<p>First of all, I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to post in but, since it relates to undergraduate engineering programs I decided to post here... :-?? </p>
<p>My question is what is the difference between the two types of engineering programs? Where one category of universities offers up to a doctorate degree and the other up to a master's or bachelor's degree. Is there one that's better or do they serve their own purposes? I'm also curious to determine which program would suit me best since I'm currently a transfer student window shopping for a CpE program; thanks!</p>
<p>Each type of school is not necessarily better or worse as a class.</p>
<p>Undergraduates looking for research opportunities will tend to see more at the PhD-granting schools, but will also see such research projects recruiting PhD students first. The schools with graduate level programs (PhD or MS) would also have graduate level courses that the most advanced undergraduates may be interested in.</p>
<p>The non-doctorate schools tend to be smaller. They will emphasize their smaller classes that are all taught by professors. For the intro classes that are lecture-recitation at larger universities, the lecture may be taught by a professor, but graduate teaching assistants usually handle the recitation sections. The professors at a non-doctoral school typically are teaching oriented, whereas at a PhD-granting school, the professors are focused on research. If you learn better in smaller settings with closer contact with teachers, a non-doctoral school might be better.</p>
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<p>This is not true for all such schools. SJSU, SFSU, SDSU, CSULB, CSUFullerton, and CSUN are all non-doctoral-granting universities with undergraduate enrollments ranging from about 26,000 to about 33,000.</p>
<p>Many of the [url=“<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org”]AITU[/url</a>] schools are Ph.D. granting institutions and yet have undergraduate enrollments of under 5,000. The biggest difference between the Ph.D. granting institutions is what @ucbalumnus said: the availability of graduate courses for advanced undergraduates (although M.S. granting schools will also have such courses), and the kind of on-campus research experience available to the undergraduates because of the opportunity to work closely with graduate students, often on funded projects.</p>
<p>Apart from the absence of graduate research opportunities what are some of the pros and cons of attending a university where a doctorate is not offered? Specifically, universities such as MSOE, SJSU, or Rose-Human Institute of Technology. I’m very split on choosing a university that offers a doctorate or not :-? Correct me if I’m wrong but, I’m assuming going to a university that offers a doctoral degree makes the transition (assuming I into want to attend grad school after I receive my undergrad degree) to a graduate program easier.</p>
<p>Most universities now realize that undergraduate research is an important part of preparing for graduate school and so you can find opportunities in most places. In addition, you can get into summer REU programs which will give you experience at Ph.D. granting institutions. In fact there are many successful graduate students who come out of liberal arts colleges or non-Ph.D. schools. </p>
<p>i would say that usually non-Ph.D. institutions have more of an emphasis on professors teaching courses but this too is a generalization because at my university, Illinois Tech, we take teaching very seriously even though we offer Ph.D.s. I think that a better distinction might be the size of the university.</p>
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<p>These three schools illustrate why the class of “non-PhD-granting schools with engineering” is not one with a lot of common ground. SJSU is a large school with a large selection of majors, while MSOE and RHIT are small engineering focused schools.</p>
<p>Non-PhD-granting schools won’t have the multitude of PhD students to provide a large supply of TAs, so the typical research university format of the main class led by a faculty member with discussion and lab sections led by TAs is less common at non-PhD-granting schools. However, some schools make extensive use of adjunct faculty, as opposed to regular tenured or tenure-track faculty.</p>