I have a couple of questions if anyone with knowledge could help me out. (I 1st posted this in the parent forum before realizing I could post it here)
It looks like resources are much better for engineering students, at least at the graduate level, at many big state schools. I've been told by a college professor at a state school that kids in his graduate programs that were educated at small privates, like Bucknell, are less prepared for graduate work than the kids coming from undergraduate work at many of the big state schools with strong engineering programs (think, Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, Penn State). Can anyone speak to this?
Is it harder to get a job right out of an undergraduate engineering program at schools like Bucknell, Lafayette, WPI, RPI than it is to get a job right out of school from a place like University of Maryland, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Virginia Tech or University of Illinois? I realize this may be very school specific, but if anyone could speak to this concern, I sure would appreciate your constructive contribution.
It is generally true that the larger schools have many more resources for students. Engineering programs are very expensive to run, and keeping lab facilities new and updated is quite a capital investment with which many smaller schools struggle. That said, having ABET accreditation means said schools have cleared that minimum bar in terms of labs, which is generally a fairly high minimum standard.
I have noticed that some smaller school graduates come into graduate school with shakier preparation, but this observation may be tainted somewhat. Small schools tend to also be more likely to be sending people with physics degrees and other STEM degrees into engineering graduate programs. Those students may just being the average preparation level of small school graduates down from the professors’ perspective, so it’s entirely plausible that graduates of small engineering programs don’t fit that stereotype as well.
Regarding job placement, the answer is a solid “it depends.” Most small programs have good regional reputations but are fairly unknown in other areas. If you try to get a job in the Midwest, people are going to be much less familiar with Lafayette and perhaps a different, more regional small program is more appropriate. The large prog ams tend to have broader name recognition. A Georgia Tech grad will have no real disadvantage seeking employment in California or Massachusetts as compared to Georgia or Florida. So, with small programs, just be aware that the companies that recruit there tend to have a much more regional flavor. Bigger programs tend to have more widely-known reputations. Both will lead to good jobs.
I'm not going to argue with a professor over his experience with his grad students. I would like to know what subfield he's in, and whether he's getting kids from Ga Tech etc. with experience in that subfield while kids from Lafayette etc. have a more general engineering background.
My most recent visit to a small engineering school was Rose-Hulman, and it was clear that the place was crawling with employers. But let's look at it this way: let's imagine that the employment rate of recent Purdue engineering grads is 98%, and for Lafayette engineering grads, it's 88% (I'm making this up). That wouldn't tell you much about where YOU will do better. If you feel more comfortable, happy, mentored, etc. at the smaller school, that is likely to be where you perform better, learn more, and get better grades. Your performance, rather than your brand name, is the most important factor in getting job offers. So as long as we're talking about accredited programs, I think it's smart to choose the environment where you feel you fit.
I wouldn’t agree. My daughter is at a small school, my nephew at a big flagship. They often have the same coursework, the same books. I think, as Hanna says, it is the student’s level of work, perhaps internships. Also, most engineers do not go directly to grad schools, so maybe those who do can’t be compared to all the others at the undergrad level. Grad programs may draw unevenly from flagships and private schools.
We looked at big and small with my third son and there are pros and cons to both, but my vote goes where the student feels they can graduate successfully. My son just spent last summer grappling with whether he was better staying at his big uni or transferring to a smaller college engineering program he had originally been accepted at. He applied for transfer and was accepted with parity for all his first two year’s coursework, but ultimately for him he felt his big program with all the stressors was worth the struggles. Another student might feel entirely different about the stress and prefer a smaller more nurturing environment. I don’t like hearing his stress at times, but he’s the type where I do know that stress is not toxic and sometimes a motivator so I just told him I supported him 100% for whatever decision he made.
Some of the stressors of a big uni program are the sheer breathtaking at times caliber of the engineering students, the advising which can be hit or miss, the general stressors of a big uni in general, language barriers with some professors, lab partners and TAs, and the rigidity at times of the engineering path with regard to pre-reqs, scheduling etc. For the small program, he had several one-on-one conversations with the dean of the program, one-on-one conversations with profs as they were looking at his prior course record and generally the absolute accessibility to people at the college. He was one of a couple hundred instead of one of a couple thousand so to speak.
