Crowd / Student Life / Undergraduate Engineering

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
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<p>When I visited Wash U, it appeared to me that the school was quite crowded; does that always appear to be the case? Do any of you have trouble finding seats in the classroom or in the dining hall?</p>

<p>Also, how would you describe the balance between academic and social life over there? How are the students? Do you guys really feel that the "collaborative, not competitive" atmosphere is there?</p>

<p>Lastly, does anyone have anything to say about the Undergraduate Engineering school? How were your experiences?</p>

<p>I'm really trying to decide whether to apply ED to Wash U or Duke, and I think having a student's perspective would really help. I'd really appreciate any opinions/pros/cons about the school.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>My final college decision actually came down to WashU/Duke. I was undecided when I applied to schools, so I applied to a bunch and figured “hey I’ll go where I’m accepted”… then got accepted everywhere I applied. I had LOVED Duke when I visited. Then visited WashU and loved it even more & had more options for my non-academic interests. I think I just fit WashU better, to be honest, and I’ve never once regret my decision to choose it over Duke. That being said, I think I would have been perfectly happy at Duke too. At some point you just have to make a decision & stop second guessing yourself. Both are positively fantastic schools & I really think the decision on this (assuming finances aren’t an issue) needs to really come down to a “gut” feeling.</p>

<p>For reference, I entered WashU in Fall 2008 & graduated spring 13 with my BS/MS in engineering.</p>

<p>So as to your actual questions:</p>

<p>When did you visit? I don’t think I’d ever refer to WUSTL as “crowded.” For the dining hours seating can be tough but not impossible. If you eat at non-peak times though (aka don’t go to Holmes for a carvery wrap at noon) it shouldn’t be an issue at all.</p>

<p>For balance, most (myself included) describe it as a work hard, party hard school. If you want to party, there are plenty to find. If you want to stay in with a LAN party in the engineering school on a Friday night, that happens too. There’s a broad range of student interests in this regard.</p>

<p>I’m also a huge believer that it’s very collaborative, even in the stereotypical cut-throat premed classes. Here’s a comment from myself from a few months back on this topic: <a href=“Pre-Med competitiveness - #3 by Johnson181 - Washington University in St. Louis - College Confidential Forums”>Pre-Med competitiveness - #3 by Johnson181 - Washington University in St. Louis - College Confidential Forums;

<p>I was an engineering student and absolutely loved the ESE department. So much so that I majored in both EE & Systems, as well as stayed a fifth year for my EE Masters.
Imo it’s very department based, and I could go on page-long rants about how much I dislike the BME department (I was BME for 2/3 years before I switched to ESE). That being said, since Yin is no longer the BME dept chair things may have changed/be in the process of changing. Also to be fair, lots of the things I dislike about BME are not WUSTL specific… and I imagine I would have had similar issues with Duke BME.</p>

<p>Funny enough, my only 1 major complaint about WashU is no longer an issue, and I’m so peeved it took the ACA/Obamacare to fix it. When I was a student, you were forced to buy school health insurance (on top of your family plan, if you had one). That screwed me over so many times I cannot even count… (because in Missouri if you have a personal plan as a student you have to use it before you can use a family plan like mine). I really hate SHS. But that’s a topic for another day.</p>

<p>(You no longer need to buy a health insurance plan from Wustl. They changed that just after I graduated due to issues with ACA compliance, I believe. Grrrrr).</p>

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<p>Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!</p>

<p>I hear that companies that hire engineers coming out of Wash U are mostly located on the west coast and in the midwest… Is this true? This might be problematic, as I live on the east coast.</p>

<p>Also, do you care to share what are some things that you loved most about the school?</p>

<p>Again, I really really appreciate your reply!</p>

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<p>Considering the fact that Duke is significantly harder to get into than WUSTL is, you may want to apply ED there and give yourself the best chance of being accepted. You have a much higher likelihood of being admitted to WUSTL in the RD round. Just my $0.02.</p>

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<p>To assert that Duke is “significantly harder to get into” is so ignorant. WashU’s acceptance rate is 15% and Duke University’s is 11%. If you look at the data regarding student selectivity, WashU not only had higher SAT and ACT scores for their incoming freshman, but WashU also had more students graduating in the top 10% of their high school class. </p>

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<p>As for the East Coast, I have tons of (engineering) friends that now work in NY, CT, & Jersey. A few in Baltimore/DC areas. You can really go wherever you want. I work for a company now that doesn’t recruit at WashU so I don’t think it’s really a necessity to pick a school solely based on who recruits there. (That being said, several east coast businesses do recruit at wustl). </p>

<p>As for what I loved most about the school…</p>

<p>Probably the laid back, chill atmosphere. I also really enjoyed that even up until my last few months on campus I was meeting new people & gaining new friends. Even though 60% of the student body comes from >500 miles away, it still has a very friendly midwest feel to it, which I loved. For the record, I went to high school in the south but have ties to the west coast & northeast, so the midwest was brand new to me.</p>

<p>And just how challenged I was. I barely had to work in high school, and then got to washu and was surrounded by some of the smartest people I will probably ever meet in my lifetime. What’s crazy to me is seeing now how successful they’re all becoming. Either making it big on Wall Street, doing insane research in a phd program, in med school, whatever, you name it. Actually the shear number of friends I have in grad programs right now is kind of insane compared to my coworkers college friend group (I did a rotational program at my company so there were 20 of us all fresh out of college thrown together).</p>

<p>I also really loved how students from the 5 schools don’t have problems meeting. I know it’s an issue at other schools where the engineers stick together, or the art students are off in their own cluster, but that was never my experience at washu. Sure, a solid chunk of my friends were engineers just by the nature of having class with them (or them being my company at 3am in the computer lab…), but it wasn’t my everything, if that makes sense. Look at my sophomore suite, for example (people I got to choose to live with): 1 engineer, 1 art student, 1 bschooler, & 1 artsci. We were as different as could be but were still pretty close. </p>