<p>Hey all, I'm looking to major in aerospace engineering (mechanical where AE is unavailable). I am trying to focus my college list. Right now, naturally, I'm considering the top engineering schools.</p>
<p>Here's the thing: I'm a liberal arts kinda girl at heart. I'm very good at writing, involved in yearbook and mock trial, etc. I love science and engineering, but I definitely hold an appreciation (and natural affinity) for the humanities and all that stuff. You know.</p>
<p>What I'm looking for is a school that can give me a top-tier engineering degree as well as a liberal arts education, to some extent. I'm not looking for extremes; for example, I'm not interested in applying to Olin, simply because I feel like I'll be a little claustrophobic there. Am I making any sense?</p>
<p>Here's my list so far. Not all of these schools fit the criteria I talked about, but I'd like feedback. I obviously need some help. I've only just begun to consider what I've outlined above, so I'm not really sure about anything right now.
Stanford
Yale
Princeton
Caltech
UPenn
Rice
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UC San Diego
Carnegie Mellon
Georgia Tech
Cal Poly SLO
UC Davis
Purdue</p>
<p>Pretty much any large state powerhouse engineering program will also have a sizable and anywhere from decent to great liberal arts program as well. Personally, given your criteria, I’d strike Yale, Caltech, and probably Georgia Tech and Cal Poly SLO from the list and add at least Michigan and UIUC.</p>
<p>State of residency? Have you checked the net price calculator at each school?</p>
<p>All ABET-accredited engineering degree programs do have humanities and social studies breadth requirements, but the amount and type of such breadth requirements varies.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad: Why do you suggest I slash those schools?</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus: California. My family is able to pay for most of these schools. The UCs (and CMU, wth?!) are significantly more expensive than the top 5 for us.</p>
<p>Yale is not a remarkable engineering program and at the various conferences I have attended for aerospace engineering, I have never once seen a representative from Yale.</p>
<p>Caltech doesn’t really give half a crap about liberal arts and you will be surrounded by people that are wholly focused on STEM topic but it sounds like you would like some breadth to your college experience.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech has only recently started to beef up liberal arts programs so may not be what you are looking for for the same reasons as Caltech.</p>
<p>CalPoly SLO I am not as familiar with as the previous two, which is why it fell under the maybe category, but it is also not known for its array of liberal arts programs.</p>
<p>CPSLO is a heavily pre-professionally oriented school, but the usual H/SS subjects (e.g. English, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, geography, etc.) are certainly present.</p>
<p>You can check on-line catalogs and schedules to see what each school offers.</p>
<p>No MIT or Harvey Mudd? Both have fairly extensive H/SS graduation requirements and offerings (well, Harvey Mudd through cross registration with the adjacent other Claremont colleges).</p>
<p>Right, those H/SS subjects are present, but I was under the impression that OP wanted a school that had some degree of focus on those subjects as well such that he or she would have the opportunity for exposure above and beyond the minimum required for graduation. I was trying to point out schools where the tech focus may impede this goal. I would also think that given the OP’s interests, it would be advantageous to be at a school where a significant number of students are focused primarily on H/SS type subjects ass opposed to overwhelmingly STEM.</p>
<p>CPSLO is not exactly an overwhelmingly STEM school – 7% science, 0% engineering technology, 27% engineering, 1% math. However, other preprofessional majors make a large part of the rest of the students: 13% business, 12% agriculture, 6% architecture, 5% parks and recreation, etc… H/SS is about 18%, which is not that high percentage-wise, although the absolute number of students is decent because it is a big school.</p>
<p>It’s true that I am looking for “some breadth in my college experience.” This is exactly what I’m looking for. I also agree that being at a place where there are a wide variety of pursued majors would accomplish this.</p>
<p>I haven’t included MIT because, after visiting, it seemed to be the opposite of what I was looking for (similar to how boneh3ad described Caltech). Everything seemed to be very oriented on getting you your STEM degree and on your way to the professional world. I didn’t feel like I would get a “college” experience there, but that was just my impression - cold, business-like. Do you have any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>I haven’t really looked at Harvey Mudd because its “general engineering” major steered me away. I wasn’t really sure if that was what I wanted. Do you know more about it?</p>
<p>Thank you both so much for your opinions! This is very helpful.</p>
<p>At Harvey Mudd, you may want to check if the engineering course offerings are sufficient to offer you depth in your mechanical and aerospace interests (compare with schools that have separate mechanical and/or aerospace departments). If not, then perhaps it is not such a good fit.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how these colleges fare in aerospace engineering in particular, but three liberal arts colleges that are also well respected in engineering include Lafayette, Bucknell, and Lehigh.</p>
<p>Here is the problem. Engineering is a professional degree program with tons of requirements and not that much room for the humanities. You are choosing the engineering (aerospace) that is a superset of mechanical engineering, so as you might imagine, that has a lot of requirements also. </p>
<p>Something has to give. </p>
<p>There are 3 possible things that can give.
More general engineering - Harvey Mudd is the best for this. They take 12 Hum/SS classes. This really ought to be an option you consider. A large fraction of their graduates go on for PhDs.
