<p>can some1 tell about the quality of civil engineering programs at these schools (professors, courseload, job opportunities upon graduation, depth of study):</p>
<p>Northeastern University
U Pitt
Manhattan College
U Delaware
George Washington
Syracuse</p>
<p>PS - i know these schools dont rank in the top 20 for civ engineering, but im curious about how they compare to schools that do</p>
<p>...aibarr, thanks in advance...lol</p>
<p>First off, I'd never heard of Manhattan College until I met a really awesome gal who went along on all the structural engineering recruitment weekends (essentially, grad programs pay to fly you up to their campuses and spend a weekend trying to convince you to go there... it's pretty cool) and she's at Berkeley now, so I <em>know</em> that they must have a pretty good program.</p>
<p>Right-o. Interesting tidbit having been said, instead of going through each of the colleges and spending twenty minutes on each one looking through all the criteria I typically check, I'm just gonna <em>tell</em> you what I look for when I look at a program, and then you can evaluate <em>any</em> program you like without having to wait for me! Give a man a fish, and he has food for a day; teach a man to fish, and he has food for the rest of his life. =)</p>
<p>Anyhow, first thing I go for is the faculty. How many faculty are in the department? The more professors you get, the more specializations they've got covered in the department. I look at where these faculty members have gone. Did they get their doctorates from the top programs (UIUC, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, MIT, Cornell, Stanford, A&M, UTexas, etc.)? MOST of them probably have gotten their doctorates from one of these programs. An overwhelming majority ought to have gotten their degrees from one of these places. You'll see Illinois and Berkeley a lot. If you look at Podunk U's faculty and most of them got their degrees from Podunk U, that's not so good... they're self-populating.</p>
<p>The other thing I look at with the faculty is where their research lies. There are several different facets of civil and environmental engineering, and ideally, all of the bases should be covered. The bases are:</p>
<p>*Geotechnical engineering (having to do with soils and rock and such)
*Construction/Project Management (deals with business and planning and construction management stuff)
*Environmental Engineering (typically includes stuff like water purification, hydrology, flood management, air purification, sanitation, etc... this is a really broad field, and there are probably going to be a good portion of the profs who fit into this category)
*Transportation Engineering (Includes traffic engineering, transit engineering... they're different, traffic engineering has to do with traffic flow and signage and stuff, transit has to do with rail and subway and buses... railroad engineering, airport design, roadway design, asphalt research, etc.)
*Structural Engineering (Not to toot my own horn too much, but this is the big guns facet of civil engineering. Covers mechanics, computer methods, finite element methods, computer modeling of structures, earthquake analysis, building design, etc. BIG funding is required to do structural engineering research, since you can't particularly do it on a small scale. It requires either BIG testing equipment or BIG computer capabilities, which means lots of money. Consequently, there really aren't that many programs out there that can do a lot of structural engineering really well. If there are lots of profs in structural research, it's going to be a pretty punch-packing program.)
*And maybe some smaller, designer facet (might fulfill a local niche... like in Alaska, they'd have a lot of people studying arctic engineering)</p>
<p>Also take a look at the scope of the professors' research projects. The more global the project (eg, looking at bracing structures for when the moon crashes into earth next summer), the more impressed I tend to be. The more local the project (eg, structural stability of the Old Wood Bridge that crosses Bo Heeley's Creek down yonder...) the less impressed I'm going to be with the caliber of research.</p>
<p>Most of the bigger universities have "research centers", which are nothing more than sub-entities of one or more universities where professors, grad students, and earmarked funding all work together on one specific problem in civil engineering. I kind of look at these research foci in the same light that I look at individual faculty members' research areas, and I kind of use them as a summary of what sort of research is being done at a particular institution.</p>
<p>Then, I take a second to glance at ABET accreditation. If it's accredited, that's good. I give it just a little more attention than I do to the American Dental Association seal of approval when I'm shopping for toothbrushes. Generally, though, if the toothbrush is up to snuff, the ADA approves it, and if the program looks up to snuff, then it'll likely be ABET accredited. If, however, in looking at the program, it strikes you as being the metaphorical equivalent of brushing your teeth with a stick, then you'll be able to tell that it's not gonna be ABET accredited.</p>
<p>Along the same lines, do make sure that they offer a BS in civil engineering. It would majorly suck to get there and find out that you can't major in what you thought you wanted to major in.</p>
<p>Last thing I look at is course selection. Here are the courses I look for, in terms of course offerings.</p>
<p>*Engineering Statics/Mechanics (Might be offered through another department, though... mech engs need it too)
*Mechanics of Materials, Behavior of Materials, something like that, and I like to see a lab offered with this
*Water engineering, flood engineering, hydrology, watershed analysis, water resources engineering, something along those lines
*Structural Analysis, or something like it that covers trusses, shear and moment diagrams, deflections, etc.
*STEEL STRUCTURES (very necessary)
*CONCRETE STRUCTURES (very necessary, and I like to see a lab with this one, too)
*Geotechnical engineering, soils engineering, mechanics of soils, etc. (preferably with a lab, too)
*Some sort of engineering computation course
*Transportation engineering of some sort
*An environmental engineering survey course
*Fluids and Thermo, though they probably won't be offered within the civ department
*Some sort of senior design/capstone design/ engineering design project</p>
<p>Most of those are required for ABET accreditation, so they'll probably offer those. Then, I like to see some gravy...
*Structures II, III
*Dynamics or Vibrations
*Foundation Design
*Steel Design II, III
*Concrete Design II, III
*Wood Design
*Masonry Design
*Risk Analysis
*Prestressed Concrete Design
*Cost Analysis
*Construction Management
*Earthquake Engineering</p>
<p>Stuff like that. The more gravy a program has, the more enrichment it has to offer a student who wants to continue on to grad school. These are kind of the AP Chemistry and AP BC Calculus and AP Physics C of the civil engineering undergraduate world... you don't <em>have</em> to take them, but if you <em>do</em> take a healthy portion of them, it looks really good on your resume or your grad school applications.</p>
<p>As to job opportunities... tough to say. Bottom line, most civs are pretty employable. The better the program, the more employable they are. Some schools are feeder schools for a particular company or two (I know a lot of Illinois grads end up working for Caterpillar if they've got strong structures and materials backgrounds), but that's pretty school-specific and tough to find out from just looking at a program.</p>
<p>Other than all that, just check out each of the campuses and see where you feel most at home. I think that's more important than anything else, probably, for undergrad programs.</p>
<p>Best of luck; hope that helps out!
-Amy</p>
<p>Northeastern may not be top 20, but it has the best and one of the oldest co-op programs in the country. The engineering school's placement is stellar. And, if you look at the faculty profiles, you will see that most of the profs went to MIT (being across the river from Cambridge has its perks). Pitt also has a very good engineering program.</p>
<p>Post #2 could serve as a template for the evaluation of any undergraduate program in any field.</p>