The mechanical engineering programs at UT-Austin and TAMU are both ABET accredited, so in theory my D could pick either one. However, TAMU has more labs, UT-Austin has more math, etc. etc. How do we know which one to choose? Let’s keep this to curriculum, please-- not school atmosphere, ranking, etc.
They’re both good, well respected programs with strengths and weaknesses. No program is without that balance between good and less good. What’s her gut tell her thus far?
Her gut hasn’t spoken yet. So we’re trying to see the differences in curriculum in case that helps any. But it’s all Greek at this point. TAMU has “lab overload” (their students’ words, not mine.) UT has more math than TAMU. If those two extra UT math classes aren’t needed at TAMU then are they needed at all for working engineers? Is UT geared more toward graduate school?
Does she have direct admission to her major at UT? If so, that can be a way of bypassing the weeding process at TAMU, where pre-engineering students have to compete for admission to their majors.
Does she have direct admission to her major at UT? If so, that can be a way of bypassing the weeding process at TAMU, where pre-engineering students have to compete for admission to their majors.
She has a mechanical engineering slot at UT-Austin.
TAMU says anyone with a 3.5 after first year will get their major. It seems like a 3.5 at TAMU would be do-able with all the support they have.
Is UT’s curriculum geared more toward continuing to graduate school, where the TAMU curriculum might be geared toward being a working engineer? Is that one way to interpret the differences in their curriculum?
ABET requires a certain minimum set of courses for accreditation and anything beyond those is at the discretion of the department. The State of Texas mandates that bachelor’s degrees not requires over a certain maximum number of credit hours. These schools are therefore effectively boxed in and have slightly different views (collectively in the departments) about what those limited extra hours should include. It’s not necessarily anything related to graduate school versus industry, but instead just a reflection of the priorities/views of the committees in each department who make the decisions regarding curriculum. I am pretty sure the rate of students going to graduate school is fairly comparable between the two schools.
I don’t know what grading is like at TAMU, but 3.5 is not a slam dunk in any engineering program for any student. According to TAMU: “Our program in Mechanical Engineering continues to be in great demand and under considerable enrollment pressure. Consequently, admission is highly competitive.” The last sentence is underlined on their web page for emphasis. Suffice it to say, a significant number of students who start at TAMU intending to be MEs will not graduate as MEs in spite of the academic support offered at TAMU and the fact that they had the stats to get into TAMU in the first place. This introduces a level of risk that she has to be comfortable with. Will she stay at TAMU if she doesn’t get into ME? I’m certain she’s smart and a hard worker, but that is a high hurdle and unpredictable things can happen, sickness, adaptation to being away from home, etc.
I am not a fan at all of this approach. It’s also used at a well know program in our neck of the woods, University of Washington. For this reason alone, a direct admit to ME would have me leaning strongly towards UT.
I’ll just point out that, while a 3.5 guarantees admission to your choice of discipline, it is unlikely that they will fill their quota with only 3.5 students, as there just aren’t enough. 3.5 is a relatively high bar and they set it there.
I’ve always found this debate interesting because I can legitimately see the merits of both approaches to undergraduate admissions. With TAMU, they take their approach in large part due to the top 10% rule in Texas in combination with their 25 by 25 plan to expand fairly dramatically in the next 10 years. What they’ve found is that the top 10% rule, in which any student in the top 10% of his or her class in Texas is automatically admitted to state universities, has resulted in a large number of students being admitted who are not academically prepared for the rigors of an engineering program. The result is that they’ve seen a higher attrition rate in the past than what they would like and are trying to take steps to fix it.
