My daughter has been looking at engineering departments at different colleges. Some seem more collaborative and some seem more competitive. She’s very interested in Vanderbilt. Can any current/recent students chime in with their experiences there? Thanks!
I’m not in engineering, but Vanderbilt students are generally very collaborative and I have never experienced unhealthy competition here. More specifically for the engineering department, Vanderbilt has a senior design project program in which engineering students get to collaborate with each other to solve real-life problems. https://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/ge/engineering-management/ProspectiveSponsors/senior-design-projects.php
Moreover, the new innovation center called the Wond’ry is world-class and offers many opportunities for students to collaborate on innovative design and entrepreneurship projects.
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/thewondry/
@Sophie1295 and @amominaz : I think in general, it wouldn’t really make sense for competition to occur in engineering by the nature of the discipline, how it is practiced, and the way most engineering courses are designed. One may see some competition is some of those intro/pre-req. courses that engineering students must take with the pre-health population (these courses usually include very low weighted HW, when graded at all, and nothing but exams and quizzes. In the case that an instructor writes truly difficult exams, which leads to some curve grading, there will often be some subtle competition in the course. Sadly many lower division and intermediate natural and physical science courses are nowhere near a reflection of how science is practiced. Engineering curricula are just much further along in this arena). But my understanding is that the actual engineering courses at most schools has an inclination towards more PBL and project based learning, which would automatically spur collaborative problem solving. I really doubt VU would be an exception to this (I had a friend say that he actually thought he enjoyed the atmosphere there versus what he saw happening with friends at several of the larger/more well-known engineering programs at some key publics and a few privates).