Ive heard some bad things about the program, how the nsc is worthless since there’s no one on one, so is it worth it to go to tamu over uh/ut?
There are a lot more factors that should enter into your comparison of 4-5 year programs than a three day session the summer before it starts. That just seems like a huge leap to make. I would look at things like fit, cost, post-enrollment advising and employment and grad school prospects before I cared about orientation advising.
Doesn’t bode well though @gettingschooled
https://engineering.tamu.edu/nsc/freshman
Here is the 2015 schedule and accompanying slides. A lot of advice in all of the slides about how to select courses, AP credit, etc. Recommended schedules are given. In the schedule building session, you are told twice to show your schedule to an advisor before you leave. In other slides, you are told to meet with your advisor frequently.
What questions do you have that are not answered in the slides? They are pretty thorough but there are quite a few engineering parents on this forum who love to help. If you think you will require a LOT of one on one advising, you probably are not going to like any of the schools you listed and should probably look at smaller schools. As long as the school is accredited, you can get an engineering degree from a lot of places.
As a freshman engineer here at TAMU, here is what I have to say, and I don’t have any bias, I’ll tell you what I know. First of all, keep in mind that U of H’s engineering program doesn’t even come close to the prestige of TAMU or UT’s engineering programs, these two schools are in the top 10 engineering programs in the world.
proof: http://www.shanghairanking.com/FieldENG2015.html
Now let me tell you this: If you go to TAMU, your freshman year will be very stressful since you will have to compete against others to get into your desired major which you can’t apply until after you complete two semesters. First year also hosts PHYS 218 and PHYS 208, these are the archetypal definitions of weed out classes, the professors are horrible and the test grades are low, you aren’t graded for how well you know stuff, instead you are at the mercy of a curve hoping that your classmates don’t destroy the curve. Even the advisors recommend you take one of them at a CC since they are GPA destroyers, oh and did I mention that you want a good GPA to have a chance of getting accepted to your major? ENGR 111 and 112 is complete BS, you mess around with a stupid lego robot, class is very unorganized, and its a bunch of busy work, you learn absolutely NOTHING. So you basically waste one full year here at TAMU, BUT once you get into your major, you will finally be in a very good engineering school. UT, on the other hand, is slightly higher ranked than TAMU, and keep in mind this is what I have heard from someone who goes there: the good thing is that once you’re accepted to UT, you are in your major from the start, and you actually take real engineering classes your freshman year, you actually learn from the start. But here are the downsides: it is really hard, your GPA will be low, and the engineering majors over there are hardcore, they really have no life and only study, so it is fierce competition and hard to even stay close to the averages of the curve since the average kid there is a studying machine. It is very stressful from what I hear, just getting a 3.0 GPA over there means effort that is above and beyond just being smart and studying hard as hell. Here at TAMU I know a good amount of people who have no problem maintaining a 3.5, even a 4.0 isn’t uncommon to get, a feat improbable at UT. Honestly, be it UT or TAMU, they couldn’t care less about your success as an engineer, the major is in such high demand that they know somebody else would gladly take your place. Regardless what you choose, the road will be tough. Hope I could give you some information that will help you choose your path.
KievanRus --Did you say you are a freshman? So you have been in these classes a total of about 2 months? You have yet to finish a class at A&M right? I have two engineering daughters – a sophomore and a senior and I can agree with only a few of your statements. For example, how can you comment on Phys 208 or Engr 112 (being BS and you learn absolutely nothing?) when those are taken second semester of freshman year and any first semester freshman have hardly gotten their ears wet yet? You said, “You basically waste a full year here at TAMU”?! — After 5 years of kids in engineering at TAMU, I couldn’t disagree with you more! Freshman year was pivotal – it is tough and it does weed out those not able or dedicated enough. Both my daughters would say there are very few bad professors. The “bad” professors they did have required them to rise above (even going to a second section of the class with a better teacher so they could learn the material) but they did what they needed to do including endless hours at A+ tutoring and sitting in the professor’s office. It’s tough. But the hardest part for some kids is that there is a lot of self-responsibility required during the freshman year and the years after. It is absolutely not true that they “don’t care about your success as an engineer” but no one is going to hold anyone’s hand anymore because they are teaching adults. Remember, if it was easy, everyone could do it. These Physics classes are tough and my daughters would agree that many students take Physics 208 at CCs but they also know many students who did just fine in those classes as well. You say you know a lot of kids with a 3.5 or a 4.0 in engineering at A&M but then you talk about the weed out courses which destroy your GPA. In actuality, the mean average GPA at the end of freshman year for an engineering student at A&M is approximately a 2.5 (check the registrar’s wonderful statistics page) and, interestingly only 8.27 % of the freshman engineering students had a 3.5 GPA or better at the end of freshman year. So, hang in there and know, the frustration you are feeling, during your first semester, should get better.
And, as far as UT, we also have many wonderful friends from our high school who have kids at UT with great GPAs in engineering (above a 3.5) and they are involved in many social activities, like sororities and fraternities, at UT. So, I disagree with the “no life” generalization as well.
Mathman97 – Gone to it twice, NSC is definitely not worthless and there was plenty of explanation of your different options at NSC. What they don’t do is tell you what choice you should make.
@KievanRus I have a good number of ap credits so hopefully I wont have to really be a “freshman” lol
@NETarrantMom good to hear, so you think freshman year would be great if I got physics out of the way by skipping physics 208/218 by ap credit?
