<p>With my older child we went gung ho with the college search. She was clearly 4 year college material. Child 2 is a different story all together. His entire educational experience has been he is all the way over the map. 1 test a A the next a D even if it was similar material. Diagnosed with learning disabilities early on. ADD in 8th grade. Always and still is a poor reader and terrible writer who lacks good study skills when it comes to certain subjects.
We had assumed he would do 2 yrs at the community college and transfer. Our CC has a great support program for LD students. He now is saying he wants to go away. Probably not far from Ca.
He has expressed an interest in engineering. I don't know anything about engineering schools. I don't know if he would be in way over his head, if he could even get in. Grade wise has done well in Physics, Chem(mixed results-but mainly due to ADD), and Math. Once we discovered the ADD and got him private tutoring to get caught up will have completed 5 yrs of math in 3 yrs with great grades. Pre-alg and alg 1/2 in 9th, geometry in 10th, and alg 3/4 and pre-cal this year. He will take calculus and maybe also ap stats senior year.
He says math is not like school to him. He does it without even thinking. He is good at chess, poker, puzzles, checkers. He is good at games like scrabble and upwards even though he can't spell because he see's the whole board. He struggles with spanish but will have completed 3 yrs. English and social sciences are painful for him and he requires help.
His gpa is probably a straight 3.0. I don't know where the SAT scores will fall.
For those who are engineers do you think he even stands a chance to make it through a engineering program. And what do we look for. How much reading and writing is required for engineering?
Any other suggestions as to possible area's of study for him?</p>
<p>Mom60,
Of course, it is very hard to generalize, but I would say that most engineers (my H included) are very precise people who tend to be detail oriented in their work. They can also be highly creative- even though this is not the stereotype of engineers necessarily. Some engineers are very office oriented in their work, some are more field oriented- depends on their field. Engineering education is rigorous no matter where you go, but for individuals who like math and physics, the rigor is apparently acceptable. As far as the reading/writing demands are concerned, it would depend a lot on the type of job. My husband writes and reads extensively for reports, contracts, articles for his professional journals, etc. I am sure he has colleagues who do very little of this- and remain purely technical in their orientation. </p>
<p>If your son might be interested in this, I would think it VERY important to find a way for him to explore this idea further before he makes a committment to a given school-as once he gets into an engineering school he may find there are very few other options. I think there are summer programs encouraging kids to go into engineering by providing them with some exposure to the educational and professional options. There are a few schools in the west- Montana Tech, New Mexico Tech- that might be admissions possibiliities for your son with his GPA...there are probably others, but i know engineers who graduated from each of these. I would check and see if these or other schools (Colorado School of Mines, too) might have exploratory programs he could go to.</p>
<p>mom60 - The particular school I am going to describe is geographically out of your S' range, but it might give you an idea of something similar. When helping my gS last year, I was told of a "college within a college" at Univ. of New Hampshire. <a href="http://www.unh.edu/tsas/welcome.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.unh.edu/tsas/welcome.html</a> The Thompson College is a 2-yr school, integrated right into the UNH campus. It has a limited # of programs but includes a Civil Technology program, which is close to engineering. My gS does not have any (known) learning disabilities, but was an average and underprepared HS student (3.0 in a not-strong hs, 970 old SAT). A very knowledgeable Guidance Counselor pointed me to this program. The kids are part of the U college life, can do the 2-year degree only, or - with successful performance in the 2-yr program - move over to UNH for the full 4-year degree. We didn't know if our gS could be admitted to UNH regular Engineering program and saw this as a valid option to "get him going." As it turned out in his case, he was accepted to the University and seems to be making it. But perhaps there are other similar programs.</p>
<p>I have been a prof of engineering for many years and i suspect that your son will do just fine in an engineering program because as he says, "math is not like school to him".</p>
<p>However a few caveats that apply to any student considering engineering. The first year of engineering is perhaps the hardest. The student is taking calcs, diffeqs, chemistry, physics, engineering analysis etc. In my day these were considered the weed out classes. At some colleges they still are. For some students the engineering field to major in is a no brainer, for others it can be quite a difficult choice. The latter was the case for me and I have to admit it literally came down to a coin flip in the dorm lounge, a moment I will never forget. Lastly, engineering curricula is quite focused, with less opportunity to explore other areas of learning than most majors. I suspect this will be a good thing for your son but for othes it can be frustrating. Finally, the workload is typically quite intensive. Engineers normally must take more courses to graduate and some have considerable project components that require much time out of the classroom and often in teams which are frustrating to some students who prefer to work alone.</p>
<p>Good luck to you son.</p>
<p>I can only say the engineering program at Penn State Univ Park is demanding and quite a few freshman are already changing majors .</p>
<p>Thank you all. I am pushing him to do a summer program.With the first choice being one that explores the different types of engineering. He has been one who is reluctant to leave home for long. He was the child that we joked would be living with us when were 80. So his desire to go away to school is shocking to us and has left us unprepared.
A problem I am finding is that many of the smaller Ca private schools and smaller Cal States do not offer engineering. My thinking is he would be most interested in Civil Engineering. When we visited Tufts with his sister the person who spoke talked about designing a bicycle. Son has been a mountain biker for years and loves to take apart and rebuild bikes.
Robyn I will look into those Tech schools in the west. I am hoping I can also come up with some other major ideas for him to explore. I would love for him to go to a smaller school. Unfortunately finding any major that would suit him at a liberal arts college will probably not be easy. I would like a place with small classes since the ADD will be an issue.</p>
<p>mom60,</p>
<p>My son, a high school senior, spent the last two summers taking engineering classes at Johns Hopkins that were offered to high school stuents. Betweeen sophomore-junior year he took "Introduction to Engineering", which exposed him to all disciplines. Last summer he took a mechanical engineering class. It was a great experience for him. Perhaps a college close to you offers something similar.</p>