<p>My son (rising Sr) and I had a chance to visit Johns Hopkins today for one of their Saturday Preview Days. It was certainly worthwhile, however, because it was summer and a Saturday, we didn't get the opportunity to see the classrooms and labs. </p>
<p>We only live about 45 minutes away so can certainly visit again, however I wanted to solicit feedback from those folks that have had a chance to visit the Engineering facilities.</p>
<p>My son is interested in Engineering, and we have visited a number of top engineering universities and have been very impressed with the investment that many of the sschools have made in their engineering infrastructure.</p>
<p>Any insight would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>In addition, we did not have the time to familiarize ourselves with the surrounding neighborhood. Are there many restaurants, shops, etc close to campus? Do students feel safe being out late and walking back to campus?</p>
<p>I cannot attest to the Engineering facilities, but in terms of the surrounding neighborhood, the area is very nice. There are many restaurants on on the 32nd and 31st blocks of St. Paul St, and it is very well lit. There are also Hopkins police constantly patrolling the area, so I, nor anyone I know, has ever felt unsafe, even at the most obscure hours.</p>
<p>I graduated from Hopkins in '09 as a Biomedical Engineering major. Unlike some of its peer schools that are larger in size, Hopkins doesn’t have separate core facilities (engineering library, computer labs, lounge etc) for engineers. The main campus computer lab (the HAC Lab/Krieger Lab) has 70+ workstations with the software that engineers may need and many engineers work on problem sets in this lab. The new Brody Learning Commons will also provide group study/work space.</p>
<p>In terms of teaching labs, I only know the teaching labs in the BME department, which are definitely well equipped and allow for a very interesting range of teaching experiments. If you visit again, see if they are offering an Engineering Tour - I believe they offer tours that actually take you through some of the engineering spaces on campus including the new (well, it was brand new when I graduated) Hackerman Hall which has a large robotics research and teaching lab.</p>