Georgia Tech or Case Western Reserve

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Son has narrowed his selection to either Georgia Tech or Case Western Reserve. All being said, both will cost approx. the same. His interests are varied - Chemical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Game Design - basically any and all engineering.</p>

<p>Any words of wisdom about which school he should consider are welcomed. As a Christian he is seeking a positive environment both academically and spiritually. </p>

<p>With all things being equal, are there any suggestions regarding the overall environment of either school he should consider before making his final selection? Any pros or cons which may be worth investigating?</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

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<p>I can’t speak for Case in particular, but I’ve attended schools outside of the south where professors and fellow students will talk down to Christians. One of the nice things about Georgia Tech being located in the Bible Belt is that’s not the case there. </p>

<p>There’s a strong religious community, with a large Christian fraternity and the Campus Christian Fellowship next door to each other, and across from the Baptist Center and the Methodist Center. I’m a Christian and was very happy at Tech.</p>

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<p>I have done a lot of research on Case and believe it to have a solid engineering program. Being a smaller school he may get more individual attention than the larger GIT. </p>

<p>I do not know about the Christian environment but believe that if it is lacking then he can use that as an opportunity to improve it by setting an example for others.</p>

<p>If he has the opportunity I would try and spend a day on both campuses and see if one gets the nod.</p>

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<p>In my experience, the amount of attention a student gets from faculty is directly related to the student’s effort to go to office hours and class. For example, I’m typing this right after spending 2 hours with a student in my office (and I’m at a large university). Why did I spend two hours with her? She came to my office and asked for help on a resume, career advice, then study tips. Out of my 150 students this semester, I’ve spent more than 5 hours of individual attention with about 5 of them. </p>

<p>At a small school, if I had 40 students instead of 150, I could give more attention to the passive students that don’t visit me at office hours - get to know them more and their issues. But I would probably give the same attention to the active students. </p>

<p>This shouldn’t underscore the value of large schools: in terms of large vs. small, larger schools come with more opportunity (research, and often jobs), more activities, and more access to resources. Often, the big state schools have more research and internships, and more name recognition, as well (the exception would be the top small schools, like MIT).</p>

<p>Then again, it’s not like GT is huge - the campus has about 16,000 students. It’s not the 6,000 student MIT size, but it’s not the 45,000 Michigan size, either.</p>

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<p>Based on this, I assume you WANT to spend time with your students. This is less common at larger schools than smaller schools. One professor I worked with at a large university was only interested in his research, and only taught classes because it was something he had to do.</p>

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<p>^ agree 100%</p>

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<p>The problem I experienced at tech for EE/CMPE/CS is that many of the teachers have very small office hour blocks just a few days a week. As you can imagine with a lot of students it makes it that much harder to see a professor. Some teachers have larger blocks but that’s because they want to do more than the minimum. You spend a lot of your time dealing with the TA at his/her office hours.</p>

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<p>My spouse, self & 2 of my siblings went to CWRU. S may attend GaTech. depending on award letter-did not even apply at Case!<br>
Positives of GaTech- location, weather, athletics (fun factor), believe it or not safety, personally I like students/atmosphere better & I do believe there are more Christians & less druggy genius types than at CWRU, polite southern students
Negatives: traffic, freshman can’t have a car-almost a deal breaker for OSS! homeless
your bike WILL BE stolen, your bike SEAT will be stolen!
Positives of CWRU-proximity/involvement of medical, dental, nursing schools, traffic not too bad, walk to culture–symphony (sigh wonderful), art museum, history museum
Negatives: snow! crime/surrounding area is HORRIBLE scary, I was followed by 4 guys, cars were stolen, dorms broken into etc, drug dealers in area, pushy NY, NJ students
your car WILL BE stolen- my roommates was twice!
Think of your future …would you rather be connected in Atlanta or Cleveland? hmmm
nb: sorry for blatant honesty about CWRU, hopefully things are better now, but all the TP in our dorm bathrooms was stolen by apartment dwellers on a regular basis, our clothes were stolen from the laundry room & the food was bad!</p>

