My son was accepted into UMD college park for the Spring, with the given option of freshman connection. He was also accepted into Penn state university park for the fall. We are torn between the two schools since they are both good universities. My son is interested in aerospace engineering but got in to both schools undecided. Which school would be the better option . Any suggestions?
I don’t know how much this concerns you, but State College is a much safer area than College Park. The “townies” if you will, are known to be rude, and the crime rate is rather high. Compare this to small-town Pennsylvania and there’s definitely a major difference. Both schools have aerospace engineering and will provide similar job opportunities. He should try to speak with engineering faculty from each school, and also visit. I know PSU is very expensive OOS and I’m pretty sure UMD is as well, so overall cost is worth considering. The last thing I’ll say is Penn State definitely doesn’t come up short in terms of school pride. PSU’s network is second to none.
First of all, congratulations!. I agree with Mr. cannonball7 that both schools have aerospace engineering and will yield. similar job opportunities. I don’t think both schools are worth the cost.
Has your son looked at majoring in Computer Science at UMD instead? UMD has one of the best computer science department in the world (Top 15, maybe?). In fact, the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin got his bachelor in CS at UMD. I think your son should look into majoring computer science because I think in the next twenty years or so, it is going to be more prevalent than aerospace engineering.