HELP! University Of Alabama or Tennessee?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>@bigdaddy88 Sorry…I’ve been away for a while…I didn’t think I would get this many replies and advice. Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. To be honest, I still am struggling to choose My biggest problem is that I might miss some opportunities if I go to one school over the other. BTW, when I said UTK is more “prestigious” I guess I meant more higher in the rankings. My biggest reservation with Alabama is the “stereotypes” that might come with it. I am not sure if many employers outside of the south (Silicon valley?) might want to hire a Alabama engineering graduate. I am in no way trying to be Alabama down, but people have prejudices against schools from the deep south (Miss, Alabama, Louisiana) as “just not being that great.”</p>

<p>But as of now…Alabama seems like the better option. But I will have to visit UTK before i make my decision!</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help guys!</p>

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<p>@dixiedelight WOW thats awesome! Congrats! If you don’t mind me asking…did you duel major in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry? </p>

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<p>Tennessee has arguably the same stereotypes as the states you listed. It’s 2013. I’ve found that people that are actually intelligent and successful (your boss) usually don’t believe in stereotypes…
And no, just chemical engineering. And thanks! </p>

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<p>dixiedelight - i didn’t specify the career fair. if you go to crimson careers, search on-campus interviews and put in ChemE as a qualifier, you will get 5 qualified schedules. </p>

<p>how many ChemE grads graduated with you?</p>

<p>where did you end up working?</p>

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<p>MikeWozowski-recruiting is pretty cyclical. You can’t just expect there to be chemical engineering jobs on demand for recent graduates. They recruit for semester endings. Hence why they have career fairs to begin with. I think around 15-20 graduated with me. I am working in the southeast. </p>

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<p>Chardo and Mike, thank you for posting your children’s experiences. That is concerning and definitely should be a factor in determining school choice. My older kids’ experiences do not resemble what is being discussed. Students are heavily recruited. Strong co-op offices and on campus recruiting demonstrate strong relationships between industry and the institution. You want to know that industry values the education and the graduates from your institution. </p>

<p>If your child has an idea of where they want to work, you should have them call some HR depts and talk about the schools they recruit grads from. </p>

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<p>I have posted before (on more than one occasion) that I don’t believe the UA career center is keeping pace with the growth of the school or the increase in the number of out of state students. Compared with schools of similar size and ranking (I once wrote a lengthy post comparing the recruiting at UA to Indiana U which share many similarities except that IU lacks an engineering program) and UA is so far behind that frankly it should be embarrassing to the school. I’ve also posted about the recruiting for other engineering schools - even Auburn hosts a job fair exclusively for civil engineering students…this year they are hosting two, while UA is hosting 0 (<a href=“http://www.eng.auburn.edu/organizations/ASCE/careerfair.html”>http://www.eng.auburn.edu/organizations/ASCE/careerfair.html&lt;/a&gt;) - and that alone should be a motivating factor. (I told my son a member of Bama’s ASCE chapter to address this with the organization president and head of the civ-e department. </p>

<p>But that being said, it does seem to be improving…at least a little…and maybe slowly. Last year my son attended both the fall and spring job fairs on campus and spoke to <em>1</em> company that was interested in hiring civ-e interns and they did not return this year. However when looking at the list of companies this year, there do seem to be several additions to the list (although last year there was more than one company listed, but son said some hadn’t shown up, some had left early, and others that said they were looking for interns were really only looking for full time, so it’s difficult to say until after the career fair actually takes place). Bama does also have a strong co-op program, but it’s growing quickly too. In the past students have had the chance to interview at 5 companies, this year there were so many students registered, that they had to limit students to 4 interviews. My son did register this year to see what kind of offers he might get and was able to get on the schedule for his top 4 choices, so we’re waiting to see how interview day goes. Also it is possible to find positions on your own, but it takes A LOT of leg work. I spent hours and hours and hours last year doing internet searches looking for companies where son could apply for an internship and he wound up getting 2 interviews and 1 job offer. The job he wound up getting was chosen very strategically - it was a LOW paying internship, so I knew it would not be attractive to a large number of students and very few upperclassmen. It also specifically stated that they only required 1 year of college in their description. Many businesses do say they want sophomore or higher and even though 1st year students may be ranked higher by credits, they are really looking for students who have completed specific courses, some descriptions now even include that you need to have completed a certain number of hours of upper level courses in your major because they want students to have a foundation that they can build upon and not someone who they will have to expend time teaching basic concepts to. There are also still a small number of unpaid internships out there and there won’t be as much competition for those. </p>

