<p>Just got back from a tour of Midwestern colleges and I was fascinated with the varying approaches to the Engineering major, which is what my son wants to do. Northwestern emphasized "Whole Brain Engineering," while the Michigan guide enthused, "You never have to take an English class again--we are exempt from that requirement!" As a humanities person myself, I prefer the Northwestern approach, but Michigan sure did have a lot of cool toys. My son does enjoy his history classes greatly.....</p>
<p>Thoughts? Since I'm not an engineer, I'd like some perspective. As I recall from my husband's Duke BME days, he took two humanities classes in four years, I think. Is it just a fact of life that, no matter what, engineers programs don't have space for humanities? Do some colleges manage to include them better than others?</p>
<p>Of course, trying to be pre-med too makes it even harder.....</p>
<p>2 kids and H who are engineers. Even if Michigan says you never have to take another English class, I suspect that they have an English class that masquerades in another name. </p>
<p>Engineers have to still write and speak correctly when they graduate, in fact my H spends much of his time writing proposals and plans and various other things. </p>
<p>D had friends who minored in many things not related to engineering, one friend had a history minor, another music. I think it can be done and isn’t that hard if you have a plan and interest.</p>
<p>Distribution requirements at most schools are sufficiently broad that one never “has” to take a course in a specific department if one doesn’t want to. So that a student could fulfill their science/math requirement by taking geology and astronomy, and never take a course in chem, bio, math, or physics. Similarly, humanities requirements can be met by taking history and philosophy, not English or anthropology. Or whatever.</p>
<p>The exception might be a freshman writing requirement, but schools seem to offer a broad range of topics.</p>
<p>Lake Jr.'s Engineering University requires 2 semesters of something called “Technical Communication,” a class run by the English Department. This is above and beyond the ‘Freshman Composition’ requirement.</p>
<p>It’s apples and oranges. As you’ve found schools approach engineering differently. It’s not a matter of better or worse, right or wrong, however it is very much a matter of fit. My son is a third year mech’e. His school requires all e’school students to take a series of writing requirements (four) specific to the e’school, in addition to four humanities electives. They can use AP credit for the humanities requirement, but not the writing requirement. I actually think the writing requirement is very advantageous, engineers have to communicate too. The topics of the courses are very tailored for engineers. For example, Social & Global Context, Ethics & Professional Responsibility, and Public Policy.</p>
<p>The engineering curriculum is very structured, however even with these requirements, taking an average of 16/17 credits/semester there is no reason not to finish in 8 semesters. In fact, they are only given 8 semesters to complete their degree, with very rare exception. There are students that go into BME also taking pre-med requirements. It is a very difficult schedule, but I have seen it done by very motivated students.</p>
<p>note: because I am the slowest typer/composer of posts ever I crossed posts with everyone since the OP!! Where I repeat your thoughts, I’m in agreement, not trying to restate what you wrote. I honestly hadn’t seen it yet. :o</p>
<p>Yes, Michigan said they took a technical writing course instead. I guess I’m just sad a little that it seems his humanities interests will be so curtailed.</p>
<p>My husband did BME and pre-med–yes, it was very demanding. Son thinks he’ll do Eng’g and pre-med too; we’ll see if that sticks. Son is much more a reading/writing person than his Dad. I’m pretty sure Engineering will stick for son though; he comes home and excitedly describes what he learned in math and physics (I say “uh huh, wow, tell your Dad”)</p>
<p>If you look at Michigan Engineering sample schedules, they have 4 classes of Humanities and Social Science electives. Compare that to Northwestern which requires 7 classes (but they run on the quarter system so 7 quarters is about equivalent to 4 semesters).
