<p>I saw the other thread re: engineering at Wash U. The responses weren't exactly resounding endorsements. Rats. It's on my son's list so far. He thinks he's mostly interested in Mechanical Engineering, which nobody commented on in the previous engineering thread. Any comments from people in the know on THAT program? Are they short-staffed at the moment as well?</p>
<p>I did my undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Wash U (class of 2008). I’m copy/pasting some points I’ve made in the past below.</p>
<p>First off, I really enjoyed my time at WashU. It is important to realize that the biomedical engineering and chemical/environmental engineering programs seem to get the most focus – especially bme. However, a lot of the really great student projects (i.e., the FSAE race car) are made up of mostly mechanical engineers. If you want to research with a professor it is also easy to do, but not that common until after at least freshman year since most students won’t have the background necessary.</p>
<p>Grad school placement has been very good to me and my mechanical engineering friends. Between us we have gotten into schools like UPenn, CMU, Stanford, Georgia Tech, UIUC, Virginia Tech, Purdue, UCBerekley, UCSD, OSU, University of Washington, etc. many with full funding. I decided to go to UPenn for their master’s in robotics program.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed about WashU now that I am at another school is that the mechanical program is much more theoretical/less practical than other schools. However, you can always supplement the more theoretical coursework with practical work/research/co-op experience.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me with specific questions.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you much about the Mechanical Engineering program as I’m not in it, but I can say that ME was not one of the departments I was referring to in my comment about short-staffedness. That was a reference to the Comp Sci department, which just has a few professors on an indefinitely long sabbatical currently. Hope that clears things up some :)</p>