<p>It's not really mentioned a lot on these boards and I can't find any great outside review of their program. I'm wondering about strength of engineering professors, caliber of kids, etc.</p>
<p>I know I want to do engineering going into college, so I've heard people say I should pretty much discount all Ivies except for Cornell, but I think I like the feel of Dartmouth. I want to make sure the engineering curriculum is research-focused and good enough preparation for grad school.</p>
<p>If research is what you're into, go for one of the standard powerhouses: MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Illinois, Michigan, GaTech, Cornell, etc. Dartmouth has a small program and I suspect a high proportion of their grads end up working in finance or something else unrelated to engineering.</p>
<p>Dartmouth engineering does very well at getting its students into top engineering grad schools and into careers in finance and consulting. Its not that great at getting you into standard engineering jobs (like manufacturing, chemical, etc) because it, like most of the top 10, is less focused on this type of placement.</p>
<p>Where you go for engineering undergrad doesn't matter (this I've heard from a Cornell engineering PhD). You learn the same thing everywhere, whether you study engineering at Dartmouth or MIT. Go to a school with a good name. Dartmouth won't have many tech companies come to recruit on campus compared to an engineering powerhouse like MIT or Stanford, and it's not too big on engineering research, but you will still get a good education and get the edge on non-ivy students. Plus, if you decide engineering is not for you ( a common occurrence among engineering students, in my experience), you'll have other things to do at Dartmouth. Plus, the quality of engineering students at Dartmouth is probably higher than the quality of engineering students at places with good engineering reputations but okay overall reputations like UIUC, or GaTech, since Dartmouth is much harder to get into overall.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind with D, that you may need to spend 5 total years if you want to get a BS in some specific field in addition to the BA in general engineering, which may or may not be a popular thing to do (I have no clue)</p>
<p>I think with programs like Dartmouth, a very liberal-arts-like school, you might run into problems with lab equipments, and as someone said undergraduate research opportunities might be scarce for an engineering student, also might not have as much of a support system, in the ways of engineering societies, engineering clubs and student-run engineering teams(solar car, F-1, automotive). I don't see how teaching can be bad in the ivies, I do think that your hands on technology skills might be weaker because ivies usually choose not to spend money on engineering.(they are expensive to buy, and expensive to maintain)</p>
<p>I think you'll get just as good jobs in the traditional engineering hiring companies, like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, big name manufacturing firms, and needless to say, consulting and financial services are big. </p>
<p>But I think you'll run into problems if you were to pursue the elite engineering jobs, at Google and Microsoft. They usually target the engineering powerhouses on campus and don't do much hiring from the internet.</p>
<p>The last few post speak to the confusion- and misinformation- around engineering. Microsoft and Google primarily hire CS grads, and Dartmouth does fine in this area. As for support, it could not get better than Dartmouth. Grants, clubs, etc abound. Those who want to go to grad school do very vry well. Job wise, the reality is most Ivy engineers realize they can make MUCH more money in finance and most go this route. My friends who graduated and went on to places like Boeing are actually coming back to get MBAs, having felt a strong cap on their ability to move up at engineering firms.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for support, it could not get better than Dartmouth. Grants, clubs, etc abound.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>By support, are you referring to engineering societies, clubs, and teams that keefer is referring to? If so, I don't see how your claim can be true unless I'm significantly underestimating the engineering passion of Dartmouth students.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has a very nice, new engineering building/lab...we visited this spring to look at the engineering program and overall weren't too impressed besides the nice building; I'm sure you could get a great education there, but the college is very liberal arts-based, and the ONLY B.S. degree you can get in the whole college is from a 5th year study in engineering, and you would have to arrange early on to take courses in that area. It seems fine, but for the amount of money and time, you could get a 5-year Masters degree from several other good schools</p>
<p>
[quote]
Microsoft and Google primarily hire CS grads, and Dartmouth does fine in this area.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I think you'd find at some other schools there are some engineers that are recruited quite nicely by the big computing type firms. Last year, Google took one person, Microsoft took six, Adobe took one, and Yahoo took one ECE major.</p>
<p>But I agree, if you want to work for those companies you'd be best off doing CS. I imagine if you wanted to work for actual big-name engineering companies (like for computer engineering AMD, Intel, or nVidia), you'd still be best off at a really big name school that's known for it's engineering programs.</p>
<p>Also, slipper, the people you knew that did engineering, were the interested in it as a passion or just as a way to get a job and make more money than being an English major?</p>
<p>My engineering friends, I believe, saw engineering as a much more interesting path than econ to enjoy their education while still being highly recruited by finance/ consulting. It also gave them a really valuable, and desired, skill set. One of my best friends, for example, worked at Citigroup after graduation and now works in Venture Capital after graduating from a top 3 business school.</p>
<p>Check out the website a little further OP. YOu can get a sense of the department, the support, the partnerships, the research a lot better that way. </p>
<p>I attended a speech by a fellow who graduated from Dartmouth in EE. He took 5 years to get the BS and then spend six months jobless because he didn't want to settle in Boston or thereabouts. From my perspective, he was someone who could have had an additional 1.5 years of work (experience, money) if he'd gone to a state school in the region he wanted to settle in. I can only hope he gained some other advantages in going there.</p>
<p>If you like the feel of the school and think you'll be happy, go ahead and attend Dartmouth. Dartmouth Engineering might not have the same weight of a state school or MIT but that doesn't mean you can't find a job--you'll just have to excel and be a little more proactive with recruiters. Also since you seem intent on graduate school, Dartmouth might be a good choice due to the small department that could aid in research experience with professors.</p>
<p>Graduate schools typically don't care about where their incoming students come from and instead look at GPA, experience and passion for future studies.</p>