The pros of a big uni program are the equipment, the labs, the facilities, the research, and the caliber of his classmates etc.
Finally personally I think worrying about a graduate degree before obtaining the undergraduate degree in engineering is adding unnecessary consideration points to the discussion.
Not all small schools are created equally. We visited all four of the schools you mentioned and they are very different. Lafayette and Bucknell are under resourced. They have limited lab space and lack broad curricula options. RPI and WPI on the other hand have robust infrastructure and curricula. You can’t really judge by size. You have to look at facilities and curricula. By undergraduate population, MIT, Caltech and Stanford are all about the same size as RPI and Bucknell.
I do think there are small schools I’d avoid for the above stated shortcomings. In addition to Lafayette and Bucknell, I’d add Union and Swarthmore. I’m sure there are others worth mention.
Small schools besides WPI and RPI to definitely look more deeply at, again an incomplete list, Lehigh, Harvey Mudd, Case Western and Olin.
Bottom line, it’s hard to choose a program based on generalities. You really need to vet each one that fits your student’s criteria individually.
Thank you all for your very helpful responses. I very much appreciate them. The reason for bringing up the graduate school issue was to make the point that a university professor didn’t believe that students from certain small undergraduate engineering programs were getting quality educations that he believed they would have gotten had they attended a strong program at a large state school. That professor’s belief was the impetus for my question. I am not worrying about graduate school at this point.
I have two personal experiences with engineering programs and one S who has been working for a few years. That S graduated from a small school and went directly into a Ph.D. program. He decided not to pursue the Ph.D. and chose to work for a company after receiving the M.S… He recruits for his current employer. It is not about where you went to school - he works with a mix of people from some of the schools you mention - but work experience and gpa. If you don’t have the grades and experience to offer, they are not interested. In other words, wherever you go, big or small you need to perform, and it sure is helpful if the school hosts recruiting events to help with internships, co-ops, and ultimately the job.
Probably not valid to compare the paths/opportunities for female vs male engineering grads at the student level or entry employment level, because female engineers get snatched up to meet diversity targets
I agree with this, though it’s less about the size than about the type of university. There are smaller and medium sized schools that send a lot of students to graduate school, but with the exception of Harvey Mudd, they are all research universities. I’m thinking of RPI, Lehigh, Rochester, Johns Hopkins, and the like. Harvey Mudd is really unique in that it is really a liberal arts college focused on engineering, but they send a tremendous number of students to graduate school, and it seems like those students are supremely prepared. I think smaller schools like Bucknell, Lafayette, Union, WPI and Rose-Hulman are primarily teaching colleges designed to get their students out the door with jobs, but less often graduate school. Graduate schools expect students to have done significant research when applying.
It’s not hard to get a job in engineering right now period. Still, I would recommend choosing a research institution (RPI is one) rather than a school primarily focused on teaching. You’d be surprised how many professors who are employed for their research are actually pretty awesome teachers too.
Of course I was generalizing. There are generally some very good engineering schools that are also very small. So, when I say “small programs” what I really mean is “small and/or lesser-known programs.” Obviously the MITs and Caltechs of the world are outliers from that group due to their notoriety and large endowments. Although, I will also note that they, especially Caltech, are not known for their support of their undergraduates. Most (not all) of the people I know that did their undergraudate work at those two schools say they wish they had gone elsewhere and then gone there for graduate school instead.
Another thing to keep in mind is what a given engineering Prof considers “better preparation” as it applies to grad students may not necessarily correspond with what engineering/tech employers are looking for in entry-level employees or employees period.
This is underscored by an older relative who worked for several years as a tenure-track engineering Prof…including selecting/mentoring engineering grad students before leaving to co-found a successful engineering/tech startup more than a decade ago.
