<p>I am currently at a WA state CC. I'm 19 years old, I have an Associates of the Arts Degree and I'm looking to transfer. I got the AA degree as opposed to an engineering transfer degree because counselors told me that taking extra math and science and getting the AA would actually be a better transfer strategy because most state schools will wave your GUR's with an AA but not with an AST degree. </p>
<p>My questions are: </p>
<p>Is getting an engineering degree from a non specialized school (like a regional university) a waste of time?</p>
<p>Should I just take more transferable courses (OChem, Pysics, etc...) at the Regional University probably WWU and then transfer to UW for say their Aerospace engineering program?</p>
<p>Is UW's program even considered a "specialized school" or do respects like that only come from places like Cal Poly MIT and the like</p>
<p>As long as you are pursuing an ABET-accredited degree, you are golden. From the big picture view, it doesn’t matter which school it’s from. You’ll land an engineering job regardless of the college name.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Look for ABET accreditation here: [ABET</a> -](<a href=“http://www.abet.org%5DABET”>http://www.abet.org) .</p></li>
<li><p>Better known (for the specific engineering area) universities will tend to attract more recruiters into their career centers, although local employers will come to any nearby university for engineering graduates and interns. For your first job out of school at a lesser known university, you may have to be more aggressive at finding employers to apply to, since fewer will be coming to the career center.</p></li>
<li><p>Many schools which are not specialty engineering schools have good engineering degree programs. University of Washington is well respected in aerospace engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>For aerospace engineering, being in Washington obviously has an advantage in being near a large local employer. University of Washington is the only school in Washington with an ABET accredited aerospace engineering program, but some other schools may have aerospace as an elective concentration under mechanical engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>Western Washington University has neither aerospace engineering nor mechanical engineering, according to the ABET accreditation list.</p></li>
</ol>