EE/CS at CWRU

Colleges and Universities A-Z Case Western Reserve University
1

<p>Hi</p>

<p>I am finetuning my research on CASE for my undergraduate admission in Engineering with a major in Electrical Engineering (EE) OR Computer Science (CS).
- CASE offered me a descent merit scholarship that I can work with.
- Except recent couple of years, I spent all my life in SW Ohio. So weather is not a major concern for me.
- I may have one senior at CASE. Some easy college transition may be possible.</p>

<p>Based on my understanding so far, it looks CASE is one of the good engineering schools for UG program. However, I would like to know the feedback/comments on questions below:</p>

<p>1) Though CASE is known Engineering, my understanding is - it is more of Pre-Med/Med/Nursing/BME schools flavor. How good are the other Engineering streams @ CASE for UG? (Particularly Elect, Electronics & Comp. Sci.)</p>

<p>2) How reputed is the EE/CS at CASE? (Is that equal/less/more reputed than BME)? How do you rate it with other schools in the similar university pools?</p>

<p>3) What is the academic rigor EE/CS? How many hours of work somebody is expected to put to get a descent grade (say between 3.5 - 3.75)?</p>

<p>4) What is the course completion period for EE/CS? (Should oneexpect to take more than 4 years, in general)?</p>

<p>5) I understood that, at CWRU, though students join for other majors in Engineering, they may slowly shift towards BME. Is that a right understanding? (Means, how common is major change from EE/CS to other majors?)</p>

<p>6) How common it is for EE/CS people at CWRU to go to other top schools for graduate programs?</p>

<p>7) What are the job prospectuses after finishing EE/CS?</p>

<p>Based on your knowledge/experience with CASE, can you please help me on
- EE/CS at CASE in specific? And
- About CASE in general?
It will add lot more clarity for me so that I can move forward in my decision process</p>

<p>Thanks..</p>

2

<p>All forms of engineering are very well known and common majors, in addition to nursing and BME, as well as pre-med (which is a track, not a major). CS has a great reputation here- I know tons of people in it. EE is smaller, I believe, but still very good! It is generally compared to Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, WashU, Carnegie Mellon, Rochester, etc. Case usually says that you put 3 hours of work in for every credit hour, which is approx. 9 hours per week. Everyone is different though- they work at different paces and are better and worse at different things. It also depends on assignments-- when there is a big lab due, you’ll put in more hours, but people typically work together! You can complete any major in 4 years, and I believe there is some overlap for EE/CS, so you can probably do it in 4 years. It is definitely something to check with the engineering department about. I definitely don’t think #5 is true- if anything, people come in as BME and switch to bio, chem, biochem, or something else totally differenet! Case has top rates for admission into graduate programs, so that really isn’t something to worry about now!</p>

3

<p>1) EE/CS actually gets a large amount of funding from Larry Sears, an alumnus of Case Western. The Circuits lab, ENGR 210, has some of the most advanced Circuits equipment in the country. I’m a biology major, but many of my engineering friends are EE/CS. Many people enter CWRU hoping to major in BME and then realize that their interests lie more in polymer engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and many other engineering majors. Although there are many pre-med students, I’d say that there are more engineers than anything else.</p>

<p>2) Our BME program is 9th or 10th in the country now, so although our EE/CS program isn’t ranked quite as high, it still gets as much attention from the administration in terms of funding, hiring of professors, and in aiding students in getting degrees. Our largest departments aren’t necessarily our best, either.</p>

<p>3) Most engineering students take between 17 and 19 credits a semester. If you’re looking for a second major, you might need to overload a few semesters, but this is pretty common practice outside of the engineering departments, too. They say that you should be studying 3 hours outside of class a week per credit you’re taking (most classes are 3 - 4 credits) which I’ve found to be kind of unrealistic. </p>

<p>4) If you decide to spend time abroad or drop prereq classes your first year, you might not graduate in 4 years, but if you stay on the track provided by your department, you should be able to easily graduate within 4 years.</p>

<p>5) I’d say that the opposite is true: many students start out BME and gradually shift towards other majors.</p>

