"Creative" mechanical engineering schools e.g. Stanford, MIT

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>The window for '15 fall transfer apps have started, and I seem to be quite a bit behind. I live in California attending a cc w/ a 3.53 GPA (Hopefully will be 3.67 by the end of Spring '14) and am planning to apply to Cal, UCSD, UCI, Cal Poly Pomona/SLO, and CSULB as backup. </p>

<p>To give some background, I am a former art/design student (accepted into art school, declined 3 years ago) who specialized in designing vehicles (mostly aesthetics, some layout and market research) and would like to eventually land a job as a "creative" engineering type job like a product development role at a design consultancy such as IDEO. But there are no rankings I can look at to gauge the creativity and vision of an engineering department, and how much they focus on those aspects of engineering. Cal Poly SLO, for example, boasts its philosophy on hands on teaching method and their alumni's employment rates, but there's no statistic to show what kind of jobs the students got into. </p>

<p>I know that MIT and Stanford has programs in product design and studios where students can experiment, but I have not heard of many others so far. In fact I know that many of IDEO's employees come from Stanford due to their connections and proximity to its Palo Alto office. But unfortunately my chances of getting into Stanford is virtually nonexistent. So... I was wondering if there were other more affordable and reachable schools where creative thinking is encouraged and/or taught? </p>

<p>Some projects that I'd be interested in for example: </p>

<p>Ultra low drag forms with favorable aesthetics
Easy to use, visually benign prosthetic limbs
Energy recovery mechanisms to replace lawns in arid climates</p>

<p>These speakers made by Stanford students:
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningfarmlabs/timbre-redefining-the-desktop-speaker"&gt;https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/runningfarmlabs/timbre-redefining-the-desktop-speaker&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And generally end-user products that people enjoy using.
So my question is: Are there any colleges that would be superior to others in this aspect? Ideally both the practical and the creative side. Or am I aiming too far above my skill set and abilities? Right now my plans are to get a BS in mech.e and an MS in design if necessary.</p>

<p>I really appreciate it if you read this far. Here's a genuine thank you for taking your time to read this!</p>

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<p>You might want to add SJSU as people keep mentioning they get hired at Apple frequently, and we know they like design. This is not something I know much about but thinking to take a look at CMU, RIT, they have engineering, technical design and arts orientations. I suppose there are cost issues too, though?</p>

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<p>Check out Olin College of Engineering. <a href=“http://www.olin.edu”>www.olin.edu</a>.</p>

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<p>Check out Case Western’s “think[box]” as well.</p>

<p><a href=“About | Sears think[box] | Case Western Reserve University”>About | Sears think[box] | Case Western Reserve University; </p>

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<p>This is not what you are looking for for CPSLO?
<a href=“https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2012%20-%202013”>https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php?yr=2012%20-%202013&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;