Drexel versus Northeastern for Mechanical Engineering and Honors college

<p>My DS has been accepted to both Drexel's and Northeastern's honors colleges for mechanical engineering. </p>

<p>He seems to be most interested in the robotics/mechatronics side of mechanical engineering. </p>

<p>What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each of these departments for my son's interests, considering both research happening on campus and access to relevant co-ops? And what do you think are the pros and cons of each of the honors programs. (We have some ideas about these things already, but we'd like to hear what others think.) </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>I can’t speak much about Northeastern. </p>

<p>However, I can tell you that Mechanical Engineering is Drexel’s largest department within the College of Engineering. There are a multitude of Robotics programs, HUBO being the most well-known project, although there are others that are quite popular. </p>

<p>Drexel’s College of Engineering is THE largest private engineering school in the country (This is a plus for most because there are alot of resources available with such a large student body, at the same time can be a minus if your son wants to know everyone in every class), and is saturated with opportunities for research too. As a freshman, you can get involved in undergraduate research simply by emailing professors or stopping by their office and talking to them. Drexel also has many programs such as the STAR Scholars program that I’d encourage you to check out. Undergraduate research is what brings many engineers to Drexel and is definitely very celebrated realm of Engineering here. </p>

<p>On the topic of honors programs, I again know nothing about Northeastern’s. Drexel’s honors program is great in my opinion. As an honors student, you get early registration for classes (HUGE bonus right there), free printing, access to the honors lounge and computer lab, and access to honors sections of various courses. To stay in the honors program is incredibly easy and doesn’t require a large time commitment either. As an honors student you also can live in the Honors Living-Learning Community, which is a community that has floors of Millennium Hall (One of DU’s residence halls) reserved for it. It’s great if your child wants to live in a community and environment of honors students. At the same time, many honors students, like myself, choose to live elsewhere because of my personal preference. Honors isn’t really that big a deal hear and the most it comes in to play is when it comes time to register for classes. </p>

<p>In terms of Co-Ops, I saw your other thread about the friends who have the pool-cleaning or what not going on. While I hate to say it, I can attest that no all Drexel Co-Ops are that amazing. But I can guarantee you with 98% certainty that those students doing jobs like that are the students who expected co-ops to be handed to them. It is IMPOSSIBLE not to get a relavent or good co-op if you have atleast somewhat decent grades, and, more importantly, go about the application process correctly. Co-Op positions aren’t handed to you at Drexel. As a student, YOU have to use Drexel’s databases to find them, YOU have to apply, YOU have to have the grades or the interview skills or the resume to land yourself the job. If you slack too much in any of those aspects, you end up in a last-minute panic, taking the first job you can find. In your friend’s case, pool-related stuff. </p>

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<p>Can you say more about which engineering courses typically have honors sections available? My impression was that most Drexel honors classes were either “special” courses outside of your major, or courses that you earn honors credit for by doing an extra project in a “regular” course. We were thinking that it was an advantage of Northeastern that there seemed to be honors sections available of a lot of the engineering core courses. </p>

<p>Can you also say more about where you choose to live rather than the Honors housing?</p>

<p>Thanks for the reassurance about relevant co-ops. Are you a Mechanical Engineering student? Could you share what some of your or your friends’ co-op jobs have been, especially the first co-op?</p>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to reply!</p>

<p>To graduate from the honors program at Drexel, students must earn a certain threshold of honors credits by the end of their senior year. Those honors credits can be achieved through two mediums; Honors Colloquia, honors sections, and honors options. Honors Colloquia are the classes you mentioned that are generally outside STEM. They include all sorts of interesting topics, whether it be a class centered around “What makes a good superhero?” or an Introductory Ballroom Dancing class.</p>

<p>Besides those honors colloquia classes are also honors sections of normal classes. For example, all freshman engineers take CHEM-101. But if you are in the honors college, you can choose to be in the honors section of CHEM-101, which covers the same material, but does so quicker with more depth and detail. There are other classes of that nature with honors sections as well; I don’t know them off-hand so I can’t necessarily give you examples, but they range for courses all over the university.</p>

