "campus" at cooper union is nothing more than four buildings surrounding a busy NYC intersection. If you were looking for the all encompassing college experience...cooper union is NOT your place. It's more like a continuation of high school for engineers/artists. I was thinking of going to cooper union...I did an internship there last summer and after seeing what it was like, there was no way i'd go there for college</p>
<p>You must have gone to an amazing high school......</p>
<p>confusion: can you describe your internship job when you were at the cooper? what field it was in, what did you specifically do, etc...</p>
<p>Cooper Union is better than Bucknell, and it's cheaper too.</p>
<p>My internship was with the cooper union research foundation. I worked with dr. ahmad (chair of civil engineering) and 3 mechanical engineering students on a project for con edison.</p>
<p>Have you visited Bucknell? As a Bucknell alum, I would say you have two very different options here, and a visit should help you decide.</p>
<p>Bucknell's campus is beautiful, with hills, grassy slopes, beautiful new athletic center, stunning performing arts center. Strong Frat and Sorority scene if you are into that. Small enough to know people, extremely friendly, nurturing professors, but big enough to find your own niche. </p>
<p>Lewisburg is a quaint, scenic historic SMALL town. Think two bars, a CVS, and few small stores along the main street. There are shuttles to the Walmart/ strip shopping mall down the road, and transportation to NYC and Phila which are a distance.</p>
<p>I don't think you could have picked two different environments and a visit to Bucknell should help you know about "fit".</p>
<p>The two campuses are very different in terms of enviroment and I think this would have to be a big factor in your decision. If you ignore this I would definately say that Cooper Union is superior.</p>
<p>southjerseychessmom,</p>
<p>though it's true that bucknell may be beautiful; is it worth paying 40K + a year for it? Cooper costs a total of 18K with food, housing, books, and extra expenditures. Is Bucknell really that much better that its worth paying an extra 22K a year for it? I'd say MIT, Stanford, and Cal-tech are definetely worth that money for engineering but Bucknell.....</p>
<p>I agree with you WingardiumLeviosa about the Top Tier schools, and especially Cooper. They stand alone in the highest category.
If you qualify for those schools, might you qualify for Merit Money at Bucknell?</p>
<p>The point of my post was to find out if you had actually visited Bucknell because the experience of Bucknell vs Cooper woud be so VERY different that I thought that might help you decide. Sounds like you have decided! Congrats.</p>