Mid-size Engineering options

My DD is a junior and wants to study mechanical engineering with a track in aerospace, if possible. We live in a state with a top public university with an excellent ME/Aero program. However, the program is cutthroat and very, very large. We recently completed a college tour which included CMU and Brown. She felt much more comfortable on those campuses than she did at her state school as both seemed very collaborative, with a preference for Brown. CMU was impressive, but the vibe was extremely STEM without much diversity in personalities, as far as we could see. She definitely preferred the varying personality types and academic interests at Brown. That said, are there any other programs with good ME or Aero programs with a similar campus feel to Brown? She would like a mid-size school (5000+ undergraduate students) and she does NOT want a mostly Engineering/Tech school such as MIT or RPI. Any suggestions of where to look?

I just went to an engineering open house at UVA and was truly impressed by the ME/Aero overview. UVA is a big school relative to the number you mentioned, but the school of engineering is a much smaller peer group. It seems like students there will know everyone else in the school of engineering. The environment seems very collaborative/friendly and research $$ brought in per faculty member is impressive - below MIT, but higher than many of the other big tech schools. As a side comment, I’m an engineer and former professor in the northeast and I can’t recall coming across any Brown-educated engineers or researchers, but perhaps the program is growing.

I’d at least take a look at Cal Poly. It’s bigger, but feels small. The students are very collaborative. Their big advantage is that they have small classes and don’t use TAs even in labs and discussions. Their claim to fame, Learn by Doing, is accomplished by very high functioning, student driven clubs and more uniquely, a lab with nearly every single class. They have over 80 distinct labs in the college of engineering alone. Plus, it’s in an idyllic location. It’s certainly worth a look see.

@jmk518 Brown has a relatively small program (they awarded 130 BS in engineering degrees in 2017, compare to UVa’s 684), and many of them end up following a non-traditional career path, such as law or medical school.

The one Ivy, other than MIT, that caught our attention for ME/AE was Princeton. If you’re interested in Brown, you may want to check them out.

https://mae.princeton.edu/

Case Western, RPI and WPI were all in my son’s list too (for ME). They all have AE. Given what she dislikes about CMU, I’d rank them WPI, Case, RPI. My son agonized between Cal Poly and WPI until very close to the deadline. There’s a lot to like. It’s small, mostly tech, but it doesn’t have the feel like typical all tech schools.

D1 had similar concerns about the student populations at predominantly engineering schools, and the eclectic combination of fine arts and engineering at CMU was not a match. Make sure she is comfortable with a very small ME department at Brown. Going through an ABET engineering program is very much a collaborative process. It may be oppressive to have the same mix of 20 students for the last few years of the curriculum.

Try JHU, Lehigh, Penn, Cornell, UVA. The aerospace industry also hires EE, CS, ME for the thousands of applications and components.

Maybe Tufts, U Rochester, Notre Dame, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Washington University ??

Only ND and UVA have AE, if she knows she absolutely want to be an AE. That said, within the industry, there are MEs, CSs, EEs, even Civil Es. If she decides she’d be happy with ME, I’d add Lehigh to the list. There are plenty of giant ABET accredited programs that use lots of TAs and have big classes. They tend to have great toys (lab facilities and club support). There are also small programs with smaller class sizes, and limited to no TA utilization, but their toys tend to be lacking. The Goldilocks schools are the ones with smaller classes, limited TA utilization and great toys.

Let’s not equate “big program” with “uses lots of TAs”. Those two are not one and the same. Out of the three big programs with which I have been affiliated, none of them relied heavily on TAs to teach the actual classes in the engineering departments. The only real question was how TA-heavy the lower-division math and physics classes were. I only have experience with one large school from that standpoint, and I almost exclusively had actual professors teaching those courses as well (though admittedly, they were large classes). Usually, in large programs, the courses are still taught by professors and there are often TAs that hold recitation/discussion sessions or office hours.

Agree with @jmk518 that UVA is worth a look.

"Only ND and UVA have AE, if she knows she absolutely want to be an AE. "

FWIW at the undergraduate level, CC poster @rogracer, an aerospace industry insider, recommended a mechanical engineering major with some aerospace-oriented electives, rather than an aerospace engineering major.

See, e.g:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/12851062#Comment_12851062
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/11116006#Comment_11116006

Here’s some info on schools and recruiting for aerospace:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/6620001#Comment_6620001

Rice?

Lehigh and Rice seem like fits. They both have ME with Aerospace minors or concentrations. Both are slightly smaller than Brown.

The options are limited, because most of the smaller private universities that are known for engineering are “tech schools” (e.g. AITU members like RPI, WPI, Stevens, Rose-Hulman, Caltech etc). And you aren’t looking for that.

Lehigh and Rice were historically known as tech schools, and were among the founding members of AITU. But they both left after deciding to diversify away from the tech school model. Both schools still have strong engineering reputations due to their tech school heritage, but they are now relatively balanced in terms of their academic offerings and gender ratio.

Another indicator is that Lehigh and Rice both play Division I sports, which is like Brown or other Ivies. Tech schools generally have more modest athletic expectations, and play at the lower Division 3 level.

Having attended a big school myself, I sort of take for granted that others understand it too. I’m not suggesting that TAs teach lectures…ever.

When I say extensive use of TAs and big classes, the professor typically teaches the lectures, not uncommonly over 500, but in the case of Berkeley, even over 1000 for early courses, and TAs run discussions and labs until students get to fairly advanced classes, just as @boneh3ad described. I had a TA for every science, math and physics discussion and lab until I was a Senior.

Comparing 2017 ASEE profiles for ME between Cal Poly and Illinois, Illinois had 859 undergraduate ME students and 120 ME Teaching Assistants. Cal Poly had 1142 undergraduate ME students and 6 ME TAs.

As it turns out, it’s a lot easier for faculty to devote more time to teaching and close contact with undergraduate students when they don’t have much in the way of research responsibilities. On the other hand, it’s also a lot easier for an undergraduate to choose between a breadth of potential research opportunities when faculty have higher research loads in general.

You win some, you lose some.

I had a TA (Doctorate student, so more of a prof in training) teach my thermodynamics class. It was upperclassman course, lectures only… Frank Z. was actually a fantastic teacher.

@boneh3ad,

CalPoly engineering graduate research budget…all disciplines…$4,624,000.

UIUC…Mechanical Engineering by itself…$23,443,939.

:smiley:

My point though is that the advantage is lost on most undergraduates who don’t want to do research and simply want to be practicing engineers. The Catch 22 is that not all students know when they enroll.

Many undergraduates don’t have a clue when they start college unless they are very focused from a young age on a particular field.

Thanks for all the great advice. I’m trying to keep her away from CA because we’re on the east coast. She is looking at a general ME degree with a minor/track in AE or an opportunity to work on research with AE. I’ll have her look at Lehigh and Rice. Any feedback on Miami-OH, SMU, or Bucknell? She loved Brown so much and is considering applying ED. I understand the program is small and some people consider that a disadvantage, but does anybody have any specifics about their program or research taking place there?
Our state school is highly respected in the field, but HUGE! Large lecture classes, lots of TAs, and competitive to get chosen for research. However, if she gets in and decides to go she’ll get a full ride due to the programs here. So, I’m also deciding if her feeling a better “fit” at another school is worth the large price tag.

Are you anywhere near Clarkson? I would imagine it has a very different feel from Brown, and it’s not nearly as competitive, but not strictly engineering and they have excellent job placement. Merit aid would probably be high too. Could be a good “safety” for her at least.