I have been accepted to both schools for the Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering. I did my research, but I am still in a rut. SMU seems to offer good education and networking opportunities, but it’s expensive and I am tired of hearing how “beautiful” their campus is; I couldn’t care less about it. I am wondering about how they score in research compared to UT Arlington, though.
Any insight in greatly appreciated. Please note that I have zero interest in partying, the beauty of the campus, and all the social perks. If I am attending SMU, it’s for education and networking. I just don’t know if it’s worth the price tag.
Did either of them offer you an assistantship (research or teaching) that would cover your tuition? Telling you which is better in research is really impossible because that depends on your field of interest. It is highly variable.
@heymaninmars It really depends on what’s important to you.
But generically speaking I’ll say UT Arlington. UT Arlington invests way more into it’s engineering program, the engineering facilities and resources are better than SMU, YOU’LL SAVE MONEY, and so many of their engineering alumni hold very powerful positions (CEOs, EVP, VPs, etc) in the engineering world which helps with the value of your graduate level UT Arlington engineering degree.
SMU is not known for being competitive on the graduate level (outside of business and law) and plus the exuberant cost (the cost always ends up being more than what’s on their website) doesn’t match the reputation of the school. It only makes sense to pay what SMU charges if you’re at an Ivy League institution or Stanford which are famous for being very strong in every academic discipline and metric
I agree with you on SMU not being well known on the graduate level, but their graduates seem to have a much better chance at internships (less students) and therefore jobs, and they also seem to get paid higher, too, which lessens the impact of their insanely expensive tuition.
I’ll admit that despite going for the thesis option, securing a job for me at the moment is much more important to me than the quality of research facilities, and at the same time, I want to start well at a big name, and SMU seems to be a very attractive option for all of that.
Also, I am not impressed about the quality of education at UTA (as per student comments and rankings). The name is not as respected as UT Dallas, Texas Tech, and other top schools.
The tuition is the source of all doubt for me, but an extra 25k seems not a lot in the grand scheme of things.
@heymaninmars A high percentage of SMU graduates come from affluent families with many connections. So it has less to do with the school and more to do with the background of the student.