My son has this school on his list for engineering but I really know nothing about it. Can anyone share information?
York College of PA is a mid-sized private school (~4,200 undergraduate enrollment) in south-central PA located in York, PA (between Harrisburg and Baltimore). There is a strong liberal arts focus as well as preparing students to be prepared to enter into their chosen profession “from day one” (their tagline).
Their ABET-accredited engineering programs include electrical, computer, mechanical. They also have a new civil engineering program that will graduate its first students next year.
The engineering programs require students to take three semesters of co-op. That is three semesters of full-time work at an engineering company doing engineering work. To fit this into a 4-year-to-graduation schedule, students take a full set of classes in their junior and senior summers, graduating in August of the 4th year.
The electrical engineering program has specializations in the junior/senior year within power/energy conversion, communications, controls/automation, and embedded systems.
Class sizes are small and faculty are caring, welcoming, and want to work with undergraduate students. There are opportunities for undergraduate research, study abroad, and lots of project-based learning.
I don’t know anything about York. But I’m a big fan of co-op experience. (I had 2 summers of engineering internship experience in 1980s)
https://catalog.ycp.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=28&poid=2945 suggests that the co-op terms are (1) summer after sophomore year, (2) junior spring, and (3) senior fall. 14 credit course loads are specified in the summer after junior year and summer after senior year (so graduation is a summer session later than it is at a typical four year program with no co-ops). But note that the academic calendar shows that the summer sessions are around 8 weeks (or two sessions of 4 weeks each), so 14 credits during the summer is a heavy academic workload.
As a parent of a 3rd year student, in the midst of his 2nd co-op, I can say I’m a fairly strong advocate for the program. It is a very rigorous program, to accommodate the co-op’s while still graduating in 4 years. For the higher level courses, I feel they lack quality tutoring, but then again I am not familiar with the tutoring available at other schools. I suspect schools with graduate engineering programs may have better undergraduate tutors, but that’s just a guess on my part.
They do a fair job of assisting kids with finding co-ops, and their coordinator is first rate. However, it is up to the students to apply, interview and confirm the co-op. The university helps you find opportunities, but it’s up to you to make it happen - a good life lesson if you ask me. Another positive is that there are a ton of electrical engineering opportunities in that region, so they usually have more opportunities than students. If the student doesn’t find the co-op, it’s their own fault.
Great facilities and small classes are another plus. York grads find good jobs, and I’m amazed at what my son has learned there.
I think at most Engineering schools the extensive tutoring options are mainly freshman year. Some schools even run study session in the Freshman dorms. After that, students can use study groups (collaborative learning… good training for the real world) and/or professor office hours.
@jpe thanks for all the info. Unfortunately, I can’t talk my S into being closer to home and having less debt. He feels RIT is a better fit for him.
I’m not sure there’s really a bad ABET engineering school out there, as all ABET programs basically have identical coursework. Faculty certainly can make a difference, as can corporate connections for future employment. We were fortunate, in that my son secured a full tuition scholarship to York. We had never even heard of York until we did an ABET program search early in his senior year of high school. My son was pretty sober about comparing schools, and when he was awarded a full tuition deal, he said “well, they made my mind up for me.”
I think York’s intensive co-op requirement (many schools only have it as an option) is designed to compensate for their relatively young program and middle market location. But unless you’re among the ultra elite schools, I’m not sure the difference in cost and debt is worth it…just what I’ve gathered in my experience, and seen shared by others in College Confidential. Good luck at RIT - there is an amazing demand for EE so he should do well when he graduates!
ABET accredited programs in the same major do not necessarily have identical course work, which can be seen by comparing those at different colleges. EE is particularly broad in terms of subarea offerings and emphases that colleges may offer and students may choose.
However, they all do meet a relatively high minimum standard, so that there should not be any that are really bad (though some may be better or worse fits for a given student’s interests).
Thanks for clarifying, as I was being a bit too vague in my comment. Yes, ABET offers a few different avenues for fulfilling some subject matter requirements, from which the schools can choose to attain accreditation. As a BA graduate myself, the engineering coursework was a bit greek to me when I reviewed various programs. I found a bit of information relief by talking to department chairs during my visits, and asking them their program areas of emphasis and industries they best matched for placing graduates.