<p>I just wanted to hear the opinion of any dads out there who attended what I refer to as "techie" colleges - you know, RPI, WPI, RIT, that sort of place. How was it to be in that environment? Did you have an OK social life? Did you wish there were more girls? Was that a really negative thing? Do you ever regret not attending a more "normal" college or university?</p>
<p>I'm asking this because my second son is very technically oriented. He will be a HS junior in the fall, but already says he wants to be an electrical or computer engineer. After being at an all boys school since 7th grade, I'm a little worried about the social scene in college.</p>
<p>If you've been there, I'd love to hear how it seems in hindsight. Thanks.</p>
<p>I started out in engineering but wasn't at a techie college. </p>
<p>However, the one caveat that I'll give is: a lot of experience from when this parental generation was going to college is now obsolete, in many dimensions.</p>
<p>Just one small dimension is the increased number of women in the science and engineering fields. They're still a minority but it's not like when I was going to school and 2 out of 600 were women...and both were named Karen.</p>
<p>Its funny how that name is coming back- my daughter has one on her soccer team and one in the graduating class
I spell it with an 'i" though- but pronounced the same</p>
<p>My H went to MIT and we just discussed this very thing as S was accepted there this year. When H was there (in the 70s) the student body was 75% male; now it is much closer to 50/50. That said, while he might (would) have liked more girls around, he thoroughly enjoyed his undergrad experience.</p>
<p>My H went to a state polytechnic for undergrad. It was in the days of the dinosaurs of course -- few women and practically no liberal arts courses. He loved one of the two non-engineering classes he took and definitely resents not having had more. Moreover, after getting his PhD in engineering, he's ended up working with a lot of scientists and has always felt the distinction. He would rather have been a scientist. When it comes to our son, who also has mathematical leanings, my husband did not encourage him to do engineering. While he would not have stood in his way if he had wanted to apply to MIT, he was happy he chose universities at which he would get an education in science, math, and liberal arts.</p>
<p>While my son eventually choose that other Cambridge school (he is more interested in theory than applied math), I would not be so quick to discount the non-technical couses at MIT. Knowing the general caliber of the faculty there, I'll wager their offerings are as good, if not better, than most schools. Also, consider the intellectual curiosity of the other students in those classes.</p>
<p>I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from You-know-where (both undergrad and grad - 7 years there). It was a gazillion years ago and there were almost no women on campus then. The lyrics of the fight song kind of allude to this:</p>
<p>Oh, if I had a daughter, sir,
I'd dress her in white and gold,
And put her on the campus
To cheer the brave and bold.
But if I had a son, sir,
I'll tell you what he'd do--
He would yell: 'TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!'
Like his daddy used to do.</p>
<p>Back then, most of dates either came from local HS girls that cruised the campus looking to pick up guys ("bird-dogging") or students from Agnes Scott (not that close by). I still remember the phone number of the main desk for the dorms at Agnes Scott: F-R-E-A-K-S-1 (I kid you not) and the little ditty about the girls there which I won't repeat because it was disgusting and degrading. But that's what going to a mostly male school gave you, I think,l in the attitude towards women. Not healthy. When I went to grad school at the Univ of South Florida (before I later left when I got a chance to go back to grad school at Ga. Tech), I was amazed at being in classes with so many women. How could anyone pay attention, I wondered, with so many distractions around? So, yep - I was warped for life :).</p>
<p>On the other hand, I got involved with left-of-center politics and anti-war causes and all of the things you would NOT expect of Techies, so I guess it wasn't totally stiffling.</p>
<p>But today it might be TOTALLY different. Just having a higher percentage of females on campus HAS to make a big difference.</p>
<p>My husband went to RPI. From what little he says, I gather he didn't have any trouble meeting girls. (He got married his junior year---and divorced a few years later.) He was quite shocked recently when my nephew was accepted at Skidmore... he still thought it was all girls. He also dated some Pine Manor girls, I think. His )now) ex-wife was an RPI student. </p>
<p>The MIT men I knew (also back in the 70s) dated girls from Simmons and Wellesley, and even Smith and Holyoke. At that point, MIT was about 10% female. </p>
<p>My son lives on the MIT campus because the fraternities are mostly all-male and so the dorms are more than half female. He has a lot of female just-friends. Things have definitely changed!</p>
<p>Weenie, I am the mom of a prospective RPI student (will be attending in the fall). My husband and I have had very similar concerns. My son is very quiet and has dated very little in high school, so we were very concerned about him going to a school that is 75% male. However, there were a lot of female students at the Admitted Student Open House - in fact he was the only male at the table we sat at during the opening remarks. It will be interesting to see whether the class of 2010 has a higher percentage of females. Even as we toured the facilities, there were a lot of female students around. I'm guessing that since there are more frats than sororities, more females live on campus, while more men move off campus. We spoke with a neighbor who graduated from RPI over 30 years ago and he met his wife while there.</p>
<p>To theDad, my sister graduated in Engineering from U of M and there were only two girls that graduated in Engineering that year and they both had the same name but their name was not Karen. Did you by any wild chance change the name?</p>
<p>weenie
my neice's boyfriend is a recent computer science grad from one of the more well known branches of the State U of NY.He said there were NO female comp sci majors in his year and barely any in his major classes.But at least he was on a campus with females from other majors LOL</p>