<p>As far as a job after graduation - the biggest factor is work experience while in school. A company is going to look strongly at someone who has co-oped or done multiple internships with strong recommendations before a student with no experience no matter where they attended school. The second biggest factor is going to be academic performance. Companies want successful employees that can learn. With a few exceptions, they are going to hire a student with a 3.5 GPA and strong recommendations from a lesser known school before a struggling student from a more prestigious school. The ‘trick’ is to finding those opportunities and the way to do that is networking. Even for adults there is plenty of research that shows that you are many, many times more likely to get a job from a company where you have a connection than you are by submitting a resume on the internet. Have students establish Linked In accounts and start to establish a network of contacts - professors, classmates (that may someday work for a company of interest), professional contacts they meet a job fairs or other career events. Encourage students to join a professional organization and get involved. Encourage students to keep up to date on events through the career center and attend the ones that are relevant (I went for a game last year and the week I was there a local engineering company was hosting a tailgate event and had invited all sophomore and junior civil engineering students to attend. I told son we needed to stop by and he needed to shake some hands and introduce himself. He responded “students don’t go to those things”…we went. We were told to eat a lot because they had brought enough food for the 200 students they were expecting. By the time we headed to our seats about 30 minutes before game time well less than 10 students had shown up). Have students consider going to conferences where they can meet professional contacts. Have students reach out to members of their professional organization back home or in the region they want to work someday. The more professional contacts the students can make, the more internal job listings they may have access to, the more recommendations they can get, the more professional resources they will have access to as they build their career. I watch my son’s emails and ‘suggest’ any events he should attend and then follow-up with him afterwards. I still don’t think there are more opportunities for students from more prestigious schools, I just think that it is ‘a little’ more work to go find them.</p>

<p>BTW - after son’s freshman year he interned for government organization in the suburbs of Chicago where he had no personal connections and had no affiliation with UA, so far son has been contacted for one internship opportunity for this summer at a utility company here near home in Indiana where he has no personal connections and has no affiliation with UA, he is also scheduled to interview at four businesses on co-op interview day (including the one whose tailgate event I <em>made</em> him attend)</p>

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<p>^ I don’t consider Indiana similar UA as far as recruiting. Thanks to Kelley, one of the elite business schools, IU is a major recruiting draw for employers.</p>

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<p>Our experience is similar jrcsmom’s. Heavy on campus recruiting. Multiple job offers to students that co-oped and had GPAs above a 3.5. This was at a smaller state tech u. Industry loves that u’s graduates and their presence on campus is notable. Coops make great salaries.</p>

<p>It concerns me that industry is not vying for UA’s engineering grads. </p>

<p>Does anyone know how grad schools view UA’s students? </p>

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<p>I wouldn’t get wrapped up over rankings or perceived prestige since both schools are relatively close. My advice is to compare the career fair participants for both schools spring 14 career fair and see which school has more well known engineering companies participating. UA career fair list is readily available from their website. UTK doesn’t appear so easy to acquire. You might need to email the career center. </p>

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<p>I agree that the stereotypes applied to UTK because it is a Southern flagship will be very similar to those applied to UA.</p>

<p>Have you considered the other offerings at each school should you decide not to major in Chemical Engineering? I normally caution students against attending a school for a specific program when they only like the school for that specific program.</p>

<p>I do believe that UA could improve its corporate recruiting and better help students prepare for their job search. This is especially evident when students students are applying to positions outside of AL/GA/TN. While students should be the ones taking change of their job search, they often need some guidance, particularly when it comes to cultural differences between industries and regions. A student applying to tech companies in the Bay Area needs different advice than one applying to oil and gas companies in TX/OK or one applying to banks in NYC, even if they all end up having the same job title.</p>