The employees he greenlighted to be hired for the hardcore tech positions ranged from PhDs down to folks who’ve only had a year of community college. Likewise, he’s rejected countless applicants with undergrad/grad/PhD degrees from the strongest engineering programs…including those of Caltech, his alma mater because he and other startup partners felt they didn’t have what they were looking for…including many he would have greenlighted for admission as graduate engineering/PhD students at the university he worked for as a tenure tracked Prof.
Son did engineering and physics at Penn State. I can say that because of the size of the school there were many and varied research groups he could join. An amazing amount of research was going on in many different departments and he was able to find some things he was really interested in.
My D recently graduated from Lafayette and while she was not an engineer she had a number of friends who were engineers. They all were very happy with the program and had no problem at all getting good jobs or getting into grad school (whichever they were looking to do). Lafayette in particular offers very strong externship and internship opportunities and has an active and successful career placement office (other LACs may be the same, I just have no first-hand knowledge of them). There is also a study abroad program geared specifically for engineers so they can stay on track to graduate in 4 years. A number of her engineering friends had opportunities to do research with a professor during their undergraduate years.
One can get a great education at a large, medium, or small school. The trick is to find what will provide the best fit (including academic, social, financial) for you.
My D visited a variety of schools for engineering, some big, some small others in between. We haven’t gotten to the job stage yet though I think she has set herself up well for next fall when she’ll be interviewing. We’re in the midwest and that is where she wanted to stay. One of her main criteria was that she wanted to be part of a co-op program.
I think what you do in college is more important than where you attend. One recommendation would be put yourself out there and do what you can to meet with people who are involved with hiring engineers as soon as possible (like freshman year). Don’t wait until your senior year to talk to people at job fairs or interview for positions such as internships or co-ops. You don’t even have to accept them. Get to know your professors not just go to their class. They will be your references and the more they know about you the better. Look for research opportunities. Get involved in not only engineering EC’s but also volunteering and leadership opportunities.
Good luck. It will be exciting and you will be busy.
As a general rule, if you want to work in a particular region, attending a college in that region is likely to assist. Colleges are more likely to have recruiters, networking, internship opportunities, and general special connections at companies that are located in the area than companies located out of the area. For engineering companies, it’s not unusual to have a group of companies that were founding by alumni located near the college. For example, you mentioned RPI. I grew up not far from RPI. Persons I knew in the area were almost all familiar with RPI and generally held RPI in high regard, many putting on the same level as MIT. If you want to work in the NY capital region, I’d expect attending RPI to assist much more than Virginia Tech.
If you want specific details about employment rate for recent grads, positions, salaries, and such; many of the colleges you listed publish this. For example, a few months after graduation, RPI’s survey reports 62% employed, 17% grad school, 16% seeking work, and 5% other (includes military). The largest employers were Boeing, General Dynamics, and IBM, which all have locations in the region. Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering reports 47% employment, 24% grad school (or planned grad school), 10% applying to grad school and seeking work, 9% seeking work, and 9% other (includes choosing to not accept job offer and choosing to not seek work). The most common employers were Amazon, Deliotte Consulting, and US Naval Air Systems Command. Amazon and Deliotte have locations in the region. NAVAIR is in Maryland, but has special connections with Virginia Tech, as described at http://www.cnavs.ictas.vt.edu/vtac/ .
Yes, the region of the company or industry you are interested in can make the search alittle bit easier. This is often discussed, particularly w/regard to engineering. Many business and engineering programs post lists of their recruiters on the website.
While going to a college in the region one intends to work for makes one’s job search/networking in that area easier, it doesn’t necessarily mean geography == destiny in regards to college → career opportunities.
Several engineering relatives who attended colleges in the East Coast(URochester, RPI, Columbia SEAS etc) and Midwest(Big 10 schools like Ohio State) are now successfully working as engineers/engineering executives on the West Coast. Likewise, some of my engineering/CS graduate colleagues at previous tech startups or in the corporate tech departments I’ve worked in in the urban NE were hired out of colleges on the West Coast, Midwest, and abroad.