<p>Are those schools good? is there any research going on at those schools? is Harvey Mudd comperable to Carnegie Mellon? what is a comp. school to Harvey Mudd?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Short answer, yes these schools are good but there’s no direct correlation in terms of rankings. If you’re looking for research, it’s a bad idea to go to these schools though.</p>
<p>" If you’re looking for research, it’s a bad idea to go to these schools though."</p>
<p>Hoping you’re talking about HMC, because CMU does some of the best research in the nation. Mudd will have some research, but it won’t be comparable to a school like CMU, due to relative lack of resources and its goal as an undergraduate education school.</p>
<p>I thought it was implied, but I guess it wasn’t. Yes, that’s what I meant.</p>
<p>what is the “goal” of an undergrad engineering school?</p>
<p>To provide an education in engineering?</p>
<p>but the difference between a non, and a phd offering school</p>
<p>“undergrad engineering school” implies non-PhD offering…</p>
<p>"Mudd will have some research, but it won’t be comparable to a school like CMU, due to relative lack of resources and its goal as an undergraduate education school. "</p>
<p>So a college, whose sole goal is to train excellent scientists and engineers, will not have good research opportunities, when it is clear that experience in research is vital to the education of excellent scientists and engineers? It sounds ridiculous and it is.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd does not have graduate students and does not have pure researchers, i.e. PhDs who do nothing but research. It has PhDs who both teach and are required to do research. There are many kinds of research, some which require million dollar machines and many others which require 50,000 dollar machines. If you have to use a 50,000 dollar machine instead of a million dollar machine are you doing worse research? Is your research less beneficial to scientific knowledge? No, research is research because it is discovering the unknown and the experience in research is the same, especially at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>That said, universities do have more prominently known researchers and if working with someone with a high profile name is important to you then a university is probably a better fit. People might claim that there are more opportunities at universities to do research, but at Harvey Mudd at least 1 year of research or clinic (projects contracted by science and engineering companies) is required, 1.5 years of clinic for engineers. Faculty also do research besides that, and many people can easily get 3+ years of research in addition to the requirements.</p>
<p>You can do some research at non-Phd granting universities, but in my experience, the opportunities are certainly less. Many of my professors did not have the time to spend on research. They typically each had 2 or 3 courses to teach and prepare for with no teaching assistants.</p>
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<p>25% of all Mudd graduates - 2nd highest in the nation behind Caltech - will later earn PhD’s in science or engineering. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf</a></p>
<p>It has been well established that PhD admissions weighs research potential heavily and those who want to proceed to their PhD are well advised to gain strong research experience as undergrads. If Mudd is a poor school for research, well, somebody clearly forgot to notify all the PhD programs who admitted all of those Mudd graduates. Heck, there must be plenty of students at the traditional research-oriented engineering programs who were denied admission to the PhD program of their choice because that program chose to admit somebody from Mudd instead.</p>
<p>How about all the other schools that don’t offer PhD’s? Mudd is one example and doesn’t make it the rule. Many of my classmates went on to get PhD’s, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there were plenty of research opportunities here. They usually took advantage of REU programs during the summer instead.</p>
<p>He specifically mentioned Harvey Mudd and as it is the only institution where I have personal experience it was the only one I could confidently comment on. One thing I would note is that lots of engineers go directly into industry and perhaps do not even need research experience, which is something to consider for other engineering schools without PhD programs.</p>
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<p>On that same link above, I see that, of the 50 programs who have the highest percentage of their undergrads proceed to receive PhD’s in science/engineering, over half are LAC’s (meaning they are classified as offering only bachelor’s or master’s degrees) . That includes some LAC’s that I never even heard of before. For example, Kalamazoo College surpasses CMU and Earlham College surpasses Berkeley, which is even more surprising as Kalamazoo and Earlham don’t even offer engineering programs, whereas CMU and Berkeley are two of the most prominent engineering schools in the world. </p>
<p>If anything, it seems as if it’s the research universities that (ironically) do not seem to be optimal breeding grounds for aspiring PhD’s. I suspect that one main reason is that many research universities are large, impersonal schools that don’t nurture their undergrads. Those schools may have extensive research opportunities, but it is up to you as a student to aggressively exploit them, and nobody is really going to help you do that. And, let’s face it, many (probably most) aspiring PhD’s in science and engineering are shy, introverted types who are not comfortable with behaving that way. </p>
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<p>That still begs the question of why so many PhD programs are willing to admit students from those LAC’s rather than those from the research universities (or perhaps why so many LAC students are able to finish their PhD’s compared to those who graduated from research universities). </p>
<p>The bottom line is that I am not aware of any significant difference between the percentage of LAC students relative to research university students who are able to finish science/eng PhD programs. Your counterargument is that LAC students rely on REU programs, but that begs the question: why can’t more research university students use their ‘homefield research advantage’ to garner a significant advantage?</p>
