<p>In preparation for April decision month, I'm trying to get a grip on comparative advantages/disadvantages of my son's possible choices for chemical or materials engineering. Weighing the advantages of a big powerhouse like Cornell, vs. smaller programs at Tufts and CMU. Wildcard: UVA, because the campus visit went great. Preference: that he go someplace where he can get a great education, sample lots of engineering possibilities, have access to internships, AND have a life. Educated perspectives appreciated.</p>
<p>Cornell will get you the best education, engineering possibilities, and access to internships. I don’t go there so I’m not familiar with the workload and whether he’ll have a life but I can guess that since all 4 schools are very prestigious, they all have tough workloads.</p>
<p>One thing I will definitely say is that I wouldn’t go to Tufts for engineering. It’s not as good as Cornell, UVA or Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>I went to CMU for Materials Science & Engineering and absolutely loved it. Professors were great, I got a huge selection of classes, and finding research was extremely simple, often times with professors asking for students to join their group during lectures.</p>
<p>If you have any other questions CMU or Materials, feel free to ask me here or send a PM.</p>
<p>I would say to choose from Cornell, CMU, and UVA. Those schools are strong in other areas outside of engineering, just in case your son change major.
Other than that, I don’t think for UG engineering where you go matters that much. As long as you have fun.</p>
<p>If you want a wider perspective you should post this on the boards for the respective schools.</p>
<p>I’m a student at the Tufts School of Engineering and I’m really glad I picked it. I’m currently doubling in MechE and Math, but I have plenty of friends in the other engineering fields as well as many different areas of liberal arts.<br>
One of the great things about Tufts is that if he were to decide he doesn’t want to do engineering it’s incredibly easy for him to switch into the School of Arts and Sciences (which is the opposite of the impression I got when visiting CMU; don’t know about UVA and Cornell in that respect).
I don’t know how UVA ranks in comparison to the rest of these, but Tufts is ranked lower than Cornell and CMU as far as engineering goes. I’m honestly not sure how the rankings are made but while it is clearly not as prestigious an engineering school as those two it’s still a very good school with a lot of opportunities for research and internships (from what I hear; I haven’t had much opportunity to take advantage of those yet as I’m only a sophomore). </p>
<p>The one downside is that in most of the classes I’ve taken here I haven’t been all that challenged - not to say that it’s easy here (I’ve also had a few fairly hard classes) or that that’s entirely a bad thing. I can’t say if the same would be true at another school.</p>
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Other than a few select areas like drama, architecture, and CS, Tufts is stronger than CMU in most areas and I’m sure is as strong or stronger than Cornell and UVA in plenty of areas as well.</p>
<p>I’m sure he could get a great education at any of those schools. As they are very well-known and prestigious, hey should all give plenty of opportunities for internships and such. That said, Cornell and CMU are top ten programs. I am not familiar with engineering at UVA and Tufts, but I do know that engineering companies recruit VERY heavily at Cornell and CMU.</p>
<p>As a Cornell student, I can attest to the quality of education here. The professors are renowned in their fields (but then, probably the same for the rest on your list), classes are hard, lots of opportunities for research if you’re willing to work for it, and good access to internships. (Personally I’ve had a lot of luck talking with alumni for summer internships.) </p>
<p>You can choose to have a life if you want. The workload can get a little hefty at times, but it’s completely manageable. It is not that difficult to get the median grade (around a B), but maintaining a high GPA can be difficult unless you really are at the top of your class. </p>
<p>Cornell is a very large and diverse school, surrounded by a small but lively college town. The campus is also very beautiful whenever it’s not winter. If you haven’t visited and have a chance, I would strongly recommend attending Cornell Days in April.</p>
<p>Hey RacinReaver. Thanks so much for your response. I really appreciate the perspective. One thing we’ve been wondering about in particular: The CMU emphasis on research, vs. interning in industry. The admissions dean we spoke was quite proud about keeping it academic and professor-oriented within CMU, as opposed to co-op study and working for an outside company during undergrad years. How do you come down on that distinction? Limiting? Or smart? Goodness knows we all get enough on-the-job experience for the rest of our lives!</p>
<p>Is this assuming he gets into all of these…? If anything shouldn’t he choose…?</p>
<p>I know people that did co-ops through the school (the professor in the materials department that coordinates them is a really nice guy, and has spent a decent amount of time in industry, so he has a fair share of connections, too). I know one spent a lot of time working for GE, and I don’t remember where the other was. Friend at GE liked it a lot, and I believe wound up working there after graduating.</p>