Their statistics have shown that as many as 50% of freshman engineers change majors before graduating in the past, so they are trying to instead bring them in as a sort of undeclared engineer as freshman and have them take some classes on what each type of engineer does as well as take their basic foundational classes to make sure they are academically prepared prior to starting the actual core engineering curriculum. This is good for the school because it increases the average quality of the student in the core engineering courses and reduces the dropout rate. There are some advantages for students as well, such as being surrounded by more competent peers once you get into the core classes and making sure that you are academically prepared before you start the truly difficult courses. Since you can apply to specific departments any time after your first semester and no later than your fourth semester, there is leeway built in so that a student can take an extra semester or two to raise their GPA and polish their study habits before they get obliterated by thermodynamics or some such course. Honestly, this can be a net positive for students.
Of course, the downside is that you start school without a guarantee of admission to your choice of major. TAMU has moved to this admissions model in conjunction with their 25 by 25 initiative whereby they want to increase engineering enrollment to 25,000 by the year 2025 in part to fill the perceived need for more engineers and in part to mitigate the effects of the 10% rule (the dramatic expansion will let them admit more out of state students and strong students from competitive high schools in the state that didn’t make the top 10% and couldn’t get int because all the spots were filled by 10 percenters). So, in theory, the larger enrollment should mean there are more open spots for the freshman engineers and the competitive admissions to specific departments should be less of an issue than at some other schools. It is probably too early to see how this plays out in practice, however, as it has only been in place since 2014.
In short, I don’t think the freshman engineering program at TAMU should necessarily be a deal breaker (where it might be at other places). I am not convinced that the differences in curriculum should be a deal breaker either (though I haven’t looked in depth at the two curricula). I’d be willing to bet that in practice, both end up being substantially similar.
I know the OP didn’t want to hear this, but for me, the absolute biggest difference between the schools will be culture and setting. I don’t think you can downplay the importance of that given how different the two schools are in those areas. I got my PhD from TAMU, and I can say that if I had to choose one to attend as an undergraduate, I would go to UT because I like Austin a lot better than College Station. There are a lot of people who would disagree with me, though.
Needing a 3.5 GPA means that the student will have to protect his/her GPA like a pre-med. Given the reputation of grade-grubbing and other cutthroat-competitive behavior among pre-meds, that seems more like a “weed out” environment than a supportive one.
Thanks for your input. I’ll add a couple of new factoids:
Starting next year, TAMU will use holistic admission criteria into engineering, like UT-Austin. That will help by not having to accept all the automatic admits into engineering.
You also need to complete a whole year now before applying to a major.
Can anyone speak to the differences in the actual mechanical engineering curriculum?
Again, a 3.5 GPA is what guarantees with 100% certainty that one will be admitted to their choice. This does not mean that you cannot or will not get in with a lower GPA. It is also not like pre-med in that you have a 3 semester window in which you can decide to apply to your program. It’s certainly not the most ideal system, but it is certainly not black and white like the picture you paint.
From just a glance at the curricula, I don’t really see much difference between the two. They also appear to have the nearly equivalent math requirements, with the difference being that statistics is elective at TAMU and required at UT. Personally, I’d say regardless of which school is selected, taking statistics is a good idea. Otherwise their curricula look essentially the same.
Either way, they both require less math than my own undergraduate ME curriculum did, so I wouldn’t call either of them particularly math heavy.
Has she visited both campuses? If yes, encourage her to discuss what pros/cons (if any) she noticed at each.
They both seem to meet the minimum ABET math requirement, Multivariable and Diff Eq. Neither curriculum has linear. Looking at them side by side, they look pretty similar, as do most ME curricula. There’s only so far they can stray and stay ABET accredited.
I was in your shoes two years ago. My son had narrowed down to three schools, all very different, but unified in their early “hands on” curricula and each with very positive, but different attributes. I stayed in the shadows, wanting it to be his decision, but my obsessive nature brought me out here to see if I could tease out the intangibles to determine which one was “best.” There weren’t any that held any sway. They were all fine by the judgement of the sage engineers who contribute to this board. He waited until neatly the final day. The sun popped out, a welcome site at that time of the year in the PNW and he decided to go to California.
Your daughter is in the same boat he was in. She has good options. One of them will eventually captivate her.
