Pretty amazing that OP posted the question, got 39 responses, and never came back. By the way, OP posted the same question about NYU engineering a few days later.
My D will be graduating with a Mech. Engineering degree in May. She has enjoyed the program very much, finding it both rigorous and challenging. She had wavered in what her specialty would be within engineering, coming back to her initial choice of Mechanical. When we went to some event at the School for prospective applicants, applicants, or something, we were told that the Civil Engineering specialty would be ending in the future â it was not pulled out from under anyone. Civil, with all due respect to Civil Engineers, at least to me, is kind of old school, but in terms of being on the cutting edge and not a big draw in terms of demand. I donât know who else has or doesnât have it, but the fact that it was phased out doesnât reflect on the âstabilityâ of the program. Brown recently created a School of Engineering (vs. a Dept.). They donât have to admit you to the School of Engineering and commit you to that program BECAUSE they are able to be stable without doing so. The lack of other core requirements at Brown is a huge plus. My daughter took French, math, history, architecture and enough Computer Science to almost change concentrations. She was a TA in computer science, was employed by an Engineering professor the summer after her Freshman year. She had planned to take a semester abroad but, like many students at Brown (so I am told), didnât want to give up a semester on campus (though many, many students do take semesters abroad). The Engineering program is extremely rigorous, but not cutthroat at all and, as others have stated, seems to be both cutting edge and quirky. My D also was on the FSAE team (âcarâ team), which seems much more accessible at Brown than at some larger programs. I think that focusing on enrollment numbers and interpreting them as signs of the strength, quality, stability, longevity or any aspect of the program is a mistake/misinterpretation. There are too many variables, I think, to equate those numbers with any of the other aspects of the program which, by any other measure, is a very strong program â a bit smaller than some and consistent with the âBrownâ experience and philosophy. I think the focus should be on the question of whether Brown is right for a particular student. If so, and if that student is interested in Engineering, itâs a very good place.
@bonenz Yes, civil and mechanical are two of the oldest engineering disciplines, but they have advanced and evolved with time. Many exciting and cutting-edge research are taking place in major engineering schools: smart materials and structures, advanced earthquake resistant buildings and bridges, smart buildings, intelligent transportation systems, and automated (robotic) construction, to just name a few. The discipline is old but as relevant today as it was 200 years ago given the persistent need to modernize and maintain our infrastructure. Civil engineering jobs on average pay less but job satisfaction is high, according to a survey I saw a while back.
Civil Engineering is a major discipline in most major engineering schools. Undergraduate CE instruction involves laboratory experimentation with large/heavy and expensive equipment. This makes it a bit challenging for smaller schools to keep up with their big brothers/sisters.
Thanks Emotive. I was just showing my own ignorance, and was thinking of Civil Engineering as bridges and roads, so I appreciate your stating what should have been obvious to me. I guess the only takeaway is that, for whatever reason, civil engineering was not in demand at Brown (or maybe their program could not, as you suggest, support the equipment needed to do it right), but that they by no means left any students in the lurch â the phase out was well-planned and no students were ever in a position of expecting Brown to offer a Civil Engineering specialty and finding out it didnât. Based on your post, it is kind of sad that this specialty is gone, but I donât think that is an indication of any systemic issue at Brown, which is clearly expanding, not shrinking itsâ overall engineering program.
Sounds like OP is more interested in the bling of the school name than the bling of the engineering program.
You are correct GMTâŠAs an international student I am interested in the bling⊠I need a univ to have really good international outlookâŠand I have no shame in admitting that.
What do you mean by coming back? I am following the thread⊠Should I announce my arrival or something?
If you want bling, public universities like Purdue, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Berkeley, Michigan, Penn State, Virginia Tech have much better engineering creds than Brown or NYU.
@bonenz Thanks for your posts, appreciate the insight about the ME program and your Dâs experience.
I have no doubt that Brown has been phasing out the CE program in a proper way, making sure the current students graduate with a CE degree in a time manner. That is not my concern.
My question/concern pertains to the stats I mentioned + the closing of an established undergraduate teaching program in favor of new research activities (as stated by Dean of Engineering). But my question/concern is just that, I am not making any factual assertions. I appreciate @arwarw response and will follow the advice if we end up visiting the campus.
@Emotive, I think some of the reaction you got above might also be because you seem to be asserting that YOU will be asking these questionsâŠthat they are your concerns, rather than you kid meeting and asking the professor his/ her own questions. Just FYI: when my kids met with professors during college visits, they did so without me or my husband. They usually attended a class and then spoke with the prof afterwards. In one instance, my oldest son, who attended brown, made an appt with a Cornell prof during a summer visit. He kindly spent quite a bit of time with him, introducing him to members of his lab as well, perhaps bc my son was working at a Rockefeller lab that summer with someone this prof knew well. But in any case, the job of questioning professors about the program belongs to your kid, and not to you. In fact, I think it may come off kinda bad if you are this involved. In my humble opinion, itâs time to let your kid take the reins.