<p>6) CWRU feeds a lot of the top engineering graduate programs in the country. I know a lot of our engineering programs are some of the best in the country, but I don’t know specifically about our EE/CS graduate programs.</p>

<p>7) We actually have a co-op program that you should look into. A lot of our students are recruited by major companies like GE and Phillips Electric.</p>

4

<p>jkrtist/Softkitty:</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for both of your comments and information. Let me say it is extremely useful. In finalizing our final destination.</p>

<p>We have few more questions and we would like to get your help in clarifying the same.</p>

<p>1) Time utilization between class hours:
As I understood, a student, per week, may take 15-17 credits (for about 5-6 subjects). Then, these courses may not be continuous within the day’s teaching hours (means in between teaching sessions there might be a wide gap). </p>

<p>This is different from high school course work, where you have 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week.</p>

<p>So how easy/difficult it is for the students to make use of the time in in between the teaching hours during college teaching hours? How to do college students spend & manage this gap time?</p>

<p>To circumvent this situation, the undergraduate student needs to be extremely focus, know how to manage the time and prepare for the week and weekends, right?</p>

<p>2) Amount of time required for weekly preparation:
So, if I take 5 courses, 15 credits, I need to spend 45 hours (approx.) in addition to class work, am I right?</p>

<p>3) Course selection & and advanced course planning:
If I choose my major (say BME), during this semester course selection, I need to be aware of the course that I need to take for next semester and select my current semester’s courses. This is to align with my next semester course work. </p>

<p>Means, if I don’t take pre-requisite course this semester (say Biochemistry I) this sem., I will not be able to complete my next semester in time (which involves Biochemistry II, for which Biochemistry I is a prerequisite). I got to wait till I take Biochemistry I, right?</p>

<p>4) Change in major:
A change in major in next semester, may put me in the risk of delaying my overall course, Is that a right?</p>

<p>5) Change in major @ CWRU: We applied to CWRU to its BME major and admission was accepted for the same. Now we have a change of mind to consider Electrical Engineering OR Computer Science at CWRU. Will this be a problem? (There are multiple reasons for this change).</p>

<p>The admission officer CWRU mentioned that the admission was offered to CWRU and not to any specific major. Per him, the student needs to declare his major at the end of his 1st semester.

  • Does this mean that we may or may not get our intended branch?
  • What kind of competition will prevail at that time ?
  • And what would be the criteria to get a branch of your interest? </p>

<p>6) Semester count for funding renewal: We understand that, on satisfactory GPA, the funding will be given for 8 semesters (for who registers for an engineering UG program). If you take internship will that be counted as funded semester?</p>

<p>7) For a diligent student, what are the limits of GPA? - Is it something like - 2.5 - 3.5? OR what? In other words, how difficult it is to get a 3.0 GPA?</p>

<p>(The question is because the 3.0 is tied to funding renewal).</p>

<p>MOST IMPORTANT:
For a high school student, who has very good mathematical, analytical and language skills & proven record, but he considers life is more than hard work in getting an engineering degree. He cannot sit more than 45 minutes focusable. He doesn’t like a nerdy environment. FB/iPHONE/iPAD attracts him more frequently than anything else. Time management & focus, is something that he needs a constant reminder. </p>

<p>As we understand, the course work at CWRU is pretty rigorous (though not grueling) and requires lot of focus and attention. An ordinary BS degree (with less than OR around 3.0 GPA) will be of less value in terms of his future job/graduate degree. </p>

<p>Do you recommend EE/CS @ CWRU for such a student? Is CWRU is right for him? Or should he choose some other school for his UG program, is what under debate among us :-).</p>

<p>Your thoughts/experience/help/feedback is highly appreciated.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