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<p>I wonder how many of the parents here have considered contacting their congressional critters about the push to bring in millions more foreign workers. While I like the idea of open borders, I believe that it is impractical given the welfare state (including ALL taxpayer funded services) and the fact that foreign nations provide help to many of these workers coming here to compete with your children. Is there really a labor shortage, or a desire to push down wages? I suggest that this is much more important to your childrens’ future opportunities than whether UA has the best career center. Not that the latter shouldn’t be maximized, and with the expansion of the Ferguson Center, that is a major focus, but again, some of you seem to be ignoring the larger issue, which is fewer opportunities due to greater competition. </p>

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<p>If there were a problem, then such a high % would not be employed in their eng’g fields after graduation. </p>

<p>All of my son’s friends (except for the grad/MD bound) were immediately employed in their eng’g fields upon graduation. This hand-wringing is ridiculous, and misleading. Alabama does not have a bunch of unemployed eng’g grads. </p>

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<p>I just took a quick look at the degree programs at Tennessee and Alabama. Basically, Alabama offers the normal traditional engineering degrees, while Tennessee offers those but also additional programs such as biological engineering and nuclear engineering. In other words, Tennessee is perhaps more cutting edge and more inclusive. Certainly UT offers more options. By the way, as a former resident of Alabama, most people consider Auburn, not 'Bama, to be the engineering school in that state.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>Since you are a FORMER resident of Alabama, you probably aren’t aware of what Bama’s been doing about eng’g. </p>

<p>Bama is one of 5 colleges in the country that FIRST offered Eng’g. </p>

<p>In years past, Bama’s Col of Eng’g has been rather small…under 1000 students. Bama allowed Auburn to be “the eng’g school” in the state. But, about 10 years ago, a decision was made to change/challenge that because the state and the country needs more engineers.</p>

<p>900,000 sq ft of new state-of-the-art academic STEM space was built. The Col of Eng’g is now 4000 students strong. </p>

<p>Soon, Auburn won’t be known as the engineering school in the state. And, frankly, with UAH’s growth with its CoE and its proximity to Cummings Research Park, it is also a fine alternative to Auburn for eng’g. </p>

<p>As for UTenn…simply having bioE and NukeE doesn’t mean that they’re more cutting edge…lol. It may offer a couple different disciplines but if a student wouldn’t consider those disciplines it’s irrelevant. </p>

<p>Bama has just added two more disciplines to it College of Engineering…see below. UTenn doesn’t offer architectural eng’g. that’s fine. I wouldn’t say its less cutting edge because it doesn’t. </p>

<p>TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama College of Engineering will offer new degrees in architectural engineering and environmental engineering, beginning this fall, to meet the growing opportunities for engineers with those specialties.</p>

<p>The programs, approved by the UA Board of Trustees today, will begin accepting students for August 2014.</p>

<p>State univs are often controlled as to what disciplines they can offer to prevent diluted programs for less popular areas. If a state is only going to have about 200 students in X eng’g discipline , then it’s silly to let each state-controlled campus offer it. In this state (as in others), those less-popular disciplines are often only found on one of two campuses. And those rarer disciplines are “spread around”…they’re not all on one “best” campus. In this state, BioMedE is found at the UAB campus. Makes sense since the med school is there. </p>

<p>Rankings aren’t that significant when it comes to eng’g. This country needs far too many eng’rs for 50 schools to provide. Heck, the state of Calif ALONE has 25 universities with very good eng’g…and that’s just one state. Most states have at least 2-3 univs offering fine eng’g programs. Any CoE that is ranked in the top 50 and whose disciplines are ABET accredited ranked shouldn’t be dismissed. </p>

<p>Back to the OP’s issues… It can be a challenge everywhere to get internships/coops before junior year. Companies have limited spots and want to offer them to rising seniors so that they can be hired after graduation.</p>

<p>Nearly my entire family is either eng’g or comp sci…with a few teachers and lawyers. The eng’g/CS ones attended UCI, UCLA, Cal, USC, Purdue, UIUC, Cal Poly SLO and P, CSUF and CSULB, Oregon, Stanford, Vandy, Tufts, and a few others. I hear the same complaints. Frosh and Sophs having a harder time finding summer positions related to eng’g. The rising seniors have an easier time.</p>

<p>Prior to that, a student needs to be creative…maybe work in an area that either isn’t in his discipline or even eng’g at all. those experiences can still be very worthy. My younger son spent half of his summers (when an REU was complete) working in a restaurant. He spent the summer before med school working as a bartender at Cheddars. lol. It’s all good. You can learn something from every job…even if it’s learning that you’d never want to work an unskilled job again. lol </p>

