<p>My son is interested in engineering, ideally at a mid size school (that offers non-engineering degrees too, he likes being around liberal arts majors too). He visited CWRU and was turned off by the focus on jobs and salaries. After that, he specifically wants a place that focuses on love of learning, not just what job you can get after graduation (CWRU may have that--it just didn't show in the applicant orientation).</p>
<p>He has good scores (ACT 35) but a GPA of 3.8--may put him out of the running for the schools that immediately come to mind, like Harvey Mudd, Caltech, or MIT.</p>
<p>Rice, while not an LAC, does its best to be very LAC-like.</p>
<p>Bucknell University is an almost-LAC. The grad school is very small.</p>
<p>In general, the true LACs do not have engineering as a major, but they do often have 3/2 programs where students spend three years at the LAC and two at an affiliated school to finish the engineering degree. E.g. Haverford has 3/2 programs with Penn and Caltech. Dartmouth has a 3/2 or a 2/1/1/1 program with many LACs, some very selective (Amherst, Pomona), some much less so (Hobart & William Smith, Wheaton). Columbia, Case, Duke and WUSTL are also common destination schools for the /2.</p>
<p>The main thing to bear in mind with any of these “slash” programs is that admission to the second institution is usually not guaranteed. If he were admitted to an all-in-one school like Rice or Bucknell, he might actually feel more freedom to explore since there would be less pressure to maintain a superior GPA to ensure admission to the second school. On the other hand, he might have fewer opportunities to exercise that felt freedom since the typical engineering track does not leave a lot of room for elective study. The slash programs trade less certainty of the future for more opportunity to explore in the present.</p>
<p>Previous discussions of 3/2 programs on the boards here have noted that few students who enter them actually finish with an engineering degree. I don’t find that particularly surprising. I am sure some of those can be explained by the lack of guaranteed admission, but I suspect many simply discover other interests in their studies of the liberal arts and choose to follow a different path. </p>
<p>Finally, there’s always the 4/2 option: complete a non-engineering bachelors in a non-engineering field (making sure to take sufficient depth in math and science courses), do an engineering Masters after,</p>
<p>Your son will meet plenty of smart, liberal arts kids at LOTS of schools. Even at UT-Austin! I had a couple of friends in Plan II, a highly-rated liberal arts honors program. I loved going to a big university, because there were SO many opportunities for concerts, plays, etc. And classes in every subject imaginable. </p>
<p>@MaineLonghorn has a good point: the liberal arts colleges and programs embedded within large universities are another option. Some of them (including UT’s Plan II) even offer a dual degree option if that is something he might be interested in.</p>
Best to put that “embedded” in quotes. A lot of times the literature makes it sound like an entirely independent college has been set up, but that is not the case. UT’s Plan II is one of the best programs out there, but even they say
In other words, 2/3rds of the classes are outside the Plan II program.</p>
<p>Check out some of the Ivy League colleges (Brown for example). These are more or less mid-sized universities that award many undergraduate degrees in liberal arts fields. A 3.8 unweighted GPA is not necessarily a show-stopper (depending on program rigor and HS competitiveness). Brown’s average unweighted GPA is 3.84 (according to collegedata). </p>
<p>Other possibilities: Rice, Washington University in St. Louis, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, URochester. These are small to mid-sized and award many liberal arts degrees. </p>
<p>it’s a school of engg. why would you expect “intellectual” to be part of it. it’s about application, not theory or critical inquiry. major in CS or physics if you want “intellectual.” there may be unis that have engg and good liberal arts, but that’s not the question you asked. </p>
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it’s a school of engg. why would you expect “intellectual” to be part of it. it’s about application, not theory or critical inquiry. major in CS or physics if you want “intellectual.” there may be unis that have engg and good liberal arts, but that’s not the question you asked.</p>
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<p>I was thinking the same thing. I’m wondering if the OP just meant an engineering program with “serious academics,” but even that goes without saying in regards to an accredited engineering program. Eng’g is not for lightweights.</p>
<p>Solving design problems can be quite intellectual, particularly at the cutting edge, even though it is not liberal arts in the sense of studying how the world works.</p>
<p>you’re right, ucb, there are people who find solving design problems “intellectual.” needless to say, there are many more intellectuals who find solving design problems something more akin to mind-numbing. My father would walk around buildings of all kinds trying to figure out the design problems the engineers must have faced and for which the buildings were solutions. He had no training as an engineer. He put up many buildings, however. This was also a man who may never have read three books after college. Engineers in general are application-oriented; their interest in ideas extends as far as solving the problem. On the other hand, intellectuals are ideas-oriented whether or not there’s a solution found or find-able. And I think that’s the difference between an application- and an intellectual-mindset. </p>
<p>Where in the four of five years of engg school lies the engagement with ideas beyond the problem solved? where is that taught or even a concern? I’m glad someone is focused on the practical, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them intellectual because they solve problems of a practical and finite nature.</p>
<p>Design problems of the kind that engineers solve are not finite in nature. For example, the engineers who designed the first hand held mobile phones in the 1970s did not stop there. They went on to design future generations of improved mobile phones, leading to the much more capable ones that we use today.</p>
<p>Indeed, cutting edge research in engineering involves attempting to solve design problems of a nature where no known solution exists. The research may culminate in finding that solution requires something else that is currently not available with present technology (although the something else may be yet another topic of engineering research).</p>
<p>However many engage in undergraduate research, or have internships or co-op jobs in research-oriented parts of companies. Is it that much different from students in any other subject, where most typical undergraduate course work involves studying something that has already been studied before, while joining a research group can mean working on previously unstudied topics and unsolved problems?</p>
<p>OP, is your son absolutely certain that he wants to study engineering? Engineering is about as pre-professional as it gets, so chances are he’s not going to be able to easily divorce himself from colleagues worrying about jobs and practical job skills. I wouldn’t say that aspiring engineers at MIT or Caltech are more “intellectual” than other schools. They’re smarter, on average, but probably not more intellectual. Students there might be even less interested in becoming well-rounded because they’re so good at what they do.</p>
<p>So ask your son if he’s considered studying, for example, engineering physics or just straight physics/chem/bio, especially if grad school is an option. He can always head into engineering with a master’s degree, but use his undergrad degree for a more theoretical or “intellectual” program. He’s running the risk of being greatly disappointed in his school/program, just because the vast majority of aspiring engineers have a pre-professional mindset. My guess is that you’d find that even at Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be the opposite? I.e. the chemistry and biology majors may be much more concerned about their post-graduation jobs or medical school, so they spend most of their extra time checking the extracurricular boxes for medical school, or grade grubbing for the high GPA needed for such, or worrying about whether they can even get the relatively low paid lab technician jobs at graduation.</p>