<p>The last means of getting honors credits is through honors options. In this option, you plan-out a small amendment to the curriculum with the professor of a class you are taking. Generally, it ends up being an extra essay or project on something that might not have been fully taught in class but is heavily related to the subject at hand. It’s all up to the professor and the student to agree on the honors option. Many professors have pre-planned honors options for their classes from student’s before, but most professors are often quite open to you propoposing your own idea for an honors option. You can do the honors option in any department you’re taking classes with, even if it’s not your major.</p>

<p>On the topic of residence hall selection, I chose not to live in the Honors Learning Community because I already had three friends I wanted to room with prior to even filling out the housing application. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Drexel offers many types of housing for Freshmen; While we do have the traditional doubles, where there’s just two people to a room, and the bathroom is shared by the floor, we also have triples (A much larger room with 3 people better than 2. A cool option if you’re a people person and want to have more than one roommate. Also cheaper, even though there is about the same amount of space per student in the room), and Suite-Style. Suite-Style is more like an apartment, where you have two bedrooms, each with two residents in them, which are connected by a hallway and share 2 bathrooms (two showers, 1 toilet, 2 sinks), a living room, and a kitchenette. This style of living is preferable to many, but also has it’s cons in that you have to clean your own bathroom, and if you’re the type that doesn’t easily get along living with people, means having more roommates. Because I already had a group of four, we decided to live in the suite-style. I have a few friends in Millennium Hall (Honors Residence hall) and they really like it though, so I think it’s all a matter of personal preference.</p>

<p>To answer your last question, I am not a mechanical engineering student, I am in Materials Engineering. However, the curriculum is no different for engineers for the first year; A mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, and materials engineer all take the same classes freshman year. The one exception is Biomedical, which has a slightly modified curriculum. I haven’t been on Co-Op yet, but I can tell you about a few upperclassmen I know. One mechanical engineer has a dream of being a roller-coaster designer. His first two co-ops were with roller-coaster designing companies, one in NY and the other somewhere in PA. I don’t recall exactly what he did, but I believe his first co-op was involved with the manufacturing aspect, and he was working with a team with the purpose of finding a way to assemble the parts during the manufacturing process (which is cheaper than shipping all the individual parts and assembling them at the construction site) without increasing transportation costs of the parts. The second one was more in his dream area of actually designing roller coasters. I know he did something involving positioning “linear induction motors” to more effectively run the roller coaster, or something of that sort. What he described to me was a bit above my head haha. Besides him, most of my upperclassmen friends are Chemical Engineers and Materials Engineers. One upperclassmen who I met at an MSE (Materials Science Engineering) event did one of her Co-Ops in California with Space-X which I thought was awesome. Another one did hers in China with a really prolific research group in Shanghai. Many of the Chemical Engineers I know did work with Johnson and Johnson and many other pharmacuetials for their first co-ops. Materials Science and Engineering only offers Spring-Summer Co-Op, so I haven’t had the chance to get that experience yet. I can’t wait for it though!</p>

<p>Hope all goes well in your search. I think a lot of the questions your asking could definitely be answered if you came to the school though. The tour guides probably know a lot more than I do. I think theres open houses for accepted students sometime the spring too. That event is what really swayed me towards Drexel. </p>

<p>best of luck in your search!</p>

<p>Edit: I realized that all the stuff about honors was probably google-able, and Wa-La:
<a href=“http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/courses/”>http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/courses/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/requirements/”>http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/requirements/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/benefits/”>http://drexel.edu/honors/currentStudents/benefits/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Thanks for your detailed replies! We have visited, and will probably visit again in April. But as you probably know, it’s hard to sort everything out in April when you’re trying to make a decision. It’s helpful to get information from a number of sources in advance! </p>