May 2013 Engineering Salary and Placement Survey Results

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>’'but I don’t think UA’s graduating class is large enough to maintain anonymity if they provided that much data. Although, I am left to only speculate on that as they don’t tell me how many cs grads responded.""</p>

<p>This is very true. Although currently, the CoE has grown significantly, it takes a few years for the graduation classes to grow enough that detailed data won’t expose who is getting paid what. </p>

<p>"" Most schools provide data at the 6 month mark so no criticism from me on that. ‘’</p>

<p>Right. </p>

22

<p>TAMU has a very big engineering program, and maybe enough people that want to analyze the heck out of everything - I guess engineers were in charge of the amount of detail, which they could do more with their high numbers in each ‘bucket’.</p>

<p>My nephew (CS, TN Tech) has two job offers on the table, and no offer from the one company he was super excited about. His mom said the one offer is higher than she would have imagined. Cannot commiserate too much about the one that got away… </p>

<p>However TN Tech’s male honor’s housing was terrible - damp below ground level (exposed basement type). However nephew was excited to go there.</p>

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<p>I’m confused…The report above lists the graduating class size as 219. </p>

<p>This is from the website: <a href=“http://eng.ua.edu/about/”>http://eng.ua.edu/about/&lt;/a&gt;
“Today, UA’s fully accredited College of Engineering has nearly 4,500 students and more than 120 faculty”</p>

<p>How can you have 4,500 students, but only 219 graduating in a single year. I would think at least 1,000 would graduate each year. Or say 2,000 are freshman, 1,500 are sophomores due to major changes and dropping out, that would still leave 500 juniors and 500 seniors (just speculation). Does anyone have any numbers on the class size by year? Are some of the 4,500 grad students (probably). But it still seems there should be many more than 219 graduating.</p>

<p>I guess this is the first time I’ve seen the graduating class size. If 219 is total, how many are graduating by degree - how many mechanical, civil, etc.? </p>

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<p><<<
How can you have 4,500 students, but only 219 graduating in a single year. I would think at least 1,000 would graduate each year.
,<<</p>

<p>The explanation is simple.</p>

<p>When last year’s seniors were frosh, the CoE was MUCH smaller. The CoE has only recently grown.</p>

<p>There is HUGE weeding in eng’g at every school. It’s somewhat similar to premed. Probably only 1/3 make it to graduation. Most are weeded by the end of frosh year, soph year. Some because of grades, some because of interest.</p>

<p>Bama allows anyone who’s accepted to the school to start in eng’g…even if you have an ACT 22 or whatever. Probably none (or very few) of those low stats kids last beyond the first semester. I suspect that at some point, Bama’s going to limit who can select eng’g as a major.</p>

<p>Harsh weeding is needed in eng’g from the beginning because students need to realize right away that they need to move on to something else.</p>

<p>Many go into eng’g because they hear that grads are highly paid and sometimes parents pressure this major, however, it takes a high level of intelligence, strong math skills, interest, and spacial/problem-solving skills to get thru. </p>

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<p>Here is a good source of real data relating to enrollments + degrees awarded: <a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6041/screen/20?school_name=”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6041/screen/20?school_name=&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^^^
Yes, but that doesn’t note that there has been very rapid growth in the CoE. Last year’s grads were frosh in 2009, and the CoE was about 30% smaller if not more. </p>

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<p>That is interesting, @aeromom. </p>

<p>You can change the date to see attendance in an earlier year. 2009 had 2,336 total undergrads, 860 freshman. 2013 showed 4,006 total undergrads, 795 Seniors (which would have been the 2009 freshman). So I wonder why the report OP linked to only had 219 graduating in 2013? It makes me think THAT report is incorrect and not including everyone.</p>

<p>And that confirms your comment about growth, @mom2collegekids (I never doubted!) going from 2,336 to 4,006 undergrads in just 4 years.</p>

<p>I guess my comments have taken us away from the original intent of the post in regards to job placement. :slight_smile: Which I agree, could be a little more detailed.</p>

<p>(And I’m not an engineer, but an accountant so playing with numbers is my thing, too!)</p>

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<p>What does the 219 consist of? only the Spring grads? or all winter, spring, and summer grads?</p>

<p>And it would count “seniors” as those who are seniors by credits (AP, etc) not necessarily by real senior standing engineering-wise.</p>

29

<p>The 219 is only those graduating in May 2013. If you look instead at 2012 UA Career reports (both Dec and May), you get a total of 326 graduates (117 in Dec + 209 in May 2012). Add in Construction Eng’g, and the CS Eng’g “Option” (these do not appear to be reported in the salary info?) and you get within 1 graduate of the total figure reported in the ASEE database. 359 vs 360 in 2012. For reference, about 1/3 of eng’rs graduate in Dec; about 2/3 graduate in May, according to these reports. Industrial Eng’g is in the mix, starting in 2013, too (it’s in ASEE data, but not in salary survey…yet).</p>

