<p>Insights on the Engineering program at Purdue? I have the facts about it, but now I'm interested to hear some opinions about Purdue Engineering, in general (prestige, job placement, grads wanted in workforce, etc.) or specific.</p>
<p>I don’t have a lot of time this morning but I can give you some more details tonight.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, Purdue seems to have a lot of prestige that exceeds its actual status. When I tell someone I went to Purdue I often hear “oh I heard that’s a really good school.” This is not a bad thing, obviously.</p>
<p>I had tons of job opportunities, most of which I declined due to a lack of interest.</p>
<p>I am actually quite interested in hearing what you have to say PurdueEE as well. </p>
<p>I am currently looking at Purdue Unversity as a Graduate School and would like to find out about several things.</p>
<p>I wanted to apply for their distance learning option and would like to know the difference between the “MSECE” vs “MSE(Concentration in Computer Engineering)”</p>
<p>How difficult is the admission process?
(For someone who came from a smaller engineering school)</p>
<p>Should I disqualifiy myself immediatly because the average accepted student GPA is 3.6 while I graduated with a BSEE and a BSCE with a GPA of 3.43? </p>
<p>As well as some other things…</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time.</p>
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<p>Many professors at my university did Ph.D’s at Purdue University. So I feel Purdue at the graduate level competes very well with UMich, Illinois, UT Austin and Cornell. At the undergraduate level, I would expect that Purdue is likely as strong as the aforementioned schools in terms of the faculty and quality (especially in EE) but that it is not nearly as selective. If it is in state or if you get a big scholarship, it is an outstanding option (and definitely worth considering over the other schools). Purdue’s reputation with employers is also very good from what I understand.</p>
<p>Purdue has a GREAT reputation for engineering.</p>
<p>My only “issue” is how Purdue classify applicants who have non-engineering undergraduate degrees. If you are a Math or Physics major, you can only earn a M.S. degree with no designation. You have to have majored in some form of engineering in order to get a MSE (Master of Science in Engineering).</p>
<p>Why is that an issue? Who in their right mind would give out an MSE for majoring in something that isn’t “E”? Furthermore, what difference does it make? In industry they aren’t going to care if the degree has that E or not as long as you meet the competency requirements for the job.</p>
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<p>You are right. Jobwise, it is not an issue. As far as “aesthetics”, I wanted my degree to say “MSE”.</p>
<p>U-Wisconsin did not care. Non-engineering undergraduate majors (like myself) could earn MSE’s.</p>
<p>A very small issue…but still to me at the time, I didn’t like that. :-)</p>
<p>I can only tell you about undergrad at Purdue. My son is a junior ME there and loves it. I wanted him at a smaller school and he didn’t think he was interested in it at all. It was between there and RH and when he walked on the campus, it fit. He’s loved it since day 1.
He’s had large classes, good professors, smaller classes and great professors, the gamut. He’s very involved in their EV-grand prix, has a co-op with a major corporation so he works every other semester. He would tell anyone to go there.</p>
<p>FWIW, CC poster ajtan1990 is a current Purdue engineering student.</p>
<p>Thanks PurdueEE, more info would be great! I’m a senior in high school so I’m wondering mostly about undergrad (but grad plays a role too). These are the main things I’m concerned with: 1) Size! Purdue is huge! 2) Like it was mentioned, its not extremely selective and I don’t know why not if its really that good. 3) fourkidsmom, I’m also looking at RH. Anyone have opinions when comparing with Purdue? Thanks!</p>
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<p>I’d say Purdue, especially if its cheaper. Selectivity doesn’t have too much to do with being good. Purdue weeds a lot of students out so graduating students from Purdue are probably on par with those from U. Michigan or UIUC. But Rose Hulman also has its advantages (but it’s very expensive and stingy with aid).</p>
<p>Job Placement</p>
<p>Purdue has a job fair every year in September, the Industrial Roundtable. A large number of companies from across the US attend. Most of the companies are located in the Midwest but you can definitely find companies representing other regions. This is common for campus job fairs as companies tend to prefer recruiting locally.</p>
<p>First round interviews are often, but not always, conducted shortly after or during this job fair on campus. They are held in either larger rooms with a few conference tables for various companies (due to the large number of companies and interviews this was necessary) or in small rooms that were much more private. These were pretty typical job interviews and cookie cutter questions were often asked.</p>
<p>Outside of this job fair there was a web based job search tool. You could browse what companies would be coming to Purdue to on what dates and apply for jobs/interview spots. Many people had success with this in finding jobs. This was nice because the jobs targeted college students so you did not have to browse something like monster.com searching for entry level jobs. Additionally, first round interviews for these jobs would almost always be on campus or over the phone, which was very convenient.</p>
<p>I had no problems obtaining a good number of interviews. Many second round interviews I did not attend due to a lack of interest in the company/position. I believe I turned down two job offers due to a lack of interest. Everyone engineer I know who went to Purdue managed to find a job either before or shortly after graduation. </p>
<p>Prestige</p>
<p>Like I mentioned earlier, Purdue has a reputation that seems to exceed those of similar schools (UIUC, Michigan, VT, etc.). When I tell people I went to Purdue I often get responses like “I heard that’s a really good school.” I can’t say I’ve heard the same quite as often when others have mentioned peer schools. I really don’t know why this is, perhaps the fact that Purdue is a state school that does not have a state name makes it stand out more.</p>
<p>I believe this brand recognition can definitely help, especially if you want to leave the Midwest. People who know engineering will know that there are many good engineering schools in the Midwest but you are often dealing with HR types who don’t have much of a clue. Of course, it’s always possible you will run into someone who has never heard of Purdue but thinks that Penn State (just an example) is an amazing engineering school only rivaled by MIT.</p>
<p>Grads Wanted in the Workforce</p>
<p>A lot of companies want competent engineers, regardless of school. After having the opportunity to work with engineers who graduated from schools all across the nation I believe that Purdue can definitely make you competitive in the job market. I’ve seen a few co-op students from other schools who lacked fundamental EE knowledge. I don’t know how much it reflects upon the school’s quality but it is worrisome when a co-op is in his junior or senior year and has a 3.8+ GPA but yet has no idea what a transistor is. This is not to say that other schools are bad as I may have just encountered students who are good test takers, but I can say that if you do well at Purdue and actually learn and understand what you are taught you will be in a great position when it comes time to obtain a job.</p>
<p>I can post some more tomorrow, such as specifics of what I liked and did not like. as well as answer any more specific questions but for now I’m off to bed.</p>
<p>Purdue is in-state for me, so right now it seems like an excellent option. Thank you so much. I’m off to bed too, but here are some more questions for tomorrow or whenever.
