After finally coming out of the stressful admissions waiting game, I’m trying to decide which school I want to attend out of those that admitted me. My top three are WashU, Cornell, and Rice.
I’ve already read so many past threads comparing the three schools. I’ve visited all three, combed their websites, done everything, but I’m still not sure which of the schools I like the most. My problem is that I have very diverse interests, and I’m not sure which school would best accomodate all of those interests.
I want to try to double major in mechanical engineering (or maybe physics) and English (creative writing as well as analytical writing), with perhaps a minor in Japanese language. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but if it’s possible, I want to pursue all of my interests!
I was admitted into the College of Arts and Sciences at WashU (and the equivalent schools at Cornell and Rice), so I am not actually in the engineering school for all three schools (although I might transfer internally into it if engineering interests me enough).
The quality of the academics is the most important factor to me (Are the professors interested in students, are the classes difficult enough, are the other students inspired?).
Any insight as to which school would fit me best would be amazing! Thanks!
Employers of mechanical engineers typically expect graduates to have completed an ABET-accredited engineering program. Course requirements and free electives do not differ much among ABET-accredited programs,and these only leave room for a certain number of free electives outside of engineering. This would likely preclude a double major in physics and certainly in English, if the goal is to graduate in four years…
These are Cornell Engineering College’s course requirements,which are typical IMO:
http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/academics/undergraduate/curriculum/requirements.
This is Cornell’s info on dual majoring between colleges:
http://as.cornell.edu/academics/opportunities/dual-degree/
Aside from mechanical engineering, Cornell also has a great program in Applied and Engineering Physics within the engineering college.
On the other hand, you can major in physics in Cornell CAS and take free electives at the engineering college, without transferring. And if sufficently interested in pursuing it, you might be able to do an M.Eng. in mechanical engineering afterwards. This would need to be carefully coordinated along the way though.
But free electives spent on engineering cannot be used on creative writing and English.
At some point you will have to choose.
Here are Cornell CAS course requirements:
http://as.cornell.edu/academics/degree-req.cfm
The good news is this could all be moot, because you could wind up getting turned on by an economics course first semester and then decide you want to become an economist. College is about discovery. In part.
My D2 took courses in English and Creative Writing at Cornell and thought they were great.
All 3 schools are pretty good so I would say it comes down to fit. WashU is pretty big on academic flexibility- there are a lot of engineers who believe strongly in a strong liberal arts education. Although engineering has more course requirements, there are a lot of engineers who do double major or minor or just take classes outside their division. Also, one cool thing about WashU is that it does have an East Asian library- it’s a classic gothic library but all the books are in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. WashU has a pretty good East Asian Studies program as well as a track in International Area Studies focused there.
This is most certainly not a hard fast rule.
I actually know a WashU Engineer who doubled engineering with english (in 4 years). WashU has a freakishly large %age of students who double major, although on the engineering side it tends to be Eng+Physics or Eng+Chem or SysEng+Finance kind of doubles.