Less humanities - many of the schools on your list will require very little hum/ss
Take 5 years on purpose- this has the disadvantage of delaying your entry to the work force by a year, but it has the advantage that you can slow down on the engineering and take the humanities that you want. </p>
<p>If you want to consider taking 5 years, but not have it cost more (aside from lost salary) consider a flagship public school with a moderate OOS cost that is highly ranked in aerospace engineering like Minnesota, Colorado, or Maryland. See if any of these honors programs give you a way to </p>
<p>MIT does require a fair amount of hum/SS but you are correct that it is primarily a pre-professional school. You can take courses at Wellesley, which would give you the culture you want for hum/ss but it’s kind of a pain. </p>
<p>Another option is something like the University of Washington Honors program. This may be just the thing you’re looking for. It’s an interdisciplinary program with a humanities core that will have like minded students. This may be doable in 4 years. </p>
<p>Definitely keep Stanford, Princeton and Rice on your list. These schools will have the culture that you want. </p>
<p>Great aerospace program, great general engineering, great full rounded college experience including the whole rah rah school spirit thing, has top entrepreneur programs which are a great fit for engineering students, great support system for women in engineering, amazing location near DC for unique access to special opportunities…</p>
<p>4) At some schools, students with high ability and motivation can also take more courses than the normal schedule plan for their major specifies. In some cases, this may be administratively easier to do than 3) above, since some schools make you ask permission to stay for any semester beyond eight or otherwise limit your ability to stay any extra semesters to take additional courses. Of course, taking more than the normal number of courses per semester means a higher academic workload, especially if you have a lot of lab courses or courses with large projects (including H/SS courses) during that semester.</p>
<p>Don’t know your stats but your list seems top heavy. By all means apply to the California public universities (is engineering an impacted major in the UC system as it is in the CSU system?</p>
<p>Given the academic focus you expressed, take a look at U of Rochester, Case Western Reserve University, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute or Illinois Institute of Technology.</p>
<p>My son had similar interests and ended up at Cal Poly. It isn’t as “liberal arts” focussed as he’d originally thought he might want, but like with any engineering program there is some. </p>
<p>Specifically he didn’t want to be at a giant school so the Michigans and UIUCs were out. He didn’t want to be at a tiny school that didn’t offer a “typical college experience” so Olin and Mudd were out (plus he deeply despised the Mudd campus architecture). He didn’t want to be at a tech only school, Cal Tech, MIT, CMU were out. He didn’t want to be at a school that had limited engineering “toys,” so Lafayette and Bucknell were out. Finally he wanted a program that didn’t wait until junior year to do any “real” engineering. In the end, he fell in love with Poly and is very happy with his choice. </p>
<p>A word of caution, if you choose Aerospace, ME or BME, don’t count Poly as a safety (and it looks like your list needs some). The forum is littered with students who got into UCB and UCLA but were rejected by Cal Poly. Across all majors Poly is the third most selective public in CA behind UCB and UCLA. For the majors mentioned above, it is the most selective public in the state.</p>
<p>Finally, for additional schools to consider that might offer what you seek, I agree with @LakeWashington. My son applied and got very good merit money from RPI and Case. I’d also add Lehigh and WPI. They are both seen as heavily tech, but in reality, both have a significant LA focus. All four of those programs were very impressive and students on the campus looked to be happy. </p>
<p>As you start to look at the campuses you’ll quickly find that there are some similarities (“we have 500 clubs, but if you don’t find one you like, you can start your own” “you can study abroad anywhere in the world. we just added ‘semester on the moon’.” “our faculty to student ratio is 1:1, your room mate is your Calc professor”). Through all the noise you will start to develop a sense of where you’ll fit in and be happy. If I can give any advice at all it is this RANKING LISTS BE DAMNED. Students and parents put too much emphasis on rankings at the expense of proper fit. They are based on the perceived quality of their PhD programs and the research they produce. You need to dig deeper to find the right school list for you.</p>
<p>A thought came to my mind that if a future engineering student also had AP credits in English and History, it may be easier. but perhaps not even necessary to take upper level LA electives where the class size is smaller and experience is perhaps more enriching.</p>
<p>There are lots of schools that are strong in LA and engineering. There just aren’t many, including WUSTL, that are strong in history and social sciences AND engineering. There are simply too many engineering courses in an ABET curriculum. For some reason I can’t cut and paste on my iPad, but if you look up the ME curriculum sheet for WUSTL and Cal Poly, there are actually MORE classes in H&SS at Poly than at WUSTL. Granted CP is on quarters, but It’s a popular misconception that schools like CP would have far less H&SS and WUSTL or nearly ANY other school known as a Liberal Arts Engineering school (Lafayette, Bucknell, Union, Swarthmore, blah, blah, blah) would afford a grand exposure to the liberal arts (besides math and physics). The ABET curricula are all fairly similar. Trust me, my son looked at a lot of schools with the same intent as the OP. What we heard over and over during Q&A when discussing double majors and study abroad was “well, engineering is different.” The reality is that many schools are strong in liberal arts OR engineering, but not many that can offer a broader exposure to H&SS within the constraints of an engineering curriculum. Save your money on travel. Download the graduation requirements and curriculum maps from the engineering departments you’re interested in. You will find that you can likely find what you seek in lots of places, but the holy grail is nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>You are neglecting the value of being surrounded by a more diverse (in interests) student body for some people, @eyemgh. I believe the OP expressed interest in that.</p>