<p>anyone know anything about Harvard Engineering? it is supposed to be revamped</p>
<p>If you want to do engineering in the Ivy league there are better schools for it.</p>
<p>Agreed. Go to Cornell or even Princeton for engineering in the Ivy League. If you really like the Boston area, well there's MIT for you.</p>
<p>If you can get into Harvard, chances are you can also get into MIT, which is definitely more known for engineering.</p>
<p>IEEE</a> Spectrum: Engineering the Harvard Engineer</p>
<p>In terms of breadth, engineering at Harvard is still pretty limited. They offer applied math, applied physics, EECS, ME, EnvE and BioE. If you're not certain what branch of engineering you're interested in, I'd be wary about attending Harvard SEAS. What will you do if you figure out you're actually interested in chemical engineering, civil engineering, or aerospace engineering?</p>
<p>I know they hired a bunch of professors in the past few years, but I don't know much about the quality of the program.</p>
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What will you do if you figure out you're actually interested in chemical engineering, civil engineering, or aerospace engineering?
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<p>What I would then do is cross-register at MIT. I would argue that the engineering resources at Harvard combined with the resources available at MIT through cross-registration vastly outclass that of most other engineering schools. </p>
<p>Now, granted, it would be even easier if you just went to MIT in the first place. But that of course presumes that you can (and I know plenty of people who got into Harvard but not MIT), and also presumes that you are fairly sure about engineering or other programs that MIT has to offer. MIT has the flipside problem: what if you go to MIT but then find out that you want to be, say, a humanities major? MIT's humanities offerings are even more limited than are Harvard's engineering offerings. Obviously you can also cross-register into Harvard's humanities classes, but life would obviously be easier if you were just a fully-fledged Harvard student. </p>
<p>I think the core issue is that most high school seniors don't really know what they want to do. Heck, there are plenty of fully-grown adults who I know that still don't know what they really want to do. Harvard and MIT try to alleviate this problem through their extensive cross-registration program.</p>
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What I would then do is cross-register at MIT.
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Surely there would be some limitation to cross-registration. Will Harvard allow one of its students to take 15 credits at MIT? I think cross-registration is good for someone with a cursory interest in another subject, but not as a replacement for a major.</p>
<p>If this is something that is of great concern, a school like Brown may be best with its open curriculum. Or consider any other school with minimal barriers to transferring between its engineering school and its other schools.</p>
<p>EDIT:
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I think the core issue is that most high school seniors don't really know what they want to do. Heck, there are plenty of fully-grown adults who I know that still don't know what they really want to do. Harvard and MIT try to alleviate this problem through their extensive cross-registration program.
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<p>By the way, that problem can be solved by making engineering programs similar to architecture programs. Allow students who know they want to do engineering to do it in undergrad (current system). For others who decide on engineering later on, allow them to get a graduate degree in engineering with any undergrad major as long as they fulfill certain prerequisites. This graduate degree would be completed in 2 years.</p>
<p>Interesting sakky, could an undergrad from Harvard who does that cross-register with MIT consider himself an alum of MIT as well? Just curious, I know it sounds a little silly.</p>
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Interesting sakky, could an undergrad from Harvard who does that cross-register with MIT consider himself an alum of MIT as well? Just curious, I know it sounds a little silly.
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<p>As with most cross-registration programs, I don't think you get to be an alumnus of both schools. No brass rat for you.</p>
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MIT has the flipside problem: what if you go to MIT but then find out that you want to be, say, a humanities major? MIT's humanities offerings are even more limited than are Harvard's engineering offerings. Obviously you can also cross-register into Harvard's humanities classes, but life would obviously be easier if you were just a fully-fledged Harvard student. </p>
<p>I think the core issue is that most high school seniors don't really know what they want to do. Heck, there are plenty of fully-grown adults who I know that still don't know what they really want to do. Harvard and MIT try to alleviate this problem through their extensive cross-registration program. </p>
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<p>You seem the bring this up everytime someone mentioned Harvard engineering. Someone going into engineering at MIT is probably not going to switch out to a humanities major...and if they do switch majors MIT actually offers many other great majors outside of engineering. If someone could pick between MIT and Harvard for engineering and feels equal about the campuses then I would say go with MIT. You shouldn't go to a school assuming you will switch majors to something completely different. Yes a school with options is good but giving up engineering at MIT to leave the option of switching to a humanities major later on is just laughable.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info sweetie(aibarr).</p>
<p>You're welcome, pookums.</p>
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Surely there would be some limitation to cross-registration. Will Harvard allow one of its students to take 15 credits at MIT? I think cross-registration is good for someone with a cursory interest in another subject, but not as a replacement for a major.