Also, I just want to add that itâs good experience for your kid to do this on their own. If they intend to go to grad school, 4-5 years hence, these are the sorts of questions and conversations they will initiate in their grad school interviews. Itâs good practice to get that experience now. Actually, if they are STEM, they will initiate these conversations while college students every time they write to a prof asking to be interviewed for a lab position. I think my son had no fear contacting and interviewing with profs as a freshman bc he had done it on his own already as a high school student when looking at colleges and when applying to labs for summer positions before entering college. Itâs all experience.
If Mom and Dad are paying ~50K+ per year they should get to ask a couple of questions too.
@RenaissanceMom I think you are framing the issue to accommodate your particular approach to parenting. I have concerns about yours as well. But, I am not sure we can do justice to the topic on a forum like this. It seems that this kind of conversation loses its objectively and diverges rather quickly, and on occasions turns into personal attacks.
But, if you like to examine and critique a parenting approach like mine, and are open to a critical examination of your own, I am willing to go along, as long as we can can keep it focused, informative and constructive.
@Emotive, again, I wouldnât hesitate to email Brown professors and department heads and set up tours, meeting and class sit-ins. Make your daughterâs visit as productive as possible.
I just wanted to add my wife and I studied engineering at Georgia Tech, which was a phenomenal experience. For example, at that time GT had a fully functioning CP-5 nuclear reactor on campus where my wife was actually able to do lab work as an undergrad. I donât think youâll find that level of physical resources at Brown, but having said that, we as parents have absolutely no reservations about Brown. I really believe the undergrad learning experience there is superior to what we had. I think Brownâs grad school placements really speaks to whatâs going on up there.
While visiting, I would also try to get grasp on the open Curriculum at Brown, I think it permeates everything about Brown - the culture, the way the departments are structured, type of faculty, type of students etc⊠I think this is a good description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU
@RenaissanceMom it always boggles my mind that my experience of doing all my college visits (both pre and post acceptance) on my own, with no parental involvement is extremely unrepresentative of how high school students toured colleges. My high school even actively discouraged parents from going on trips with us.
@arwarw Thanks for the TEDx Talk link. The talk is engaging and informative.
As an engineering graduate from a different generationâŠ
No, brown and most ivies teach engineering as a major not a self contained program. the engineering classes are generally quite small and there arenât enough faculties, faculty members, course offerings, labs or peer interactions. they do not enroll engineering graduates into a separate curriculum. Because of all of these factors they can not give you the same rigor you will get at proper engineering school. I started laughing when i read the âgoing to an ivy for engineering is like going to a Chinese restaurant for a hamburgerâ because well it is true.
Proper engineering curriculums are very intense on their own and leave very little room for liberal arts exposure without negatively impacting the engineering education. So if you get the ability to study typical liberal arts courses easily, obviously you are either skimming over some engineering subjects or not covering them at all. When people complain that engineers are too 1-dimensional its because the engineering programs at good engg schools (Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Caltech etc) donât give them the time to study much if any liberal arts. This is a shame as well but the only solution is to treat engineering as a 2 year liberal arts (humanities, languages, writing, sciences etc) foundation plus 3 years of full-on engineering program (5 years to graduate not 4).
The only ivy schools with good âengineeringâ credentials are: Cornell, Columbia, Princeton and Penn. I have interviewed engineering graduates from all the elites except for dartmouth and Caltech for positions as quants on the trading desk on wall street from the 90s all the way till i left the industry. My impression is that the ivies in general are the best places to go for a liberal arts degree but not for engineering. The only reason they are ranked as high as they are is because the students joining Brown et al are some of the smartest kids. And the students work their hearts out in sub-standard programs.
Sorry if this offends anyone but i am speaking from my own experience. Brown is not set up to be a great engineering school.
There are thousands of Brown engineering students who disagree with that assessment. I know dozens of them. They are very successful, give to Brown engineering every year to pay it forward, and are quite happy with the rigor and depth of their engineering degree.
Iâm not saying they wouldnât be satisfied with their choice nor that they wouldnât be successful. The kids entering and leaving brown are amongst the best and the brightest. But they succeed despite the shortcomings of the typical ivy curriculum. I would love to have the ivy engineering professors own viewpoints on this topic anonymously. They probably will want their departments to be bigger, with more offerings and so on. Also, there are also those who graduate in the liberal arts away from the top elite colleges including the ivies and are very happy and successful as well and a kid from say a UC Davis might say their liberal arts degree is as good as an Ivyâs. That isnât the point Iâm making.
Iâm simply pointing out that highly ranked engineering schools are typically large, have more professors, graduate research programs, labs, grants, disciplines, courses, electives, and students because engineering is an entire discipline unto itself and canât be coopted into a liberal arts college. Teaching engineering as a major is just like trying to teach medicine as a major. They are separate fields altogether and need lots of dedicated resources of their own to impart a full body of knowledge. There are 44 faculty members in the history department at brown and 12 in chemical engineering. That just doesnât make sense. You will never have enough chemical engineering electives with that few faculty members. Check out the UC Berkeley College of chemistry and chem engg. They have 46 faculty members in just chem e. This is why the ivies rank low in engineering. They donât devote adequate resources to the discipline.