<p>My H attended a state u known for engineering in the late 70's. The school had just started admitting girls in the late 60's. The male/female ratio was pretty lopsided. Even so, he still had plenty of interaction with females because his dorm (that he lived in for 3 years) was co-ed
and also there were 2 all feamle colleges just down the road whose students flocked to the fraternity parties at big state u.</p>
<p>Fast forward 25 years, S1 now attends same state u. The ratio there now is more like 55/45 because other majors offered by the school (business, accounting, more liberal arts offerings) have become popular with females. Every dorm on campus is now co-ed except for 2 that are all female. Plus the same all female schools from Dad's era are still right down the road! No problem meeting girls at this engineering school.</p>
<p>I agree with TheDad----too much has changed in the past generation for our experiences to be of much use. </p>
<p>I was an engineering student at a school whose football team was the Engineers (lehigh) so I qualify. Was all male when I started, what was I thinking?? We had "mixers" where girls were actually bussed in from other schools, seems hilarious now. Went coed while I was there, the pioneer girls all 100 of them were viewed as anomalies who were stared at much like if Paris Hilton were to enroll in your school today. So yeah I wish I went to a more "normal" school. But Lehigh today is fairly normal.</p>
<p>otoh son at CMU (definitely techie) found 60/40 m/f quite manageable (far better than 40/1 like I experienced!), there were even maybe 25% in his CS major and they were treated like one of the guys ( I mean this in a good way).</p>
<p>My son is interested in engineering bacause I am an engineer, but my advice to him is: go to an university or a LAC with an engineering major. I have 2 concerns about engineering school:</p>
<ol>
<li>Not so many non-engineering courses being offered. Kids at this age need a balanced experience, they should have the opportunities to explore as much as they can outside engineering world.</li>
<li>Male/female ratio, but this is a less concern compare #1</li>
</ol>
<p>Son choose a good university to attend eventhough its engineering dept is not well known. hopefully by the time son graduate he will not blame me on the advice:-)</p>
<p>Another RPI alumnus here. TheDad is right of course, things are a LOT different now. Back then there were too few women and too few electives. Hopefully that will NOT be the case for today's generation.</p>
<p>I would like to put in a good word for "techie" schools though. It was wonderful to go from being a "geek" in HS to joining a collection of similarly minded students and just being "part of the crowd." Social nirvana? No. Technical nirvana, yes.</p>
<p>PS, When I first visited RPI I asked a student where the computer lab was located. His response was "Which one?" I was home.</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks digmedia for resurrecting this thread. So, a year later (can that be???!!!) my son still wants to be an engineer, and when we visited RPI he thought it looked just great.</p>
<p>So many good opinions, all reflective of concerns of mine. He'll probably end up applying to a bunch of different schools and see what happens. He's a really well adjusted kid (if I must say so myself ;) ) and will probably fit well into almost any environment. Money is always a big consideration for us.</p>
<p>NewHope - I liked your story about the computer labs. That would be just like my kid.</p>
<p>dad77, I think the college you were referring to was Green Mountain. There is also Russell Sage and in the past, Emma Wilard, a girls boarding school that Jane Fonda was rumored to have attended.</p>
<p>Current RPI guys also meet girls from UAlbany, St Rose and to a lesser extent Sienna and Skidmore. While the 3:1 ratio will not significantly change anytime soon, RPI frosh retention in recent years has been 92%+ which is indicative that its students are satisfied with "Tute" life.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with posters who feel the curriculum at techie colleges is light on the hss courses. The engneering curriculum at RPI is similar to most other engineering colleges in that requires engineering students to take 5 HSS courses and provides 3 free electives to choose as they wish, ie either HSS, sci/math or engineering courses. There is no engineering curriculum today that limits engineering student to 2 hss courses. While the depth and extent of HSS course offerings at RPI cannot rival a general university or LAC, it certainly offers more than enough intriguing ones to satisfy the 5-8 course requirement. My son has already taken coures titled Wisdom, Love and Character, Anarchism and Democracy, and Minds and Machines. He also wants to take courses in Ghanaian Drum Ensemble and Deep Listening.</p>
<p>One reason engineering curricula are relatively uniform among all colleges of engineering is because of ABET criteria required of certified programs. A number of these criteria are fulfilled by HSS courses.</p>
<p>Weenie, My H went to a "techie" school that at the time was 75% male. He loved it there. He loved the fact that there was a school with so many people "just like him". He loved that everyone was in the same boat, if you didn't work hard, you wouldn't last very long. He loved the friends that he made and they were "real friends" as he would say, friends who would cross the ocean to help you and ones that you would cross the ocean to help. </p>
<p>He played a sport and wouldn't change the experience for anything.</p>
<p>Now from his wife's experience, he was a little, how shall I put this, a little immature with women. He had great male friends, but he was a little stillted with women. Even though he went to school with mostly men and works still with mostly men, he found a wife somehow so I think that it all works out.</p>
<p>My S is going to attend the same college that his fatherwent to.<br>
Even though it far away and the male female ratio is not great, he still picked it.</p>
<p>Why?he knew the minute that he stepped on campus, to see a school where everyone looked like you was nirvana! It was just the right fit. You can't explain it, it's just right.</p>