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<p>A Harvard student is allowed to cross-reg up to half of his total units in any given term, which is a significant amount of flexibility. Let's use the example of chemical engineering, since you brought it up. ChemE is, frankly, not so much different from ME such that you couldn't build a highly respectable program out of Harvard's ME program combined with half your units from the MIT chemical engineering program. In fact, I would venture to say that such a program would be at least as comprehensive as most other fully-fledged, single-school ChemE programs out there. </p>
<p>Nobody is arguing that cross-reg would be the same as just going to MIT in the first place. Obviously it is not. I am simply pointing out that the combined engineering pool of resources of both Harvard and MIT through cross-reg is arguably more extensive than that of most other engineering programs out there. That's because MIT's engineering resources are so vast that even if you are accorded only 'halfway' access to MIT, that's, frankly, still more than you would get at most other schools. </p>
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If this is something that is of great concern, a school like Brown may be best with its open curriculum. Or consider any other school with minimal barriers to transferring between its engineering school and its other schools.
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<p>I think there is no serious comparison to be made between the engineering resources you could get at Harvard (combined with the x-reg resources from MIT) and what you can get in the engineering program at Brown. Is this even a matter of serious dispute? </p>
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Interesting sakky, could an undergrad from Harvard who does that cross-register with MIT consider himself an alum of MIT as well? Just curious, I know it sounds a little silly.
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<p>As aibarr said, no brass-rat for you. But I hardly think that it matters. </p>
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You seem the bring this up everytime someone mentioned Harvard engineering. Someone going into engineering at MIT is probably not going to switch out to a humanities major...and if they do switch majors MIT actually offers many other great majors outside of engineering.
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<p>Almost all of MIT's (strong) majors are highly technical in nature. Hence, even if you're switching out of engineering, you're probably switching to something highly quantitative; it's not exactly the biggest switch in the world to move from EECS to, say, physics. </p>
<p>What is relevant is that somebody at MIT may want to switch to a purely non-technical curricula, which is impossible to do because, whether you like it or not, every student has to fulfill the General Institute Requirements which include a palette of technical courses. For example, even if you decide to major in humanities at MIT, you still have to pass multivariable calculus and 2 semesters of physics whether you like it or not (or else you are forced to transfer to another school). Harvard has no such restriction. You decide that you want to major in humanities? Harvard isn't going to force physics and multivar calculus upon you. </p>
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If someone could pick between MIT and Harvard for engineering and feels equal about the campuses then I would say go with MIT. You shouldn't go to a school assuming you will switch majors to something completely different. Yes a school with options is good but giving up engineering at MIT to leave the option of switching to a humanities major later on is just laughable.
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<p>Like I said, that's a big 'if'. Not everybody who gets into Harvard will get into MIT. I know plenty of people who didn't. </p>
<p>But secondly, I never disputed that just being at MIT is obviously better than having to cross-register at MIT through Harvard, if you already know you want to be an engineer. The real question then is really how sure do you feel about engineering? To that, I again would point to the national statistics that state that over half of all 'intended' incoming engineering students will not actually complete the engineering degree. Engineering attrition rates are high; many students will find engineering to be too hard, and/or find something else more interesting to do.</p>
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I think there is no serious comparison to be made between the engineering resources you could get at Harvard (combined with the x-reg resources from MIT) and what you can get in the engineering program at Brown. Is this even a matter of serious dispute?
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Brown was just a placeholder for a school with minimal barriers for changing in and out of engineering. I believe Stanford doesn't require you to choose engineering until junior year. Substitute that for Brown in my paragraph above.</p>
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Like I said, that's a big 'if'. Not everybody who gets into Harvard will get into MIT. I know plenty of people who didn't. </p>
<p>But secondly, I never disputed that just being at MIT is obviously better than having to cross-register at MIT through Harvard, if you already know you want to be an engineer. The real question then is really how sure do you feel about engineering? To that, I again would point to the national statistics that state that over half of all 'intended' incoming engineering students will not actually complete the engineering degree. Engineering attrition rates are high; many students will find engineering to be too hard, and/or find something else more interesting to do.
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<p>Correct but it was just for the sake of the argument.</p>
<p>You're right that many engineering students switch majors. But you also said it yourself that an engineering major that switches will likely go to some other technical or science discipline. Harvard does offer more majors. But most of these majors aren't going to be the fallback option for engineering majors who switch. And keep in mind it is quite possible to transfer to another school should you decide to switch majors. You are not bound to the school you begin at.</p>
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Brown was just a placeholder for a school with minimal barriers for changing in and out of engineering. I believe Stanford doesn't require you to choose engineering until junior year. Substitute that for Brown in my paragraph above.
