<p>I don’t mean to stereotype CC students. My daughter was one for a year. Based on her experience, which is anecdotal of course, there was a huge difference in what she perceived in the student body at CC versus at the 4 year college. She also felt that the coursework at the CC was fairly watered down/easy and it is much harder at WVU. Of course, she was NOT taking engineering courses, which could be a vastly different ballgame.</p>
<p>With 6 semesters of Engineering Design in addition to courses on engineering and project management, the JMU program looks very much geared to engineers intending to go straight into the workforce (I would say limited to general mechanical/environmental fields) and not those planning to go to graduate school. I suggest looking at the course catalog for all the classes offered in engineering. I don’t see very many choices of upper level engineering electives–mostly only environmental/sustainability engineering. No controls, aerodynamics, signal processing, materials, structural mechanics, numerical methods, etc.</p>
<p>STEMFamily,</p>
<p>From what we were told during the presentation, there are 9 credits of “approved technical elective” that must be taken. These start in junior year and are meant to be geared toward some sort of slant/direction in the major: so it could be materials, software, and some of the other subjects you listed. They had a couple of engineering seniors there who spoke about what they were doing with their technical electives and how they were going into certain directions with those. </p>
<p>They did give stats on their newly graduated class. 60% of them gained full-time employment (companies were listed), 30% went on to graduate school and the last 10% were either part-time or still seeking employment.</p>
<p>OP - I think your own post #8 really answers the question. You have already experienced a child changing their major at WVU, thus tripling your tuition expense. It seems to me that with your son not positive about engineering, JMU is both more affordable and has a greater flexibility, with both general engineering and a wide variety of other majors at the same in-state rate for you. I have seen students start in engineering who graduate as business majors or computer science majors, among other options.</p>
<p>We were very impressed with JMU when we visited. I think an option that fits your financial goals and does not force your son to either stick with engineering or face having to transfer is the way to go.</p>
<p>STEMFamily, I think many kids these days, regardless of where they get their engineering degree or in what discipline, are wanting to go straight into the workforce. My engineering kids from UVa and VT wanted to go straight to a job afer 4 long years in school and were not interested in going directly to graduate school. Same with most of their engineering friends. I don’t think JMU would be much different in that regard. ChrisVa1,Glad to hear JMU engineering grads are getting jobs and that JMU could give you the names of companies that are employing their grads. The Career Services/employment issues are definitely important to look at.</p>