<p>Another option is a summer abroad related to eng’g. Or a semester abroad related to eng’g. There’s a current ChemE senior that I know that spent either a year or a semester in New Zealand doing something related to her field. She has a job (here in the US) lined up to begin after graduation. </p>

<p>Even on a campus there can be opportunities. I’m on a few of the Listservs and I frequently get emails from depts who want to hire students who’ll do some programming or some website stuff for them. I just saw one from a Bama dept (Nutrition) that wants programmers to develop phone apps for them. The paid-word is for this spring semester and over the summer. </p>

<p>i can’t stop recommending REU’s because they really are awesome for both experience and networking. There may still be some deadlines that haven’t yet passed. If so, apply, apply, apply. However, some of those require that a student be a rising junior or senior…and not just by credits. </p>

<p>many/most eng’g jobs are not going overseas. Too many companies can’t/won’t hire non-citizens because of military contracts or other concerns about protecting patents and proprietary info. Certainly, some jobs are, but eng’rs are needed here…AND ARE GETTING JOBS…highly paid jobs. </p>

<p>But again, students need to pay attention to all doors/windows that open. That means reading emails, going to the job fairs with a well-crafted resume, networking, applying to REUs, etc. If you know someone whose parent works in the industry, ask if they can help you get a summer position. Opportunities rarely just fall into your lap.</p>

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<p>I think there is a huge distinction between wanting opportunities to fall into your lap and career offices bringing in a large number of corportations for on-campus recruiting. If there are now 4000 engineering students, then the co-op office should be bringing in 4x as many corporations for recruitment. </p>

<p>Based on what some of the posters are describing, it doesn’t sound like that is happening. Top engineering students that want co-op positions shouldn’t have to go searching for positions on their own. Corporations typically go to the campuses in search of them. We are also a family of engineers, and our experience at other universities is exactly that. </p>

<p>I appreciate the posters sharing their real experiences. It is now something that we are discussing.</p>

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<p>^^^
Some of what people have posted is completely in error. One person posted that only 5 companies are for ChemE majors. Wrong. There are 26. </p>

<p>There are 73 companies coming for engineering majors. </p>

<p>Seriously, folks…some are posting wild stuff. </p>

<p>It is quite sad that some prospective students have been misled by some nonsense that’s been posted.</p>

<p>and, 45 of the companies are coming to find both full time interns and eng’rs.</p>

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<p>Would you mind sharing a link with this info? I searched the co-op website and could not find it. I would like to know which companies are recruiting. Thanks!</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>The user that posted that there were only 5 companies recruiting for ChemE later posted that they were speaking of the Crimson Careers job board and not the career fair. Personally I’ve looked at the jobs posted on the Crimson Careers site and I don’t at all find that statement ridiculous. I’m not sure I saw a single engineering related job on the site and if maybe there were a couple engineering jobs they definitely weren’t in my son’s area of interest. Frankly there are much better job sites out there than that one.</p>

<p>The job fair isn’t much better. There are thousands of engineering students and 73 (now 82) companies coming to campus? And how many fields of engineering? I just went through the list and there are 10 companies that are targeting Chem-E, and others that say all majors or all engineering majors, which may or may not provide the opportunity to work in their field. How many chem-e students are graduating this year? There are 13 listed as targeting Civ-E students (which includes civ-e, construction management, and the new environmental and architectural programs). I’ve posted prevously that Purdue hosts a job fair specifically for civ-e students and brings 50-80 companies to campus each year just to recruit their civ-e students.</p>

<p>I’ve posted multiple times that my son went to both the spring and fall career fairs last year and found <em>1</em> company recruiting civil-e interns. For anyone that cares to question that statement, feel free to PM me and I’ll provide my name, email, phone number, son’s name, the company my son spoke to, the companies that were on the list published by the career fair that didn’t even bother to show up and the companies that were on the list that told my son they weren’t looking for interns. There are approximately 100 students per class in the civ-e department, slightly more for the freshman and sophomore classes as the department is growing. The seniors wouldn’t have been looking for internships, so there were potentionally 300-400 students that may have been seeking internships and there was <em>1</em> company there to recruit. THAT IS SAD!!!</p>

