<p>When you look at the rankings in US colleges and world report, they have ranking of schools where a doctorate is the highest degree and those without doctorate programs. </p>
<p>Since they all offer bachelor programs, what is the real difference in how their undergraduate engineering programs are done?</p>
<p>Schools without a doctorate are generally referred to as “teaching schools” whereas schools with doctorates are “research schools”. At teaching schools, professors are hired and promoted based on their ability to teach, whereas at research schools, professors are hired and promoted based on their ability to perform cutting-edge research.</p>
<p>So what does this mean as a student? First, undergraduates at teaching schools do not have access to the level of research that they would have access to at research schools. While teaching schools sometimes perform research, their research is of the practical nature and not of the theoretical nature (e.g. performing crash tests on cars rather than trying to theoretically design safer cars). The former is not going to give you much advantage in grad school applications, whereas the latter will.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider are the professors. At research schools, professors are told to spend 30% or less of their time teaching. This means that if a student has a question, it will have to be asked during office hours. To ask questions you might have to go to a graduate TA first, and only if the TA can’t answer the question do you get access to the professor. At a teaching school, professors are required to be much more accessible and open and to engage students frequently outside of the classroom. However, there’s a downside to this arrangement. Teaching schools pay much, much less than research schools, so you get many professors who simply couldn’t find employment at research schools (admittedly, some willingly take a 50% or more pay cut because they enjoy teaching, but that’s not the norm). Also, you run into an issue where professors who are not actively researching, attending conferences, reviewing papers for journals, etc. stop learning. As a result, you might be taught information that’s 20 or 30 years old, not the latest and greatest in your current field. </p>
<p>Finally, a major issue is that with only a few exceptions, the teaching schools tend to be lower ranked and smaller programs, whereas the research schools tend to be larger and higher ranked. Both size and rank attract employers, giving the research school graduates an advantage on the job market.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize that professors at, say Rutgers make much, much more money than professors at Bucknell. How much more relevant research would an undergraduate engineering student at Rutgers have over an undergrad at Bucknell?
These are two schools we looked at for engineering.</p>
<p>Thanks for such a thorough and helpful response BanjoHitter! There are a few non-doctorate programs that are highly regarded eg Cal Poly SLO but it was difficult to get a sense of why one might go to one or the other. The non-doctorate programs did seem to have smaller programs which can mean more personal attention but I think it is important to be exposed to the latest and newest no matter what field you are studying as a student.</p>
<p>Is it just me or has anyone noticed that many “professors” couldn’t careless about doing research once they reach tenure??? In another word, many professors have stopped doing research, or reviewing journal papers, just because they reach tenure.</p>
<p>Some, but not most. Most faculty just switch from research that will probably get published to things that might not get published in the best journals, but are things they’ve always wanted to look into.</p>
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<p>About 50% or so more to start, up to 100% more at the senior associate / full professor level.</p>
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<p>Maybe none if the Rutgers student doesn’t pursue research, could be a considerable amount if the Rutgers student finds a good researcher willing to work with her.</p>
<p>I can partially agree with several points stated by Banjohitter.</p>
<p>Universities without a large research arm will typically be disadvantaged by lack of inflow of sizable research dollars that often cross subsidize the universities’ teaching operation; and therefore, professors’ salary, and hence quality, are adversely impacted. </p>
<p>However, there are obviously very high profile and well known exceptions to that rule. Elite colleges such as the little Ivies (e.g. Amherst, Bowdin, Williams, etc.), Claremont colleges (e.g. Harvey Mudd), Cooper Union, Olin, Rose-Hulman, and other top LACs (e.g. Swarthmore) with engineering, are often VERY teaching focused and yet their faculty are comparable in their credential and compensation to many top research universities. Granted, the schools I have cited are all private with very large endowments, and this could account for why they don’t need to compromise on their teaching staff quality and compensation. But nonetheless, there are enough notable top quality teaching colleges in the US to challenge the generalization that teaching universities are of lower quality. </p>
<p>For top public teaching colleges, they are harder to find. Cal Poly SLO would be the most notable example in engineering. Cal Poly compensates for their lack of a substantial research arm by being very industry focused in terms of producing graduates that meet the immediate needs of Fortune 100 corporations. In return, these Multi-national corporations (e.g. Cisco, HP, Google, Lockheed) provide steady stream of funding and sponsorships to Cal Poly SLO to enhance their facilities and endowing professorships. A good example of this is the completion of Cal Poly’s latest engineering complex consisting of several large scale privately funded engineering buildings and labs. Through this strong symbiotic relationship, Cal Poly is able to maintain its faculty quality without an outsize research budget. But with the ongoing budget blood letting in California, universities such as Cal Poly, and all other CA public universities, are effectively being privatized (i.e. students pay lion share of the tuition, and the state just pay a cursory subsidy). If this privatization wave continues, then perhaps even the likes of Cal Poly will start to act more and more like their LAC counterparts (i.e. constantly fund raising, increase tuition, lower the number of students admitted, and become the provider of education to a select few) or risk being completely marginalized.</p>
<p>I think there are differences which one is better for which student depends on the student. </p>
<p>There comes a transition in everyone’s life where they go from being taught to knowing how to teach oneself. In the end, the latter is the model an engineer must take into the workforce. Somehow we all have to get there. </p>
<p>The earlier a student can self-teach, the more beneficial going to a top flight research university will be. Sure there are some great teachers; being a great researcher often does correlate with being a great teacher because both require great insight into the material. However, there will always be those professors who don’t care or don’t try to master teaching. Nonetheless, for a student who has learned how to self-teach, overall, the experience of being around high caliber like-minded individuals, the experience of having access to graduate students and professors at the top of their field are very valuable. It’s not as if there will be no instruction, but I think it is important to recognize that no matter who teaches a class, they can never cover as much as they need to anyway. Problem sets, and study sessions with peers are where much of the actual learning occurs. Early recognition of this, coming to class having already carefully pre-read the lecture, making a pass at problem sets the day they are assigned to figure out what you don’t know well in advance, are all tools of the trade of the self-teachers. Then these students can make the best use of the limited resources like lectures and office hours to excel. </p>
<p>However, for students who have not yet been able to experience self-teaching, or those who have not bought into it yet, I feel that these high power schools leave something to be desired, and the smaller “teaching” colleges can lead to better outcomes. I believe that these teaching colleges have a higher retention rate of engineering students. </p>
<p>I also don’t think that it is black and white which are research universities and which are teaching colleges. I think Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, Rose-Hulman and WPI are all teaching colleges. There are very good teachers at a lot of research universities also. </p>
<p>I think as an engineer, your value is proportional to your capabilities. After four years, you’ve learned what you’ve learned and people end up with different capabilities. </p>
<p>At top research universities, you have the opportunity to go much further in your studies, if you can handle it. But it’s not the right path for everyone. For some slower, surer with more support is better than going to fast and flying off the rails.</p>