Im having a bit of trouble describing why i chose Carnegie Mellon in my supplementary essay. Could anyone talk about the specifics of the Engineering program at Carnegie and what makes it special or different?
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Captain - I’m an alum who graduated a long time ago. When I graduated, the dominant schools were CIT and FA (to a great extent because of drama, which has always been great). Now SCS is maybe the dominant school, but the other two are up there.
Which brings me to your question. Because of its size, CMU is focused. The don’t have every discipline and theeir departments are smaller compared to some (Purdue et. al.) Some of its departments (MechE, ChemE, Materials Science) evolved because of proximity to materials (steel, aluminum, glass). In the old days, EE was probably the dominant department, but since CMU established the first school of C.S., C.S. permeates and affects all departments, except maybe drama and music. So you have the effect of information and computing as they effect the engineering disciplines, more so probably than other places even MIT. The other thing they try to be is interdisciplinary, with hybrid programs like engineering and public policy and civil and environmental. Then there is the historical tendency to consider themselves “problem solvers” which in reality means a real world connection.
Those are some thoughts from someone with a historical perspective. Best of luck to you.
thanks for your input kaukauna. I know CMU is a great engineering school, but the only strength that anyone talks about is its C.S. program, and for someone not interested in C.S. its kind of tough to find nongeneric things to talk about in the writing supplement.
What major are you interested in? At CMU, you have to take 2 introductory engineering courses (only ECE is any challenge), so you may want to talk about being interdisciplinary.
For me, I discussed their interdisciplinary research labs, and how I wanted to get involved with cross-department projects.
From the other students I’ve asked, interdisciplinary stuff seems to be a common theme.