Engineering at Swarthmore

<p>If you're going to say you can't say NE has 18000 students because some are off campus, the same holds true for Swarthmore regarding semesters abroad. Just wanted to throw that in.</p>

<p>Study abroad is paid for with tuition dollars, so its not quite the same thing. Anyway, Northeastern has a rather extensive study abroad program. </p>

<p>BTW, just to set the record straight, Swat is cleary a better school, just not for engineering.</p>

<p>Remember that many, perhaps most, students who start out in engineering end up doing something else. So basing the comparison entirely on the engineering offerings ignores the large number of people who find that the opportunities in other majors become more important. If you set aside engineering for a moment, it is difficult for either Northeastern or Bucknell to compete. But you have to want the intense academic experience that characterizes Swarthmore. Lots of time spent on humanities and social science courses is not optional. Many engineers are not interested (too touchy feely, they want to study things that are concrete), and would hate Swarthmore.</p>

<p>Can you give me any info on Swarthmore's Extern program, how does it compare to co-op, what do the students do, that sort of thing? It says that some engineering courses are only available(?) when "demand and staffing permit". What's up with that?</p>

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Can you give me any info on Swarthmore's Extern program, how does it compare to co-op, what do the students do, that sort of thing?

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<p>The Extern program is a one-week program at the end of Winter vacation in which Swarthmore students spend a week on the job (and sometimes living with) a Swarthmore grad in a field of interest.</p>

<p>Co-op programs vary a bit. If we are talking about a school like Northeastern, keep in mind that Northeastern started as a night school and was traditionally a school where people working in Boston completed a degree. That tradition has now been formalized as "co-op" learning, where students earn credit on their jobs. Swarthmore is a school where virtually student is full-time. This is reflected in part, in the financial aid making it possible for students to concentrate full-time on academics. Swarthmore meets 100% of need for every student who qualifies for financial need. Northwestern only meets full-need for 15% of its financial aid students -- thus earning money in a job while attending school is essential for many of its students.</p>

<p>Virtually every Swarthmore Engineering major would have the opportunity for a paid summer research position with an Engineering professor for at least one summer ($3750 stipend, housing on campus). Many would also have off-campus internships for a summer or two.</p>

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It says that some engineering courses are only available(?) when "demand and staffing permit". What's up with that?

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<p>Just what it says. Courses (actually most are seminars) offered from time to time in addition to the regular courses. These vary:</p>

<p>Engineering 004E: This is the second of two "Environmental Science" courses for non-engineers offered by the Engineering department. These are courses that fullfil science requirements for non science students and are complemented by similar courses in other departments (like Bio). They regularly teach the other course (004A), but occasionally switch it around and teach this one for variety.</p>

<p>Engineering 028: This is a course on mobile robotics, cross-listed with the Computer Science department. It is a very similar course to the "Adaptive Robotics" course that is offered on a regular basis. Swarthmore has a very active competitive robotics team and I suspect that the lab work for "Adaptive Robotics" is essentially where the team members build and program their robots for competition.</p>

<p>Engineering 076: This is a second full-semester course (after Engineering 075) on Electromagnetics. Since the number of required courses in an Engineering major is so large, most students would not be interested in taking a second semester on the same subject. In this particular case, I suspect the growth of engineering towards solid state switching, control, programming, etc. has probably reduced demand for a second semester of "old-fashioned" electro-magnetic design topics. Much of what used to be done with electro-magnetics is now done with computer chips, computer control, and non-mechanical sensors. If you went back to the 1960s, this was probably a popular course, but the field has shifted -- much in the way there aren't too many courses on vacuum tube theory anymore.</p>

<p>The following are all honors level advanced special seminars:</p>

<p>ENG 93: Directed Study or Project
ENG 126:Advanced Computer Graphics
ENG 127: Advanced Perception
ENG 199: Senior Honors Study</p>

<p>These are all individual or small group "special projects" kinds of courses that are developed between the students and a particular professor when there is a special interest in a topic. Think of them as "independent study" type courses. For example, if a group of students and the professor in the basic Computer Graphics course or any other course get excited about a special topic -- perhaps a recent paper or an idea in robotic AI programming or whatever -- they develop a group seminar or research project to pursue that interest. These "classes" would almost always be one on one meetings with the professor or, in engineering, most likely one-on-one lab work and research with a professor. These types of courses are offered every year, but because they are custom courses for Swarthmore students and professsors to pursue special interests in depth, they are offered "when demand exists".</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>i find it funny how bucknell just got completely written off in this conversation. in the end an engineering degree from there is better than one from either swarthmore and northeastern - especially in chemical engineering which is it known for - and swarthmore doesn't even offer.</p>

<p>Bucknell didn't get written off by me. If you look back to my initial posts, I said that Bucknell would be my choice (of the three options under discussion) for a student looking for a more vocationally-oriented specialized terminal BS engineering degree.</p>

<p>The way I see it. The gap in academic reputation, quality of the student body, and spending on undergrad education is so large that I choose Swarthmore of the three options without any hesitation as long as it even remotely offered the programs I'm interested in and as long as the dollars are the same. </p>

<p>However, I understand that many engineering students would prefer a more specialized engineering degree, either because they don't plan to pursue post-grad education or because they are dead set against ever taking a humanities or social science course. For example, it makes perfect sense to me that somebody would choose, for example, Georgia Tech, over Swarthmore -- even though I don't think Georgia Tech overall is as good a school as Swarthmore. I think Bucknell would be a fine school to consider for a more traditional engineering program.</p>

<p>Ideally, you'd love to be choosing between CalTech and Swarthmore or Harvey Mudd (which only offers a general Engineering degree, too) and Swarthmore or MIT and Swarthmore. Then, you are comparing apples to apples in terms of educational quality and can make the decision based solely on pure science/engineering versus science/engineering in the context of a broader education.</p>

<p>I don't think you can get an ABET certified engineering degree without taking humanities and social sciences courses. But there is a difference between taking these with other engineers, who themselves may not be particularly interested in or adept at parsing sonnets, and taking them with the likes of Swarthmore or Princeton humanities majors, who are pros at this.</p>

<p>It is difficult to compare Northeastern and Swarthmore, because they exist to serve fundamentally different types of students. It is hard to imagine an individual being a fit a both. Bucknell is much more like Swarthmore than like Northeastern, and a good liberal arts college with a larger engineering program. However, if you are a Swarthmore level student, interested in that level of intensity, and in engineering, then the other tech schools mentioned, the top state universities, or some of the Ivies would be more natural places to look for a professional engineering degree.</p>