Any thoughts in general? Career placement?
What major is your son thinking of? I think the two schools are quite different. Mines is much smaller than Purdue
and has less football culture, although it is a division 2 sports school. Purdue has a better national reputation, Mines has a solid regional reputation but in fact ranked as the best engineering college in Colorado aside from Air Force Academy. Purdue is in a slightly boring town, although the campus brings a lot to the students in terms of music and the football speaks for itself. Kids at Mines find skiing, hiking and Denver’s amenities just a light rail ride away. Boulder is not far from Golden for those that have a car. (there is a bus between Golden and Boulder too, its about 20 miles north). So in terms of location, Mines I think may be more fun, for a kid who wants to ski, and hike. Both schools really help undergrads succeed although they both offer masters and PhD programs too, so there is research for undergrads, grant money is good at both schools. Many Colorado students choose Purdue for the reputation.
Purdue has a slightly lower admissions standard, especially for the arts and science college, than Mines does.
Mines is truly like a private school education at a public school price for Coloradoans. In terms of academics, Purdue may offer slightly stronger electrical engineering and computer science. Mines and Purdue are about the same for chemical and mechanical engineering, both very strong, I would say. Purdue may have more majors outside of engineering. Mines offers only economics, physics, chemistry, math and statistics, and of course geology, in addition to all flavors of engineering. Purdue offers Aerospace but Mines does not. (Mechanical or electrical engineers or CS majors at Mines do get hired by our aerospace industry here, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grummon, Ball Aerospace ) Mines has some of the best geology, mining, metallurgy, chemical engineering anywhere, and petroleum and explosive engineering is unique very specialized programs for the mining and oil and gas industries. Mines graduates are highly sought after by Texas, Colorado, California and Oklahoma energy companies. (oil and natural gas, but also wind and solar )
Have toured them both and they are quite different. CSM is a much smaller intimate campus. Both are strong in career placement with a lot of co-ops offered.
Hi
My brother went to Mines. He did really well applying to grad school in engineering, his major was Engineering physics. I think if you are really sure you want to do one of the majors at CSM, it’s a really good school with a reputation of being very tough. I think employers and grad programs know this about the school.
I’m probably going to Purdue, I didn’t consider Mines because they don’t have aerospace. I also might want to consider a minor in econ or policy something like that and thought Purdue might be better. If you have even an idea of switching out of engineering, Purdue would def. be better.