This is similar to most every other engineering curriculum in the country. </p>
<p>I would suggest you look at the sample schedules/curriculum guides for school you are investigating. In most cases, you will see that the course flow is nearly identical. Be careful not to buy into the marketing too easily. Figure out what schools really mean by phrases like “no more English” and “whole brain engineering.”</p>
<p>ABET accreditation requirements mean that they are supposed to require humanities and social studies breadth courses.</p>
<p>However, colleges vary. For example:</p>
<p>Brown: 4/32 (i.e. 4 humanities and social studies courses out of a typical 32 courses total for the degree)
Berkeley: 6/32, including two upper division and a series
Caltech: 12/60, including at least 4 each of humanities and social studies
MIT: 8/32, including an in-depth concentration and one each from humanities, social studies, and arts
Harvey Mudd: 11/40</p>
<p>Exactly, dreadpirit. Is it just marketing, or are there real differences? Could there also be a difference in the respect/value by faculty given to humanities requirements at different universities, even if the same number is required?</p>
<p>Thanks for all the links–those of you who posted after–I will start digging.</p>
<p>Excellent advise. Really look past the ‘marketing’ digging to major requirements at each school and compare. This is where my son found the true difference between his top two choices. That and sitting down with a prof at each school (or trying to, one wouldn’t even make an appointment well in advance, the other he was offered a sit down after asking a question in the dept office. A call was made and 10min later he’s in an hour meeting with a prof in his intended major) watching how the students were treated and questions responded to in the engineering admin office. Kids get turned off by what the tour guide wears, how they were treated in admissions. I won’t discount that, but go see how students are treated in the engineering department. That’s your home for four years and it makes a difference if the staff is knowledgable and helpful vs treating enrolled students as if they are an annoyance.</p>
<p>the Michigan guide enthused, "You never have to take an English class again–we are exempt from that requirement</p>
<p>?? Really. I know many eng’g programs scale back on Core/GenEd, but a year of Frosh Comp is often req’d…and sometimes a year of “writing intensive” courses are req’d as well. Many don’t require Lit classes, but comp classes seem to be the norm.</p>
<p>Good heavens…too many eng’rs are lousy writers as it is…they need more, not less.</p>
<p>husband did BME and pre-med–yes, it was very demanding. Son thinks he’ll do Eng’g and pre-med too;</p>
<p>My son did ChemEngineering and premed. He was req’d to have a year of Frosh Comp and a year of upper-division Writing Intensive.</p>
<p>DS is at Georgia Tech. They require a year of English and a bunch of other core non engineering classes. However if your son is applying at U of M and Northwestern I assume he most likely has had AP classes. So he probably will be able to comp out of some of the core classes at either college anyway.</p>
<p>My engineering programme did not have a foreign language requirement, which was part of its appeal to me; yet, I took five semesters of a foreign language. </p>
<p>Just because you are not required to do something does not mean that you are prohibited from it, and in fact, it can be much more enjoyable when you are doing it on your own terms and to suit your own interests. I liked knowing that I could drop my language at any point, or if it conflicted with a required engineering class, I wouldn’t have to do something silly like stay an extra year to finish up the requirements.</p>
<p>One of the biggest selling points of journalism as a major for me what that I only had to take three hours of math. It turned out to be wrong for me in a lot of ways, but I loved the math requirement, or lack thereof.</p>
<p>As an engineering student, I enjoyed having non-technical classes. My huge US history class was my favorite UG course! The teacher was a wonderful story teller and assigned several excellent books for us to read (such as “Path Between the Seas,” by David McCullough). I think I would have been miserable if ALL my classes had been technical.</p>
<p>I don’t know this for a fact, but it is possible the actual engineering classes might be different due to this difference in pedagogical philosophy.</p>
<p>My D is a freshman engineering major at NU. They have a course called DTC (Design, Thinking, and Communication) which is a 2 quarter requirement for all freshmen. In this course, they have to solve a real-world problem: it involves analyzing the problem, brainstorming, designing the solution, prototyping ideas, design review, construction of the final design, and a writeup and presentation. They have a group of instructors- one of them is an English professor for the writing portion of the assignment. It’s a fantastic, practical introduction to real engineering- and includes developing skills of research, writing and public speaking. </p>
<p>My D is also using her electives to get a minor in Spanish. The school requires that you have a core focus with your 7 electives.</p>