<p>If I hadn’t done the leg work on my own and found my son his opportunity for his internship after freshman year, I am 100% confident that he had a 0% chance of getting an internship in his field. Of course he could have come home and maybe got a job at Wal-mart or he could have gone back to his prior job working as a farm hand and yes, there are skills to be learned from that, but it doesn’t help him get an opportunity in the future and it doesn’t even help him build a network that can help him find opportunities in the future.</p>

<p>I monitor son’s email. Last year there was <em>1</em> opportunity emailed to students to work in a lab on campus. Son applied as a freshman, which he of course did not get, as I’m certain they hired an upperclass student.</p>

<p>REU’s may be good opportunities, especially for students considering grad school as they are very research focused, but they are also HIGHLY competitive and students will also have to do the leg work on their own to locate those positions too.</p>

<p>Other schools do indeed do SIGNIFICATNLY more on-campus recruiting than Bama. I’ve repeatedly posted facts and figures and links.</p>

<p>Businesses aren’t just going to call Bama and say hey, we want to travel across the country and come there to recruit your students and want to know when is convenient. Bama has to form relationships and recruit businesses the same as they do students. What makes no sense to me is they have an established network of recruiters across the country, why are they not utilizing them to attract businesses as well as students? </p>

<p>Once Bama sets dates for their career fairs, they need to reach out to businesses, reach out to alumni, explain that they have a significant number of high achieving students, explain that they have X% of students that have travelled abroad, explain that they have X% of students with work experience, explain that since the majority of students come from out of state that the students are highly mobile and have demonstrated that they WILL relocate to pursue opportunities. Bama needs to sell their program to businesses. Bama needs to invite alumni back to campus to speak about opportunities at their companies. (Benefit to alumni - MANY companies offer bonuses to employees that refer applicants that later get hired).</p>

<p>This was a major concern for me before my son enrolled and after a year and a half on campus, it is still a major concern. It is a concern to the point that I told my son if the Bama ASCE chapter organizes a job fair, I would volunteer to take on the responsibility of marketing it to businesses from 500 miles away. </p>

<p>While it may be true that Bama doesn’t have a lot of unemployed engineering grads, I honestly don’t know where they are getting their job offers. Just considering the civ-e department, in my son’s class there will be over 110 graduates, last year there were 5 or 6 companies recruiting civ-e’s (1 of those was hiring interns, but others were there hiring full time employees) at the job fairs on campus. As noted there were 0 civ-e related positions on the Crimson Career job board. And those 5 or 6 companies that come to Bama’s job fair are recruiting on other campuses too. Son is now a little over a year away from needing to find a full time position (since much recruiting is done at the beginning of senior year) and I’m definitely not confident that he can find a position just using the resources available to him on campus.</p>

<p>I’ve noted in the past I am a firm believer in the fact that you must identify your weaknesses in order to improve. This <em>IS</em> a weakness at Bama. In order to improve, in order for the recruiting to grow with the university, the school needs to identify it as a weakness. Denying that there is an issue won’t do a thing to help it improve.</p>

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<p>"There are thousands of engineering students "</p>

<p>There are not “thousands” of eng’g students graduating. There are far less than a thousand graduating in any given year. </p>

<p>There currently are about 4000 in the CoE. Each year, some get weeded out…especially after frosh year.</p>

<p>And since the college has sharply grown, the graduating classes have been much smaller. I think there were less than 500 eng’g students who graduated last May.</p>

<p>jrcmom…</p>

<p>I agree with identifying weaknesses to improve. WHO have you contact in the CoE to discuss concerns and ask for what plans are in place to improve?</p>

<p>Concerns expressed here don’t reach the ears of those who can make changes.</p>

<p>When I have a concern, I go to Dr. Karr or the dept head. Dean Karr and the dept heads have always quickly responded with an answer. When I told Dean Karr that Auburn had an office in Cummings Research Park…guess what? Dean Karr opened a UA office in CRP as well. </p>

<p>ANOTHER reason to contact the Dean or Dept Head with a concern is that your INFO may be wrong. Your child may be wrong. Going to these sources will get the facts.</p>

<p><a href=“http://career.ua.edu/employers/calendarParticipants.cfm?CFID=938”>http://career.ua.edu/employers/calendarParticipants.cfm?CFID=938&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;