5

<p>Hi,

  1. Students may take between 12 and 19 credit hours, with options to “overload” a semester with 21-23 credits depending on GPA. As at any college, students schedule themselves, so they can choose to have a gap between classes or not. Next semester, for instance, I got from 10:00-4:00 with almost no break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I have 2 breaks in between 3 classes MWF. Students choose what they want to do in that time. Many bring laptops and work, and some choose to play video games on the computer. College is much more lax than high school, as there is no one standing over your shoulder telling you to work. I choose to make use of my time since extracurriculars and studying take up most of my evenings and weekends—I try to work on homework and papers during my free time during the day. Time management is very important in college, and if one is not already good at that skill, they need to become good immediately (especially at Case!)
  2. Professors say that, for every hour spent in class, one should expect to spend 3 hours outside of class on work. I’ve found that this varies per class and per professor. For instance, my nutrition class had 4 tests and 2 papers, but other than that, I didn’t need to read the textbook and only put in hours when needed. Not every class requires hours every week.
  3. That is correct. Engineering majors are provided a breakdown of the classes they should take each semester in order to complete the program in 4 years. Some engineering classes are only offered in one semester, so you must be conscious of that while signing up for classes.
  4. Depending on major, yes, it may delay you. I was a nursing major for a full year and then switched to a psychology/sociology double major. Because of the close nature of those two majors, I am able to complete the degrees in 3 years, but for some, you might have to take an extra class or even stay an extra semester (hopefully not).
  5. Although you applied to the BME major, all students come to case undecided and do not formally declare their majors until AT LEAST the end of October (although most students will come in August saying “I’m BME” or “I’m CompSci”). Students are not turned away from the major they want, they simply declare and go from there.
  6. Every scholarship is different. Read the guidelines for yours and you should be fine. If you take an internship (like a co-op) and put school off for a semester, I believe that the funding gets put into another semester (you might want to check on that with someone from CWRU).
  7. I would say I am an extremely hard working student, and science doesn’t come naturally to me at all. In 6 courses last semester (a religion course, a SAGES course, a general bio course, an anatomy course, and 2 nursing courses), I was able to achieve a 3.30 GPA. This semester, having switched my major halfway through the semester and subsequently having to drop some nursing classes, I was still able to achieve a 3.0 GPA. Engineering is hard, but all the students really ban together, do their work and study together, so everyone keeps their grades up!</p>

<p>It is important to note that high school is very different than college. I was strong in biological science and English in high school, but upon coming to college, I found the biological sciences to be very difficult, while I started enjoying the social sciences more. Everyone is different though, and everyone studies differently. Certainly not everyone here is “nerdy”, I am not nerdy at all. He will obviously need to work on time management and focus, because that will lead him to failing out of any prestigious university in the country. If he doesn’t want to work hard, then I would suggest a larger, state university. Case is a small grant-funded research institution where students work hard to earn their grades. Any top-tier university is rigorous (we are #38 in the country!), but you’re only getting the best education possible here. In terms of degree, I would find that statement definitely not true. Any degree from Case would be known as outstanding, and “ordinary BS degrees” are certainly NOT less valuable. That’s like comparing a BS to a BA and saying those with BA degrees will not be able to find jobs.
After reviewing all of this, I am not sure if Case is right for your son, but I do not know where else he is looking to compare it to. That would be helpful to know. Any school he is looking into for engineering will be hard, time consuming, and stressing. You just have to be able to handle it. Those who can’t figure that out usually switch majors. Hope this helps!</p>

6

<ol>
<li><p>Case has a heavy emphasis on healthcare, but it’s also a strong engineering school. As far as EE/CS go, you have an excellent program that employers recognize. Google, Intel, and Microsoft recruit on campus. We also have students intern at Apple as well. Facebook has also started showing a bigger presence on campus. </p></li>
<li><p>EECS has a solid reputation. The professors are great and you have a ton of new facilities to work in and gain more practical experience. I’m a BME so I can’t say much more but I’m sure you’ll come to appreciate the strength of the program. </p></li>
<li><p>It’ll be rigorous and difficult, but you can do well.</p></li>
<li><p>You can complete it in 4 years, students don’t usually need to spend more than 4 unless they are pursuing a second non-engineering degree or choose to do a Co-Op.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s the opposite. Students shift away from BME, they realize they are more interested in other fields of engineering and therefore switch their majors. You don’t usually see people transferring into BME.</p></li>
<li><p>Not sure because I’m not in the department. Because there’s such heavy demand for EECS students and relatively high pay, students tend to go into industry after graduation for the most part. </p></li>
<li><p>If you can program, you will have little problem.</p></li>
</ol>