Help U of I, U of M, or Rose Hulman

<p>Any feedback on Rose Hulman heard a lot of good things and trying to choose between U of Ill, Rose Hulman, and U of Michigan for mech eng....I am female and excited about all 3.</p>

<p>You need to first decide about Rose Hulman or a school like U of M or U of I. I am a huge fan of Rose because their focus is on undergraduate education. Big schools like U of I and U Mich focus more on research and graduate education.</p>

<p>I agree with the previous post. </p>

<p>RH is more focused on undergrad. They dont have much of a graduate program though.</p>

<p>Most of the faculty at UM are focused on grad students. I have a Ph.D. in IE from UM. It is a great place to be a Ph.D. student. They paid me to be there for 5 years. I had daily one on one interaction with my advisor. I got to consult with my advisor, travel to conferences, etc. I actually had more fiscal responsibility on my thesis project than I have today in my "real" job. Undergrads just did not get much attention (unless they could find a way to get involved in a professor's research program).</p>

<p>Oh...I forgot to add that you need to decide if you want a smaller school or a bigger one. At RH you are going to bump into people you know frequently. At UM I could go down to the diag and sit on a bench for an hour and see a thousand people go by and not recognize anyone. It can be lots of fun if you are a people watcher but it can be really depressing if you are feeling lonely.</p>

<p>Cheezwhiz, I would add to Dr. Reynold's post that RH has an outstanding and unique, as far as I know, peer mentoring program. Is it possible for you to visit to see if any of these schools feel like a good fit for you?</p>

<p>I made a visit to all and even sent a week at U of Mich for their Women's Engineering. I love Rose Hulman but my concern is would I lose out with a smaller school for undergrad. </p>

<p>I was leaning towards Rose Hulman but wanted to get people's feedback on what they thought about a smaller school and Rose Hulman reputation in the work world.</p>

<p>I also realize that if I decide to go to grad school it will be at a larger school.</p>

<p>I'm confused cheezwhiz, what do you mean "my concern is would I lose out with a smaller school for undergrad."?</p>

<p>I've visited RH and Michigan. As far as undergrad engineering, I much prefered RH. I love the small, more personal touch that you would receive at a smaller school. I also think that at a small school it would be much easier to schedule all of your classes and would be on target to graduate in 4 years. I think that RHIT graduates most of it's students in 4 years, quite a feat for an engineering school.</p>

<p>Do not worry at all about RHIT's rep in the working world. Company's are very familar with RHIT and you would not suffer in finding a job.</p>

<p>The one thing that UM would have over RHIT is more girls and also a more diverse student body.</p>

<p>I'm currently a sophomore at Rose, so hopefully I can give a different perspective than others.</p>

<p>I think, in general, Rose is just different than a lot of schools. There is an open, close-knit feel all around. Rose encourages an open-door policy where on-campus residents are encouraged to leave their doors open. This helps initiate contact between people in the dorms and you never feel weird about going into other people's rooms and talking to them. I actually think that Rose is a lot like high school. You will know everyone, or at least know of them.</p>

<p>As mentioned, there is a "peer tutoring" program. The on-campus library has a Learning Center that employs students who tutor freshman and sophomore level classes. You just walk in and the Learning Center will set you up with a tutor who will help you out one-on-one with homework or any topic you may be struggling with. On top of that, in the sophomore residence hall, there are 8 upperclassmen tutors who are there strictly to help sophomores with the sophomore curriculum, as sophomore year is by far regarded as the hardest.</p>

<p>The class sizes are small overall. The most students you will ever have in a class is ~30-35, and that is in general courses that everyone must take. I've had classes with as few as 5 students, and I'm only a sophomore. Professors have designated office hours every day, when they are always available to help you with problems. But even outside of those office hours, most professors will be more than happy to drop what they're doing to help you out. You mentioned that you've visited Rose, so I'm sure that your guide mentioned most, if not all, of this.</p>

<p>As far as employment goes, Rose does a great job of placing its graduating seniors in jobs. I'm not sure of the exact percentage, but I believe that at graduation, 95+% of graduating seniors have job offers, are going to grad school or are enlisting. Though Rose is not that well known among the general public, companies definitely know about Rose. At the last on-campus career fair, nearly 200 companies were in attendance including Bloomberg, Cummins, Delphi, GM, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, etc. While the majority of my high school friends (most of whom are engineering majors at other schools) struggled to find jobs/internships this past summer, I had relatively little difficulty getting a summer internship, even as a freshman.</p>