- Size? What size colleges were you looking at, and is the large size of Purdue ever a negative for you?
- Financial aid? Its in-state, but I’m still going to need some. Do females get any added boosts when it comes to Financial aid at Purdue? Do they give out decent merit aid? In other words would I get the help I need?
3)If you didn’t go to Purdue, where would you have gone?</p>
<p>My s looked at many small engineering type schools and thought he was least interested in Purdue. He was not even excited the day he got in. He was accepted at WPI, Union and other Eastern schools as well as RH and Purdue. He didn’t really talk about it, but the only ones he visited were RH and Purdue after acceptance. (we had seen WPI- I really liked it…) I think he thought he was going to love RH because of size and opportunity. We went to Purdue first. He liked what they told him about the program, that he could stay involved with robotics (he didn’t but he does the grand prix) and he liked the co-op program. He has an amazing opportunity with his co-op and so do his friends that are also on co-ops. I think that’s one of t he best things that happened to him. As he says, now I understand why I’m learning the stuff I am. In addition, its two years of engineering experience.
It may not be as selective but the classes sure are. His freshman hall were all engineering majors and he’s one of the few who have stuck with it. As the saying goes, it may be easy going in, but its hard to stay in unless you want to.
Everyone I meet and tell them he’s at Purdue is like wow…engineering…he must be really smart. I think the reputation is fine.
as for RH, its just his experience I can speak for. He had a great overnight visit, the only one he did. The kids were great, he enjoyed the classes, the facility was nice. Now this is his thoughts- a bell rang to end the class time, most of the classes were in one building and there was one huge cafeteria. To him, that all felt like high school. He likes the all around feel of Purdue with sports and school traditions. At RH, it was a very male college where the ratio was a bit more balanced at Purdue.
A school is what you make of it. There are opportunities at every school in every field. Its knowing where to look and sticking up for yourself to find them.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Size</p>
<p>I, personally, did not care about size very much. I think I would have preferred a smaller school with smaller class sizes but ultimately the fact that some classes at Purdue were large did not detract from them in an appreciable way. There are definitely pros and cons to a large university. A good aspect is that there are a lot of people so you can meet plenty of interesting people and are more likely to be able to find friends with similar interests. A downside is that you have to often rely on office hours to ask professors or TAs questions and interaction between students and the professor in large classes can be extremely limited to non-existent. I think this is a personal preference for each person and you need to ask yourself what you want.</p>
<p>Financial Aid</p>
<p>I don’t remember too much about financial aid, sorry. I doubt they will give you much due to being a female but it’s a possibility.</p>
<p>Not Purdue</p>
<p>I really don’t know. At the time I made the decision I had pretty much always planned on going to Purdue. It was in-state and very cheap (I graduated with zero debt and now own a house). I gave some consideration to Rose Hulman because the teaching quality was supposed to be excellent and the classes small, but decided the cost was not worth it. A few months ago I gave some thought to this question, ignoring the financial aspect, and came up with Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Cal Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, Harvey Mudd, and USC, in no particular order. I think I would have really enjoyed going to school in California (or even Texas). I probably would have also considered Michigan, UIUC, MIT, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Northwestern, and some others. However, the financial aspect is very real and graduating with a substantial amount of debt is NOT worth it.</p>
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This is a very, very important point that I believe deserves highlighting.</p>
<p>Thank you PurdueEE and fourkidsmom! You know, it really is true: It’s all what you make of it. I’m looking for a good education for a good price, and Purdue seems to be just that. Its definitely in the running.</p>
<p>How about between Purdue and Vanderbilt University? A full ride for Vanderbilt but a $13,000 for Purdue per year for engineering? please help me to decide.Thanks</p>
<p>Two very different experiences. At Purdue, you will be in large classes studying with thousands of freshman and there will be more opportunities than you could possibly take advantage of if you perform well. Vanderbilt is a private school with smaller classes. Have you visited?</p>