My son has been accepted at Purdue for engineering. He would like to attend and enter the aerospace program. However, we are hesitant to spend $40,000 a year for tuition. His other option is to attend UGA with scholarship at no cost. They do not offer aerospace, but he could major in mechanical engineering. Is Purdue worth the additional money? Anyone have a positive/negative experience with UGA engineering?
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That’s a hard one. Does UGA have any sort of minor for AE? My daughter’s school is similar. They don’t have an AE major, only ME but students interested in AE are still able to take certain courses as a sort of path or just interest like a minor. Not quite sure what they call it but I was surprised since it’s a top engineering school. It is hard to beat free when it’s a great school but Purdue is known for Engineering. Sometimes it is about fit. My son is passing up a free scholarship but it’s his safety school so we’re not comparing apples to apples.
Congrats to him!
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if he is a good student and does well at UGA, could he transfer to GT?
What are the transfer acceptances like?
Presumably GT has a decent amount of attrition,so they would need to accept transfers?
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Purdue also has a secondary admission to major process after entering as first year engineering. You may want to find out how competitive the desired majors are if the student does not hit the automatic-admission college GPA of 3.2 (technical and overall).
UGA does not appear to have aerospace-specific electives in its ME department, although general ME course work is certainly applicable to aerospace.
Does the student have direct admission to the desired major at UGA? If not, there is a secondary admission process:
https://www.engineering.uga.edu/academics/admissions-eligibility
If the cost of Purdue would impact your retirement, reduce funding for younger kids, or require more loans than the student’s federal direct loans, then taking that cost burden seems like a bad idea.
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I know top students who have done amazing things from UGA engineering, but it’s engineering department is not nearly as strong as Purdue or GT or other more engineering focused schools. So that’s a risk. But getting into aero at Purdue is also a risk beyond the tuition. Not ideal options. If Purdue is affordable, I’d take that as overall engineering is stronger there.
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So many that work in this field are not aerospace engineers. Read this.
Mechanical Engineer in the Aerospace Field - Mechanical Engineering HQ.
Look up in reddit and look at places like Linkin… See who’s applying for the jobs he might want to do.
Maybe even go as far and call some companies and talk with their HR people just to ask a few questions.
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