<p>Hey everyone. I was accepted to UMich and Hopkins for their engineering programs (hopefully want to major in mechanical engineering in either of the two). There are pros and cons of each and I was wondering if you guys could help me decide. Unbiased/biased comments are both appreciated. :O</p>
<p>Here are some pros and cons I've found of the two based on what I'm looking for in my college experience:</p>
<p>University of Michigan:
Pros: Great student body, excellent professors, Ann Arbor is possibly the nicest college town, great social life, activities/clubs/organizations, ranked 5th or 6th for their engineering department (2nd for mech engineering), school spirit, very well-rounded school
Cons: Very huge school, afraid I won't get the same specialized attention that I would from a smaller school like Hopkins, i've heard that you're nothing more than a number to the administration</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins:
Pros: Small school, nice student body, beautiful campus, easy to switch majors, ability to sample classes during first semester, overall great professors
Cons: cut-throat and competitive academics (have a heard wrong?), not such a great social life, some students feel unsafe in the Baltimore area</p>
<p>With that said...I have a few questions. How well does Hopkins do in terms of sending students off to great graduate engineering schools or job recruiting? Would it be easy for me to switch majors across different fields...say...engineering to liberal arts to pre-med? Also, does JHU require students to take lots of core classes or are most of the classes based on self interest? Thanks in advance. I still need to visit both schools to make decision but I'm pretty sure I'll be attending on of the two next fall. :)</p>
<p>about core classes and stuff... jhu - requires 6 classes outside of your major (ie if you are in engineering, than that means courses in Humanities/social science) for a total of 18 credits (one has to be like a 300 or 500 course or something) 2 of them have to be Writing Intensive (so not necessarily an english course, just something that requires a fair amount of writing) and i beleive that is it. its really simple, i really like it. OH and 1 elective/semester can be deemed Pass/Fail</p>
<p>the information that kams1086 provided is a little skewed; here's what JHU actually says (taken from the JHU academic manual itself):</p>
<p>"Math, Science and Engineering Majors:
At least 1821 credits (67 courses of 3 credits each) of the required 30 credits must be in courses designated H or S."
(so, doesn't really have to be a 300-ish course - and 500-level courses are for graduate students! definitely wouldn't be a requirement to take 500 level courses ;) )</p>
<p>"All students in the School of Arts and Sciences and students completing a B.A. degree in the School of Engineering must complete at least 12 credits of W courses. Engineering students working toward the B.S. degree must complete at least 2 writing-intensive courses of 3 credits each, for a total of 6 credits."</p>
<p>another thing about the pass/fail (or, more correctly, -covered grades-) 1st semester during freshman year: this probably won't apply to everyone, but it's still helpful - it is a good idea to keep your grades up for freshman 1st semester, because 1) internal school awards/research grants/etc are granted based on your 1st semester grades (meaning to say that if you apply for, say, the PURA research grants or the Woodrow Wilson during your freshman year, they will base their decision on your freshman grades) 2) if you are on a Hopkins scholarship or merit-based aid, you've got to have your 1st semester gpa above 2.0 or you are in danger of losing the aid/scholarship (like one of my friends now). your 1st semester isn't exactly pass/fail - it's covered grades, which means that there -are- letter grades, only that entities outside Hopkins (e.g. grad schools) won't be able to see them. the Hopkins academic advising office and registrar can see them, and so can you. (and any other faculty member within Hopkins too, for that matter, i think - if they ask permission from the academic advising office / registrar).</p>
<p>thanks for correcting... i was pretty much repeating what i had read on the website and what a friend (soph at jhu) had told me</p>
<p>"How well does Hopkins do in terms of sending students off to great graduate engineering schools or job recruiting?"
will get back to you on this. actually the best thing to do would be to ask for stats regarding the former. for the latter, get a schedule of their job fairs and recruitment fairs, and their list of companies that visit JHU to recruit from them. (i think it's fairly decent for engineering in general, but it's always better to get more specific info from the career office itself.)</p>
<p>"Would it be easy for me to switch majors across different fields...say...engineering to liberal arts to pre-med?"
pre-med isn't a major. you can be a history major and still be pre-med; being pre-med is essentially making sure you have taken certain courses that will make you eligible for admission to med school. it's fairly easy to switch majors across different fields. (except BME.)</p>
<p>"Also, does JHU require students to take lots of core classes or are most of the classes based on self interest?"
technically, the core requirements are very flexible. somehow, though, i haven't had a very good experience in most of the non-science classes i've taken at JHU (excepting a 400 level IR class - which, i suspect, most non-IR/social-science majors don't take anyway, given the level of difficulty of that course) - my expository writing class was quite horrible in the sense that the students were plainly there just to fulfil their writing requirement. class discussions were very strained (getting people to talk took a LOT of effort on the instructor's part), students would make snide remarks about the course when the instructor wasn't around and talk about how they were just there to fulfil requirements. this was the case for at least 2 of the non-science classes i took. i suspect that this kind of thing occurs because even though the requirements are technically flexible, the reality of the situation is that most of the students at JHU are in science/quantitative majors - so naturally there is more of an overall focus on the sciences esp. on the part of the student body (although you can also see this happen in terms of things like funding for different departments). this is NOT to say that professors in non-science fields are inept, though - it's more about the students, i think.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the informative posts, guys. To trump: If I chose Michigan I'll be sure to give you my spot at Hopkins. :O Another question about Pre-med... I have a fairly mild interest for going into med school and possibly becoming a doctor if I get tired of engineering. Even though I still plan on majoring in Engineering, do I just decide to pick courses that will allow me to apply to med school in the future? If so, how well does Hopkins prepare you for med school? Usually how many credits of biology/etc do I have to take to qualify? Would it be easier to just switch my major to Biology? Does this require any further review of credentials (like BME)? Thanks a lot...I'm just very unclear about the entire deal with pre-med and what is needed for to qualify for med school. I would appreciate any feedback.</p>
<p>Also at Hopkins, is it true you don't declare a major until your second year? Does that mean that the first year can be used for experimenting with different fields and classes before declaring a major?</p>