<p>I am an engineering student at Smith College, which has an engineering program within the liberal arts. All engineering students are required to complete a 1 year design clinic working on real world projects. Also, all merit scholarships from the school come with a 2-year research stipend. For non-scholarship students, it is still easy to find professors to work with, both during the year and summer (Smith has a large summer research program for its undergraduates).</p>
<p>@sakky: There may be other factors at work here:</p>
<p>a) LACs may tend to attract students who are predisposed to consider academia
b) LACs may offer less direct “vocational” training, making grad school a more attractive option</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>No, what is really at work here is the fact that Harvey Mudd is a bit of an outlier. The majority of small, non-PhD schools have litle research to speak of and even the ones that have some don’t focus on it. HMC just happens to have enough to force it’s students to go through a year’s worth, but still doesn’t have a ton.</p>
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<p>(regarding HMC) What constitutes a “ton” of research? How can you even attempt to quantify something like that. And what are you basing your statements on? Do you have reports of students wanting research and getting turned down? Because in my four years I never once heard of it occurring.</p>
<p>I have many friends who did a complete three years and three summers worth of research. I know many of the underclassmen who worked in the labs along with my friends. You’re probably not aware but HMC is a very small school with a fairly low student to faculty ratio, about 8:1. Given that a freshman at Mudd is highly unlikely to do research and not every student is interested in research, the odds get even better. Your random baseless assessment that HMC barely has enough to “force” its students to do a year’s worth of research is incorrect. I have had at least 2 faculty members actually ask me if I wanted additional research credits during the year. The clinic program is also industry work for engineers/computer scientists/applied mathematicians who are less likely to go on to get PhDs and therefore don’t really need research, and instead develop the kind of skills they’ll actually need.</p>
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<p>If anything, I would suspect it would actually go the other way, precisely because of the sentiment expressed in this thread: many people think that the large research universities are the best places to earn their bachelor’s degrees if they want to become academics, due to the obvious research-oriented nature of the school (and then upon arrival find it more difficult than they thought to actually join a research project in a meaningful way because of the impersonal nature of the school). </p>
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<p>This is ultimately an empirical question for which I would like to see more data. But let’s face it: plenty of students at the major research universities don’t exactly garner great jobs either, hence one would expect that they too would be interested in grad school (but probably couldn’t get in). </p>
<p>But that’s actually an ancillary issue, for the fundamental question still arises: if the LAC’s truly lack research, and surely since we all agree that research is a vital component towards gaining PhD admissions, then why do so many PhD programs choose to admit LAC students? Are those programs just being dumb? I might agree that a lack of vocational training might spur LAC students to want to enter PhD programs, but that doesn’t mean those programs have to admit them. They admit them nonetheless. </p>
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<p>And yet, as explained above, a strikingly high percentage of the students at the top LAC’s seem to be admitted to (and successfully complete) science/eng PhD programs. </p>
<p>Nobody disputes that the major research universities (obviously) have far more research than do the LAC’s. The relevant question is what that means for the undergraduate students. Let’s face it - it’s not easy for the typical undergrad at a major research university to participate in a project in a meaningful fashion as they have to vie with grad students for opportunities, and the impersonal environment tends not to nurture the introverted types who tend to want to pursue science/tech PhD’s. With the exception of a handful, most such students will have, at best, the opportunity to be listed as one of a long list of ‘intermediate’ (hence, not first and not last) authors on some low-level publication. Heck, many students won’t even receive authorship credit at all. </p>
<p>Certainly, nobody is disputing that if you have the right personality, and if you can find strong opportunities, then the research universities can be optimal. However, the LAC’s have their strengths as well.</p>
<p>sakky, I am not arguing that. The top programs have enough research that students who want it can get it. Additionally, I never argued against the smaller, non-PhD schools. I have no superiority complex. There are some truly excellent programs. I am not sure what point you are trying to make to me because I tend to agree with you. I figure it is most likely due to the communication barrier inherent in Internet forums.</p>
<p>Suin, what on earth are you talking about? Are you seriously going to argue that HMC does as much research as, say, Michigan, for example? It simply isn’t true, and unless that is what you are implying, then I don’t understand the point of your post. The fact is that HMC has a focus on undergraduate education, not research. They do have research as a requirement, and as such, have a sizeable amount compared to most other non-PhD schools, but it still doesn’t even come close to the quantity of research put out by the universities. This is not an indictment on program quality, simply an objective fact.</p>
<p>I am perfectly aware that HMC is small with a low student-faculty ratio. Are you aware that at a major research university, professors spend the majority of their time with research-related activities? It is simply a matter of a difference in focus, each with it’s own merits.</p>