I am having trouble getting a sense of the quality of FSU’s Engineering Dept. I cannot find it ranked on the US News UG Engineering rankings. I know it shares Engr facilities with FAMU. How does FSU Engineering compare with other State U’s?
I am a current freshman at FSU and I am wondering the same thing lol. I want to major in Biomedical Engineering!
congrats on attending FSU. how do you like it so far?
@Wien2NC, the school is alright. I like the food, campus, extracurriculars, etc. The culture is very diverse, so there many different types of people to meet with different backgrounds and interests. The party scene and Greek Life (fraternities and sororities) areally very popular here. Our sports teams are also something FSU takes great pride in. With that said, even if you don’t likeep partying, Greek Life or sports, there is still plenty to do here. 
Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
Also, I can’t find ithe ranked anywhere either. I think it has one of the better engineering schools in Florida (there is also University of Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida). But in terms of how it compares to othe state universities across the country, it is definitely not the top ranked engineering school.
And thank you for the congratulations! I appreciate it!
I will be following this thread hoping that a current FSU engineering student will chime in with thoughts. I’m very curious.
This website lists all the engineering programs in Florida and lists FSU at #5 in FL…
What employers are concerned with is if your program is ABET accredited, which Florida State’s is.
but does that mean that it makes absolutely no difference for your career prospects if you study engineering at Michigan or GA Tech, vs FSU or literally any school with ABET accredited engineering programs?
If I was focused on engineering in the state of Florida, I would look more at UF and UCF.
JMO.
oh i would send him to UF in a heartbeat but $$$.
FSU looked like it would be an affordable option with merit aid so i’m trying to get a sense of quality of Engr dept.
all i want to do is find the best blend of value and academic quality and i’m willing to cast a large net to find it.
i know he can get good $$$ at Alabama and Ole Miss and maybe Utah but just trying to dig up other options. it’s hard to easily find this information for so many possible schools. at least Bama and Miss are kind enough to say up front, “hey, we’ll give you at least this much guaranteed.”
I saw somewhere on CC that FSU’s engineering is sort of away from campus (??).
We did not visit FSU mainly because we thought son would go to UA if we were going to go that far away anyway. DS got some scholarship $$ from FSU but it wasn’t enough to beat UA.
PS: I also worried that FSU was too Greek/party-oriented for our son. UF has that element but it has many other niches too.
@SouthFloridaMom9 FSU engineering is at a remote campus shared with FAMU.
^^thank you @STEM2017.
The main complaint people have about the school is that it’s shared with FAMU. It’s basically the FSU College of Engineering that FAMU students attend. 80% of the students and faculty are from FSU. The building is also on FSU property (the southwest campus). However, FAMU has such a poor repuation that their name alone scares people away.
Both FSU and FAMU want to split the school, but FAMU knows it does not have enough students to support a large engineering school. They would have to cut back the number of programs they offer. They would likely only be able to support mechanical and civil engineering, the most popular engineering majors. The school is basically held together so a dozen or so FAMU students can get degrees in industrial, electrical, or chemical engineering.
It’s a shame the school is held together. I suspect more students would attend each school if they were separate and located on campus at each university. FAMU students don’t like that FSU’s name is attached to the engineering school either. Also, if the school were separate, I gaurantee FSU would quickly shoot up in the engineering rankings. There is a lot of great research being done in engineering. FSU has several well funded labs: HPMI, CAPS, and FCAAP.
thank you very much. i just find it strange that USNWR would not recognize that FSU even has an engineering program. if it is 80% FSU College of Engineering, then they should call it that, and then footnote that it is a joint program with FAMU. listing FAMU as the primary name on the College of Engineering makes no sense.
It’s technically the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, though I believe the diploma will just say FSU, not FAMU. Most of the students are from FSU, and it was recently placed under FSU financial stewardship (after decades of languishing under FAMU). This change should be good for the school.
It’s not a bad engineering school, but there are a lot of politics surrounding it due to the fact that it is shared between two schools that are generally regarded as being in different tiers academically. FSU desperately wants to start their own CoE, but whenever the possibility is raised by the Florida legislature, FAMU supporters go to DEFCON 1 and start writing op-eds in the press, using terms like “Jim Crow,” which frightens politicians into backing away. Merely putting FSU in charge of its finances was controversial, even though it will probably be better for the engineering school.
As others have mentioned, it is ABET accredited, and FSU is well-regarded overall. But the FAMU-FSU CoE wouldn’t be my first choice unless there is a financial incentive. If graduate school is in the picture, it might be worth going there to save money and then going somewhere else for grad school.
Croc, thank you very much for this insightful feedback. appreciate it.
Well, reading an above post about how it’d be better if famu and fsu went their separate ways, and if the African American students had their own separate campus for engineering with only a few majors, it’s hard not to think of the legacy of segregation. That post read very much like 'let’s get rid of those dead weights, we’ll do better and climb the rankings '.
That aside :
What makes FAMU so scary that the mere mention of its name would scare Florida students away?
(Genuine question - a kid I know is considering FAMU because it’s a decently ranked hbcu. Not interested in Greek life nor band,whdre problems have been identified, she’s looking forward to mixed famu/fsu classes, thinking it’d combine the benefits of an hbcu with a large university.)
FAMU has a bad reputation. The entire university has been on probation several times and nearly lost accreditation. Individual programs such as the pharmacy school and law school have also been on probation and in jeopardy of losing accreditation. FAMU has a lengthy history of mismanagement, which is why operation of the engineering school was recently turned over to FSU. FAMU is also the easiest university to get into in the state (the students have the lowest SAT/ACT scores and GPAs), which doesn’t bode well for its reputation.
If you believe the school should be kept together so FAMU students can have access to more majors, then both universities should be merged entirely. There are other majors at FSU that FAMU doesn’t have, why is engineering so unique?
The states reason for keeping the school together is to save money. Again, using that logic, both universities should be merged to save money.
( edited as i am not familiar with either school )
for an out-of-state kid looking for big merit $$$ and a solid engineering program, the fact that “Florida State University” appears nowhere on the USNWR rankings for UG Engineering is puzzling if you are not familiar with the situation. one might assume at first glance that FSU does not offer engineering, which seems odd for such a prominent state U. USNWR should list both schools in the rankings to avoid confusion.