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<p>Freshman can have a car at GT, they just can’t get a parking permit.</p>

<p>There are on-campus parking decks ($8 every time you leave), which are actually pretty economical if you’re only taking your car out once a week (remember, it’s $550 / year for a permit). There are also off-campus parking lots you can rent monthly for close to the same price as an on-campus permit (it’s just a farther walk). Many fraternities offer free parking from brothers and pledges. Finally, there’s free street parking scattered throughout the area (mainly home park).</p>

<p>I had a car on campus freshman year (lived on campus and parked at a fraternity) and my wife did, as well (she lived off campus and used free street parking in Home Park).</p>

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<p>please post a parking hook up/link/phone no!</p>

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<p>Well momasita, rest assured I’ve never had anything stolen from me while on campus - and one time I fell asleep and left my laundry in the machine overnight! There are bums around tech square occasionally, but Atlanta has these vans called “Atlanta police quality of life unit” that make them disappear magically.</p>

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<p>Here are some off-campus lots:</p>

<p>[GT</a> Parking & Transporation: Off-Campus Parking](<a href=“Parking and Transportation – Georgia Tech – Parking and Transportation”>Parking and Transportation – Georgia Tech – Parking and Transportation)</p>

<p>These are the on-campus decks:</p>

<p>[GT</a> Parking & Transporation: Visitor Parking](<a href=“Parking and Transportation – Georgia Tech – Parking and Transportation”>Parking and Transportation – Georgia Tech – Parking and Transportation)</p>

<p>(you might want to ask because several do not mention overnight charges, IIRC, the State Street Visitor Lot has a flat rate for in/out traffic)</p>

<p>For fraternities, he’ll have to rush and ask each house. He shouldn’t pick a fraternity based on parking, but it’s always a plus if they have free parking (saved me thousands). </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.homepark.org/[/url]”>http://www.homepark.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There’s free street parking there and on the west side of campus. But I wouldn’t park a car there unless it’s a few years old and doesn’t have anything worth stealing. It’s not a horrible crime area, but it’s worse than on campus.</p>

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<p>thanks gp you are a saint
gthopeful maybe I just had good clothes ha ha</p>

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<p>GP. You went to georgia tech? and you said you went to a better school than i did?..that’s disappointing…or did you go somewhere else for grad school? not that it means anything, just curiousity</p>

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<p>I don’t think GP mentioned where he got his PhD at. It’s fairly clear from his name that he’s here to talk about Tech, where he currently teaches. You don’t seem to be interested in engineering and so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by your statement.</p>

<p>Anyway, back on topic, do you have any more specific questions Skylark?</p>

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<ol>
<li> Georgia Tech is a good school.</li>
<li> I also attended Duke and HBS</li>
</ol>

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<p>Thanks for all the input. </p>

<p>I guess another followup question is the value of coops. I have heard from some students its a great way to get job experience, but have also heard that it delays graduation and thus you end up paying a lot more for your degree since you have to stay in school much longer.</p>

<p>Any thoughts on the dollar value of coops compared to “just graduating” without coop experience? Basically do coop students get better job offers?</p>

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<p>You’re in school longer, but it doesn’t necessarily cost more, since you only pay for the semesters in which you take classes. Most co-ops graduate in 9 semesters (as opposed to 8) because they take two summer semesters (you take less courses in the summer than in the Fall or Spring because it’s shorter). However, the summer semesters are cheaper.</p>

<p>With regards to value: Almost every student does a co-ops or internships in engineering. As a recruiter, I wouldn’t even interview a full time hire without 2 semesters of co-op/internship experience (or 1 really good experience), even with a 4.0 GPA. To me, and every recruiter I ever worked with, it’s a requirement for a full-time engineering hire (now if your son’s goal is academia, that’s a different situation). </p>

