<p>I got into both schools and I'm having a really touch time deciding! I'm from NYC so it takes 12 hours by car and 4 by plane to get to Purdue, but only 3 hours by car to get to Northeastern. My dad would prefer it if I stayed closer to home, so he likes NU more. Also I got into the N.U.in program for Northeastern, which means I'd have to study abroad the first semester. But I'm just having a really tough time deciding because I hear NU is more of a business school than engineering!</p>
<p>Purdue:
- 4 hours by plane
- Engineering program is in the top 10
- Graduate in 4 years
- 45k a year
- Has a well known reputation in engineering</p>
<p>Northeastern:
- 3 hours by car
- I'd do the co-op program so I'd graduate in 5 years
- Have to study abroad the first semester
- After grant is about 47k a year
- Is known for it's business program</p>
<p>My major is going to be mechanical engineering if that helps! Each school it's pros and cons, but I'm unsure of which one I should go to. </p>
<p>If money is no object then Purdue hands down for the national/international reputation Purdue engineers enjoy… just don’t expect to get out of West Lafayette in four years. Maybe a third of engineers at Purdue accomplish that. BTW, many do coops… just call them internships instead.
Our family has spent the past 2+ years doing due diligence on just this sort of choice.
My niece and nephew are current Purdue BMEs. My son chose Cal Poly for materials engineering over Purdue/NEU. This was mainly driven by location and the fact that he wanted to leave Indiana. Current senior daughter leaning towards D’Amore-McKim @NEU for accounting, not engineering. That’s in spite of the fact that she’s in at IU-Kelly.
Sometimes you kids just want to spread your wings. I think that’s usually a good thing.
Just one man’s opinion. Hope it helps. </p>
<p>Purdue is very well known for its engineering, but Northeastern’s engineering program is still very strong. I have a number of friends in engineering, and they are all having a great experience, getting fantastic co-ops, and have really good prospects for jobs post-graduation.</p>
<p>@GunnerDad - when you say that many at Purdue do co-ops but call them internships, do you mean co-ops in the Northeastern sense? As in, a 6-month position as opposed to a summer one? 6 month co-ops are often much more integrated with the normal workforce and have the opportunity to have more of a realistic work experience than occurs in a summer internship. (At least, this is what I have heard from the engineering people. No personal experience with it since I’ve only done co-op.)</p>
<p>Northeastern and Purdue also have very different social environments. Purdue is a Big 10 athletic school, with the social life that surrounds that. Northeastern, on the other hand, has much less of a focus on athletics (and doesn’t even have a football team). Purdue is also in a city of ~30,000, vs. Northeastern in Boston’s urban setting. Neither of these necessarily makes either school better, but it’s a matter of what you think is a better fit for you personally. Have you been able to visit both schools to get a sense of this?</p>
<p>@nanotechnology Purdue is in the process of transitioning to a year around school schedule they refer to as “trimesters”.
Essentially it creates 3 fifteen week grading periods… Fall, Spring and Summer. Co-op or internships (I mean this interchangeably) become an option during these trimesters, but are in no way mandatory. Purdue, under new leadership, is trying to move students through the undergraduate process more efficiently as well as provide plenty of opportunities for real world job experience without delaying a student’s graduation timeline.
Clearly Purdue values what Northeastern already offers as a matter of the NEU core philosophy with the their co-op offerings.
I was just trying to point out that the 4 year graduation rate in the School of Engineering at Purdue is pretty darn low. It seems to be an accepted fact there and it remains to be seen whether trimesters will improve upon that.
I have to second the thought that Indiana is definitely not Boston. </p>
<p>Clearly, Purdue’s reputation for Engineering is held in very high esteem, but I’ve been doing a bit of armchair research on Northeastern and it appears that the Engineering Department at NU is on the move. I was curious about the Chemical Engineering faculty and I see that many professors at NU earned their doctorates at some of the most highly regarding engineering universities in the U.S. (RPI, Georgia Tech, Stanford etc.) Also, NU is putting much cash into new facilities. They just broke ground on a new and fancy Science and Engineering Building. Yes, they are on the move at Northeastern.</p>