Engineering at GWU

<p>My daughter is interested in GWU engineering. Does anyone have expereince with the engineering department. I'd love to hear more about it. Thanks.</p>

<p>I had an uncle who did his degree @ GW Engineering Dept… from what he has told me, the engineering dept. is not really that great. Considering the numerous, better programs around GW (UM @ College Park, UMBC, GMU, UVA), most people don’t do GW Engineering. Also, most of the faculty is part-time and work during the day. Though, if your daughter gets a full scholarship, then you should consider sending her to GW.</p>

<p>GW engineering can be good or bad. I am studying for a BA in Computer Science, however, I started out as Mechanical Engineering. There are a few things to be aware of:</p>

<p>Mechanical and Civil are heavily filled with Navy ROTC students. This is by no means a bad thing, but just a prevalent atmosphere.</p>

<p>The programs are probably more challenging than any other discipline at GW in many respects, despite this, they are not terribly good programs. While some/many professors also practice in their field I do not consider this to be a bad thing and it occurs in the other schools as well. I have been disappointed by the quality of my classes and I worry a lot about the value of my degree upon graduation. </p>

<p>SEAS has a good chunk of money in proportion to the number of students in it. This means I actually know who my advisor is and know all the people within my track as well as all my professors. This level of communication and support is great and not nearly as good in the other schools. </p>

<p>You should be aware that SEAS just offered buy out packages to 38 full time professors so that the school can hire more research oriented professors. On the one hand this is indicative of the school trying to grow and become better. On the other hand, I think it is a terrible way of going about transitioning and I think having a more research oriented faculty will be detrimental to academic merits of the school.</p>

<p>All in all, I am happy to be in SEAS however I do not know if my degree (what I feel like I am paying for) will be worth anything upon graduating. As I am a BA student I am actually double majoring in Economics to offset some of the anxiety I have about the real world value of a technical degree from an international affairs university.</p>