30

<p>In the 2013 engineering report I was surprised about the breakdown of fresh/soph/jr/sr class sizes. I would have expected with the combination of 1)growth in UA’s COE, and 2) attrition from engineering to other majors
that the discrepancies in the progression of class sizes from freshman to senior to be much larger. …especially the jump from freshman to sophomore.</p>

<p>I wonder if these are based on hours rather than true 1st year/2nd year etc. students. If so, much of the sophomore numbers and a few of the junior numbers likely includes quite a few “first year in college after high school” students due to dual enrollment/AP/CLEP credit. The senior/5th year class probably includes some in their third or even second year of “real college” after high school graduation.</p>

31

<p>DS is a 2nd year student in CS at UA. He is classified as a senior but since he is double-majoring and in University Scholars, he will not graduate until 2016. I know there are many students like him who probably do confuse the numbers.</p>

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<p>Aeromom, what do you mean industrial engineering is in the mix? I was not aware UA offered IE.</p>

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<p>I can’t remember, sorry, why I wrote Industrial or why I thought there was something new in 2013 that wasn’t in 2012?! :wink: </p>

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<p>The Civil-E department just began new degree programs in Architectural-E and Environmental-E, perhaps that’s what you were thinking of?</p>

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<p>Well, they should offer industrial. Just saying.</p>

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<p>UA did offer Industrial Engineering, but discontinued the program a few years ago.</p>

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<p>@aeromom -Thanks. This site helps fill in a few blanks at a lot of schools.</p>

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<p>Did anyone’s kid or kid’s friend graduate in engineering last year? Like momreads’ son had some engineering friends. Would they have gotten a graduation program, that would list the names of the graduates? Couldn’t you just count them? Don’t know if those not “walking” don’t get listed in the program, though, because that would skew the data. I’m hoping son doesn’t land in that percentage of not placed, though it’s not looking good at this point. </p>

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<p>If you’re looking for the number of degree’s awarded, that info is available (for 2011-12) in College Navigator:</p>

<p><a href=“College Navigator - The University of Alabama”>College Navigator - The University of Alabama;

<p>For Engineering it’s 334 Bachelor, 75 Master and 14 Doctor (once again, for 2011-12). The survey stated a class size of 219 (with 73% responding to the survey), so that numbers sounds about right for a May graduation (fewer would graduate in December). </p>

<p>The ASEE info is interesting, but you should be careful in doing comparisons. Not all universities would classify 1st or 2nd year students as “engineering”. Also, many public schools have a significant CC transfer rate, causing an increase in 3rd (and 4th/5th) year students. For example:</p>

<p>UA
1st year 1,323
2nd year 1,088
3rd year 800
4th/5th year 795
Full Time Total: 4,006</p>

<p>UF
1st year 484
2nd year 1,266
3rd year 1,367
4th/5th year 2,437
Full Time Total: 5,554</p>

<p>At UF, a lot of students don’t enroll into a specific engineering Major till they are sophomores or juniors. UF (and other Florida universities) also takes a significant number of transfer students from the local CC’s. At UF, like any Engineering program, a significantly greater number of students plan on being engineering majors, than actually end up making through the first 2 years. The Calc series, chemistry and Physics have turned many an engineering student into a business major…</p>

<p>However, notice the significant larger number of 4th/5th year students over 3rd year? That’s due to engineering taking about 5 years to complete (at UF). </p>

<p>Lets look at that other school in Alabama, </p>

<p>Auburn
1st year 1,031
2nd year 908
3rd year 736
4th/5th year 1,074
Full Time Total: 3,749</p>

<p>The pattern is similar to UA. This makes me think they (and UA) are not accepting a large number of transfer (from local CC’s) students into the engineering program. However, notice how Auburn also show’s more 4th/5th year students than 3rd years? Looking at Schools like Clemson and TAMU, for example, also show this increase in 4th/5th year students over 3rd years. It does seem strange that this isn’t the case at UA. The attrition from 1st year to 2nd, to 3rd seem normal (even when taking into account the growth in the program), but that 4th/5th year number seems low. Perhaps UA doesn’t support Co-ops (which would drive 5th years) or it’s easier signing up for required classes (sometimes a problem at large public universities)? Otherwise, they are experiencing significant attrition during the 3rd or/and 4th years.</p>

<p>You can only parse the data so far, before you start running in circles! Time to stop :wink: </p>