<p>But your son doesn’t have to co-op, he can also intern (and companies view them to be equivalent - good experience is good experience). A co-op is a 4-5 year commitment with the same company, while an internship is a 1 semester commitment. They’re actually very similar: interns that do a good job are frequently asked to come back, and co-ops that do a bad job can be asked to not return. At Georgia Tech, you’re also allowed to switch from co-op to intern (you basically drop out of the co-op program) but you can’t go the other way. You can start interning at any time, but must start co-oping (at least join the program) in your freshman year.</p>

<p>There are advantages and disadvantages of both. Pros of Co-oping: freshman have a hard time finding internships, but co-ops are easier to find; co-ops have more stability (you know where you’re going every semester); you will probably get to stay in the same location, so knowing the area, finding an apartment, etc. is easier; and you get a note on your diploma (which is so small it’s nearly impossible to read). Pro’s of internships: you interview every year, so your skills stay fresh; you can move from company to company and industry to industry (which helps in identifying what you want to do and broadens your job market appeal); and you can choose to only intern in summers, which doesn’t delay graduation (biggest advantage).</p>

<p>My advice to new freshman at Georgia Tech: shoot for 3 internships / co-ops at a minimum. I would start-off freshman year in the co-op program (register in August/September - interviews start in October!) for a Summer 2010 co-op. Work hard to get a good reference. If your GPA is above 3.0, drop out of the co-op program in Fall 2010, and interview (again, in October) for internships in Summer 2011. Again, get a good reference, and interview (in October) for Summer 2012. Then graduate in May 2013 in 4 years with 3 internship experiences. As long as your GPA is above 3.0 - 3.2, you’ll be in an excellent position for a full-time hire.</p>

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<p>Great breakdown and advice G.P. One of the things that has drawn my son to GT and/or Case is the opportunity for coops or internships. Now as a followup to your great comments - what do you think of overseas coops/internships/study abroad programs?</p>

<p>I know GT will let you pay in state tuition for Georgia if you do an overseas program, but…I am not sure if this is worth while or not or if the programs available overseas are comparable to GT. Any advice about this is also welcomed.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

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<p>Overseas internships are available, but they’re generally pretty difficult to get. The biggest problem for a US citizen is that if BMW posts an internship position in Germany, undoubtedly a qualified German citizen (at Tech) will apply for the position. International companies are also pretty reluctant to send US citizens internationally for a few months because of the cost and hassle to get a work permit. </p>

<p>If your son is interested in working in Europe for even a short period of time, he might want to consider looking at dual citizenship (several EU countries will let you go back to great, great grandparent’s in order to prove heritage, and thus citizenship). That way he can hold a US passport and EU passport and be more employable. There are other factors to consider, so you might want to find a dual citizenship website and ask.</p>

<p>As for study abroad - at least at Tech, the study abroad courses are taught by GT professors that travel with the students, so there’s no drop off in quality. The biggest drawback is that you often take less hours abroad, leading to one or two less classes that semester, which could delay graduation (possibly - he’ll have to look at his specific situation). But it’s a great experience and I wish I would have spent a semester abroad. Everyone I knew that went loved the experience. Here are a list of programs:</p>

<p>[Gatech</a> :: OIE :: Study Abroad Programs](<a href=“http://www.oie.gatech.edu/sa/programs/]Gatech”>http://www.oie.gatech.edu/sa/programs/)</p>

<p>The “GT Summer Programs” are taught by GT Faculty.</p>

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<p>G.P.Burdell interesting thought about dual citizenship and your thoughts about securing an international internship. Also your comment about less hours abroad as part of the study abroad program. </p>

<p>I also liked your earlier comments about getting set up in the coop program right away.</p>

<p>With all these great ideas, what about securing a position to work on a science based research project as a research assistant? I have heard these are very difficult to obtain at GT unless you have an amazing GPA etc. Case Western seems to have lots of research opportunities for students, even under graduates. From personal experience, these one on one interactions were a highlight of my experience in college - great learning experience working directly with prof. </p>

<p>Any thoughts on obtaining a research position as a student and how something like this weighs in compared to a coop or internship?</p>