<p>"I was leaning towards Rose Hulman but wanted to get people's feedback on what they thought about a smaller school and Rose Hulman reputation in the work world"</p>

<p>Rose has a very high reputation nationally in engineering. On a year to year basis that 95% figure for employment mentioned above is inaccurate on the low side. Usually, the figure is that 99% of those seeking jobs after graduating have offers; about 30% go deirectly on to grad school and the grad schools usually include MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley and similar others.</p>

<p>Thanks for your feedback...Rose Sounds like a very good school. I knew someone that just transferred from U of Ill (went there a year) to go to Rose Hulman</p>

<p>Is it true that at rose-hulman they dont offer AE engineering as a major?
RH sounded pretty awesome when I started looking into it, but I was pretty discouraged when I found that out...</p>

<p>I think they have mechanical with an aero emphasis when I applied two years ago...it's almost the same classes. Rose was in my top 3 choices, but no scholarship given to me, so I went elsewhere. I probably would have gone there if it was a cheaper option. Seems like a great school with policies to help students succeed.</p>

<p>bump bump bump</p>

<p>i agree with chosing a school like rose hulman where they focus on undergraduates, where you have good employment or grad school opportunities. keep in mind you also have a very favorable male to female ratio ;)</p>

<p>I'm going to emphasize what others have said about Rose. It's very personal. Your classmates, your RA's and SA's (Resident Advisors and Sophomore Advisors), your profs, even the people who change your sheets and empty your trash are all very friendly and very open. It's very unique and I would encourage you to look into it more. If you're a junior Operation Catapult is a great summer program that you can do to see more of Rose.</p>

<p>Like M4H, I'm a sophomore at Rose. I won't be as eloquent as him, but I'll try to give you my impressions of the school.</p>

<p>Rose is very keen on making you learn what you're supposed to. I've often felt that one reason we're pretty well-respected is that everything about the place is geared towards getting you to learn what's taught. M4H has already mentioned the tutoring options and the small class sizes, and I agree that those help us learn. But I also think there are two other things that aid learning. First of all, we are given a whole lot of homework, especially after freshman year. I've heard from people at larger schools that homework is generally optional, but at Rose it's a big requirement. And I think that all the homework has helped me learn problem solving a lot better. </p>

<p>Secondly, I think that our professors are unique. Rather than being divided between research and teaching, they are completely focused on undergraduate teaching. This really helps in terms of clarity. Rose is also pretty good about filtering out teachers who don't teach well. I remember one teacher last year couldn't teach physics worth anything and therefore wasn't rehired the next year.</p>

<p>Like M4H mentioned, Rose does have a nice "close-knit" feeling. After being here for a year, I probably recognize the faces of about 75 - 85 % of my fellow sophomores, and I recognize about 45 - 65 % of the juniors and seniors. It makes me feel like less of an alien and more like a member of a big family. My friends and I routinely gab about "lab coat guy," "cat-ears girl," and other unique characters around campus (although cat-ears girl graduated, I think :( ).</p>

<p>However, I want you to clearly understand that Rose is NOT perfect. No school is. You'll get a bad professor every once in a while. The guy/girl ratio SUCKS. I feel that the social scene isn't as developed as on other campuses. And Terre Haute isn't really much of a happenin' metropolis. There are ways around these shortcomings (fraternities, clubs, ISU, Indianapolis, etc.), but they're shortcomings nonetheless.</p>

<p>I think your decision comes down to what type of person you are. Rose types like lots of help outside of class, personal attention, and a small community. We pay the price with higher tuition. </p>

<p>I hope I helped a little bit!</p>

<p>thanks m4h and y2kwizard for the info, we've been to Rose and I think its a great school. I've talked to a student that transfered from U of I into Rose and he says some of the same things as both of you.</p>

<p>I really like the idea of the small school and knowing so many people. As far as Terre Haute a shortcoming but that I can live with if everything else is right. I'm a female so the male/female is a plus. </p>

<p>Thanks for the response....everyone seems to love Rose once they get there.</p>