Our DD has been accepted for Electrical Engineering so far:
UMass Lowell(Honors College)
University of Dayton(Honors Program)
NJIT
URI(Waiting for Honors Program)
We got merit scholarships from all these schools and are affordable. NJIT is a bit more expensive than others(URI is least expensive). We are in the New England area, so Dayton is a bit far away compared to other schools. Love to hear any information/experience on these schools. Thoughts on their engineering programs. Campus. Pros/Cons.
TIA
Have you visited UMass Lowell? My son has also been accepted there (and to the Honors College). I didn’t think the campus was particularly good or bad. The engineering campus is quite close to the administrative buildings, rec center, honors dorms, and what seems to be the main residential area. There is another campus area that is a bit further away and has humanities and arts classes and some more dorms. I found the facilities neither impressive nor lacking. The area around the campus is pretty run down, and looks sketchy, but I haven’t heard anything particular about it being unsafe. If my son attends I will definitely advise him to not wander around off campus by himself, especially at night. (My son isn’t great at noting his surroundings…)
My husband is an EE nearby and his company interviews & hires people from UMass Lowell. He has been impressed with the quality of students he sees from there, more so than those from UNH and UVM. (It could be a selection issue; maybe the more impressive candidates from the other schools don’t apply to his company, which is a big engineering company but it doesn’t do “sexy” engineering like Apple.) But he is impressed enough he’d be happy for either of our tech kids to attend.
Thank you. We are planning a visit in February. We heard that the program is good but there are transportation issues between campus and the food is not great.
Congratulations to your Son and best wishes! It is a decision time.
As it happens, I drove my son back to UDayton this weekend and had a conversation with a junior in Chemical Engineering. She said she’s thoroughly enjoying her education, had a fantastic internship, then had a great co-op. She’s excited about her future and had nothing but good things to say about UD Engineering.
One of his friend at UD has an older brother at UD who is an Engineering major and is happy with his time at UD. My son’s first year on campus, I visited and we walked around and met a senior Mechanical Engineering major who had interned at an Aeronautical company in NC (I think it was GE Aviation/Aerospace, but my memory might be faulty on that detail) and had accepted a job offer at the same company, to start after graduation.
My son is not in Engineering, so I don’t have any firsthand information about it. Except he and I have walked through the Engineering building several times (I am a failed Aerospace Engineering student of an Ice Age ago) and we both found it impressive. His previous roommate was a Computer Engineering (maybe CS, I’m not sure) major and also has had quality internships. And I’ve had brief conversations with a couple of his other friends who are engineering majors, and heard nothing negative about the department.
If your son is left with deciding between several schools that don’t have an automatic winner (for him) among them, I suggest visiting UD to see if he likes it.