Are y’all looking at UT’s 2016 curriculum? For math they require:
- The normal 3 course sequence of calculus, but they are squeezed into 2 semesters.
- Diff E. with Linear Algebra
- Advanced Calculus for Applications II (this used to be in a list of electives)
- Engineering Statistics (a MechEngr course-- ME335)
TAMU’s math requirements are:
- The normal 3 course sequence of calculus (in 3 semesters)
- Diff E
I’m guessing Linear Algebra would be squeezed into something somewhere (??)
@colorado_mom She has visited both campuses. I’m taking her to both again in hopes of an epiphany. We’re also going to both schools’ in-town receptions and talking to students at both places. We have a list of pros and cons. Of course there is no school that has all of what she feels is most important to her, so she’ll have to prioritize.
@eyemgh Thanks for commiserating. Yes, this is taking so long because it needs to be her decision. I’m trying to tease out more data for her to consider with this curriculum comparison.
@boneh3ad What you said about having a finite number of course slots to incorporate the department’s priorities makes perfect sense. Thus, the comparison, trying to discern the difference in what they feel is important. For example, UT requires Mechatronics. But why so much more math if it isn’t needed?
Before anyone states the obvious (ask the schools), I already did. My question that I put to each is: “All the programs that D has applied to are ABET accredited. What makes your MechEngr program different or possibly even better than the others?” I always get the same response: Blank stare, then they talk about their placement rate, culture, sports, etc.
It reminds me of a recent panel discussion I went to at our local public high school. There was a panel of four highly regarded principals of different schools. The discussion leader started the discussion off with a basic question to all the panel members: What is the purpose of education? Blank stare. No-one had an answer.
Maybe I should be asking the Deans my question? Surely they have looked at others’ strategies also and understand their competition and how their programs fit into the competition. (???)
Yes I was looking at the 2016 curriculum, and based on the course descriptions, it doesn’t look like it is actually the traditional three-course calculus sequence squeezed into two courses. The “Advanced Calculus” class looks like it just covers vector calculus, which is typically also part of “Calculus III”. So really, at the very most, they might have 3.5 semesters of calculus squeezed into 3 semesters. So like I said, UT doesn’t have that much heavier of a math load based on course descriptions. I believe at TAMU, linear algebra is baked into the differential equations course much like it is at UT, though I am not certain on that.
Regarding mechatronics, as far as I can tell, UT doesn’t have a circuits class in their curriculum, so it is likely that their mechatronics course fulfills this requirement. On the other hand, TAMU has a required course in the EE department for learning circuits.
I wouldn’t bet that Deans have anything to offer you regarding those questions. Department heads are who, I believe, usually have the overseer duties when setting the curriculum, so I would imagine that is probably the better resource when it comes to trying to find someone knowledgeable about the curriculum compared to other schools. That said, department heads are generally incredibly busy and may not be willing or able to take the time out to answer parents’ questions.
Commiserating, I feel you are digging too deep in weeds when you should (in this case) be looking at the bigger picture. Both schools have good reputations in industry and academia, and graduates from both have worked at just about any excellent company you can think of. The limiting factor is not the school or the program, it’s the student.
@Commiserating, my son goes to the prototype for “hand on” engineering schools, Cal Poly. Their motto has been “Discere Faciendo,” To Learn By Doing, since it’s inception in 1901. Yet, their math sequence is taught by the math department and not softened for engineers and includes linear and statistics. I would not rank them as unnecessary just because they aren’t required by ABET.
On a side note, much in line with @fractalmstr and @boneh3ad, the differences between these schools is FAR more about everything else BUT the curriculum.
Good luck.
Thanks for everyone’s input. I think I’ll just take her to both places one more time and “encourage” a decision!
Funny thing, I just took my other D car shopping. She narrowed down the list right away, test drove some, scratched some off the list from that, and we’re going back to test her final two in the dark. Easy!
Everyone just needs to do things their own way. It will get easier for D #2 as time goes on…