<p>Of course, co-ops aren’t the only option for ways to get into industry. I had friends in materials that interned at Ford, GM, Johnson & Johnson, a few steel companies, Intel, and a few others I don’t remember.</p>
<p>There’s plenty of time to do both options, though. I have friends that spent one summer working in industry, and another summer at CMU working for a professor. I spent my freshman summer working at a company I won a scholarship from in high school, sophomore year at CMU working for a materials professor, junior summer at the University of California, Irvine in a program sponsored by the NSF, and after graduating a semester early, working for one of my professors at CMU for nine months until I started grad school in the fall.</p>
<p>While CMU is a very research-oriented school, with most of its research being less tied to industry than, say, Penn State, many of its students decide to go to industry after graduating. One thing that’s great about CMU is since we’re such a huge engineering school we get all the top engineering companies to visit, but you also get all of the large finance companies looking for quants and whatnot thanks to our strong business school. So if you decide you’re sick of engineering after four years, there will still be plenty of other companies around recruiting.</p>
<p>Also, since I’m replying again, I figure I ought to address hebrewhammer’s comment about the ability to switch to other majors. While CMU might be a little more difficult to change majors than other schools, it all depends on the direction you’re going. It’s very easy to switch from the engineering college into the college of humanities or sciences. It will be difficult to switch into the school of CS. Due to its rising popularity the school of business (Tepper) might not be as easy as it used to be, but I’m sure there’s still a bit of expected room for engineering/CS students that decide to switch.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the detailed response, Hammer. My fear, obviously, is that my son will be accepted to, and attend, an engineering factory, and miss out on that wide-ranging sample of ideas that college is great for. Also curious about how your mix of classes goes. Are you taking things outside of engineering, or are you pretty much locked in to a curriculum? Is study abroad a possibility? And lastly, do you have friends working the tech corridor around Boston? That seems like an awesome possibility.</p>
<p>Not to worry, Critical. Of course he’ll decide. But not without a ton of research into the programs to see what suits him best. And what else are we going to do between now and April?</p>
<p>Majors in the engineering school at Tufts have significantly more required courses than those in the school of arts and sciences, so there aren’t as many opportunities to take other courses. However, each engineering major requires a certain number of humanities, arts, and social science courses, so there is still room for breadth. This last semester I took almost exclusively math and engineering classes (except for a physical education massage course called Bodyworks) and enjoyed it a lot. This coming semester I’m taking public speaking and intro to philosophy in addition to my required engineering courses.
Also, having come in with a few AP credits I have some more leeway and will be able to get a double major in math without too much extra work. I don’t know anyone specifically working at the tech companies around here, but I’m only a sophomore so most of the people I know are underclassmen (so haven’t gotten the chance yet) or are on the track/xc team with me (so don’t have as much free time to pursue those things). There are a few career fairs during the year that are attended by a number of local tech companies. Here’s the list for one coming up in a few weeks:
[Tufts</a> University - Career Services](<a href=“http://careers.tufts.edu/students/scitechfair.asp#employers]Tufts”>http://careers.tufts.edu/students/scitechfair.asp#employers)</p>
<p>I don’t think you’d have to worry about your son being at an “engineering factory” as long as he goes to a college with a strong student body. Most of my engineering friends had interests outside of the sciences. Out of the fifteen or so people in my major, one got a dual degree in french horn, one minored in design, one minored in photography, one minored in CS, one double majored in psychology, a ton double majored in biomedical engineering, and just about all of us were involved in activities outside of engineering.</p>
<p>Even here at Caltech, a school certainly more sciency than CMU, the undergraduate student body has tons of varied interests, from cooking to psychology to history to English. There are clubs in everything, and just because the piece of paper you’re getting at the end of four years isn’t in a liberal arts field doesn’t mean you won’t have a chance to appreciate them.</p>
<p>You mentioned materials engineering… </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure UVA doesn’t have a materials major for undergrads. I don’t know how interested in materials engineering your son is, but he should factor that into his decision. </p>
<p>That said: UVA has an honors engineering program that has some pretty sweet perks. If I’d gone there, I wouldn’t have had to pay tuition–only room and board–and I would have gotten first pick on classes over non-honors students.</p>