I am also a freshman engineer at TAMU. And while both NETarrantMom and the other freshman engineer have made good points, be cautious. While NETarrantMom does seem to know a lot about TAMU engineering through her kids, she isn’t in the program herself. She’s quick to discredit an actual student in the program, regardless of how long he’s been here. Therefore take her input lightly because the engineering program (AND engineering 111 and 112) has changed a lot over the past few years. I agree the class is pretty much BS now, the only useful thing you learn is a little LabView and MATLAB (if you don’t rely on your team members to do the work for you). She’s relying on statistics and hasn’t experienced the TAMU Engineering program as we have. It’s a great program and many people would love to be here. It’s got great rep in Texas and freshman year definitely has some weed out classes. I would be cautious on what credits you accept however, A&M usually leans more towards retaking the classes because the AP credits don’t give you a solid foundation whatsoever. Extremely annoying that you’re advised to take the classes at a CC because A&M makes the class so difficult.
In the link I posted in #3, read the Dean’s presentation slides 31-33. It discusses AP recommendations. I think you want Chem E based on another thread so accepting that first year of physics may not be a problem, but it will be if you decide to major in mechanical, electrical, computer or nuclear. You’ll have your hands full with the chemistry classes.
@tamuco2019 so what’d you think, is the engineering program top notch other than freshman year or has it become bad?
@gettingschooled chemE is correct, I doubt id need too much mechanics/e&m so I hope itd be fine for me to skip, if I skip those classes and calc 1/2(im really good at math) would my engineering experience be better at tamu?
https://engineering.tamu.edu/chemical/academics/degrees/undergraduate/bs
Here is the Chem E degree plan. While there is no physics after the first year, there is math beyond Math 152.
If you read the slides I referred to, they don’t recommend skipping Math 152 even if you made a 5 on Calc BC. I don’t know you to know whether being really good at math means you can jump right into TAMU differential equations and engineering math III. I don’t know that skipping them will make your experience better. Maybe taking them and being one of the people who bust the curve would make it better.
I heard this from my son too. I guess they are trying to figure out whether you have a passion for making / engineering devices etc.
@perazziman
ChemE major
Want so if I have a passion for eng
Play with robots
lmao
My son said the same thing about ENGR 111 & 112. Busy work and really didn’t get much from it. Although it is group based and the projects are to work with groups several of his group dropped engineering and he was left doing much on his own. He said he spent more hours on the ENGR classes than he did on physics and calculus.
@Mathman97 it is a little more than playing with robots. The students build and program them to do functions.
@Mathman97, I am guessing that they are first, looking for practical people who broadly enjoy developing all kinds of devices not just chemical or mechanical or electrical or civil. The people who are interested in just one science are perhaps expected to pursue degrees in Chemistry, Physics or Biology etc.
Here is my input, as a Junior Mechanical Engineer who considered many schools like UT/WashUSt.Louis/Cornell etc.
Like many state schools, you will often be left to fend for yourself here. If you ask professors for career advice, many will easily oblige(This is, in fact, how you will get easily the best career advice by the way). However, the advisors here are meant to facilitate quick graduation of students, as this affect rankings. This is their primary purpose. As such, you need to be able to go out and gather info from upper level students, professors, etc in making career and class decisions. This is something that isn’t terrible hard once you can summon the courage to go talk, so I personally dont think advisors are terribly important, as much as personal initiative and planning.
We recently developed the “25 by 25” initiative, based around greatly expanding our college. Its fairly controversial, as doubling enrollment is not always the best for undergrads, but the teaching is supposed to be controlled and managed using new “flipped classroom” techniques to maintain quality of classes(Im personally skeptical it will work in large class sizes, without significant assistants, but Im sure they will adjust). But, 25 by 25 will greatly increase research, which is our core competency. As such, expect to see our rankings and research output rise, but maybe not the actual quality of the experience here.
Like many public research universities, there is a mix of passionate and apathetic teachers. TAMU has plenty of professors here to do research who dont care as much about classes. This is, after all, to be expected. Unbeknownst to many students and parents, tuition really doesnt pay for these research professors: their own research funding does by a large amount. As such, their priorities will often be research. However, there are also many professors here who are excellent lecturers and teachers, who are in academia for this purpose.
Bottom line: where you go to college should, in my opinion, be based on several factors. Many people dont know what they’d like to do after graduation, and you probably shouldnt be expected to. However, if you have any ideas, it does help to choose a school aligned with your interest. Additionally, while your decision ideally isnt based on money, less debt means more flexibility. Most importantly though, if you really want to be an actual engineer(I personally always wanted to do a PhD after undergrad and become a scientist), then the most important thing for your undergrad may be the primary recruiting industry at your college. If you know you’d like to go into oil and gas, there is almost no where better than TAMU, and Im really not exaggerating here. UH is also good for this industry, but not as strong. UT is also heavily recruited for this, but is excellent if you’d like to do any sort of sensing of acoustics etc. However, if you want to go into say automotives for example, Michigan or a state school in that area may be better (I’m admittedly guessing here). My point is that different schools are specialized towards different industries, and you should try your best to take this into account because even though it wont dictate your future, it could make finding a job you like significantly easier. I realize all of this is alot to think about, especially for a highschooler. Goodluck.