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<p>Again, the presumption is that you can actually get into Stanford. There are plenty of people who get into Harvard but not Stanford. Even if you do, I can think of quite a few reasons to prefer Harvard over Stanford, one of which is the fact that Stanford is in a very boring location. (As much as I love the Bay Area, I have to say that Palo Alto is arguably the most boring and culturally vacant college town in the country - it's basically just a glorified upscale suburb.) </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I think this is all missing the point anyway. I believe the OP wanted to know about the state of the Harvard engineering program. Not about what other engineering programs may be better. I happen to think that the state of the Harvard engineering program is quite strong when you factor in the availability of the MIT x-reg resources. But regardless, if somebody asks about the state of a given program, we should talk about the state of that program. Otherwise, it would be like somebody asking about the state of, say, Stanford Law School only to get responses telling him to go to Harvard Law. </p>
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You're right that many engineering students switch majors. But you also said it yourself that an engineering major that switches will likely go to some other technical or science discipline.
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<p>They may indeed switch to some other technical discipline...but often times not one that requires the full completion of the MIT GIR's. I know quite a few former ChemE's who decided to switch to pure chemistry or biology (often times for premed purposes). Hence, they no longer care about multivar calculus. But MIT requires them to do so regardless. If they had gone to some other school besides MIT, they wouldn't have to take multivar. Similarly, chemistry majors are not required to take biology courses...except chem majors at MIT who, just like every other MIT student, are required to do so whether they like it or not. </p>
<p>In other words, no matter what major you're talking about, MIT will force you to take courses that other schools - even for the same major - will not force you to take. You want to come to MIT just to learn electrical engineering and only electrical engineering? MIT will force you to take biology anyway, whether you want to or not. </p>
<p>Now, we can argue whether that's a good or bad thing. But that's a side issue. The point is that other schools - such as Harvard - don't have the kind of general requirements that MIT does, and some people don't want to be forced to take courses on topics they don't care about. </p>
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And keep in mind it is quite possible to transfer to another school should you decide to switch majors. You are not bound to the school you begin at.
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<p>And where would one switch to if you were doing poorly in engineering, as is the case for many students who want to switch out of engineering? The sad truth is that if you try out an engineering program and get poor grades, you will find it quite difficult to transfer to a respectable school. </p>
<p>In fact, I would argue that the notion of transferring because of poor performance actually strengthens my argument. Let's say that you choose MIT over Harvard because you think you want to be an engineer and you perform terribly. You're just not good enough to handle MIT's tough quantitative rigor. So then you look to transfer to some other easier school. Well, in that case, I would argue that, frankly, you would have been far better off if you had just gone to Harvard in the first place, where you could have easily escaped from all quantitatively rigorous courses. With a trashed MIT academic record, your transfer options are rather bleak: you're probably looking at a far lower ranked school that would be willing to admit you. Certainly Harvard won't admit you as a transfer because of your terrible grades at MIT, despite the fact that you actually got into Harvard as a freshman. </p>
<p>Look, guys, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that everybody should choose Harvard over MIT. I am simply saying that there are indeed legitimate reasons for some people to do so, even if they are thinking of engineering. What really matters are how sure you really are about engineering and how well do you fit at either school. </p>
<p>I also detect a strong anti-Harvard bias in the responses in this thread. Harvard, without even counting the booster resources of the MIT x-reg system, has actually one of the very best engineering programs around when you consider the fact that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of engineering programs in the country. Yet whenever anybody talks about Harvard engineering, the general response is that people should go to some other program. Why? Just recently a poster asked about the quality of the engineering program at San Jose State University, and you didn't have responders telling the OP to go to some other school. Heck, you even had one responder state that engineering graduates from various schools tend to be roughly equivalently qualified. I certainly didn't hear anybody on that thread tell the OP to go to MIT or Stanford. </p>
<p>So basically, it's perfectly fine for somebody to attend SJSU for engineering. But when we're talking about engineering at Harvard, all of a sudden, everybody is recommending some other school. Why the double standard? Why does Harvard get singled out?</p>
<p>Is the biomedical engineering program at Harvard with a view to med school as good or equal to MIT or Penn</p>
<p>thanks SAKKY for all the info re Harvard Engineering and MIT</p>
<p>I understand where you are coming from sakky and I agree with what you say. Then again I also believe that there are tons of schools that provide an equal education to those top name schools that we don't talk about or maybe ever heard of! </p>
<p>Just out of curiosity what other classes does MIT require from all its students besides multivariable calc? If a science major at MIT can't handle a class in multivariable calc they don't belong at MIT =P And besides, I don't care about ethics but my school made me take it anyway.</p>
<p>I guess Harvard gets singled out just cause they don't see it highly ranked compared to MIT, Stanford and much less UIUC.</p>