<p>I will be transferring next fall and have to fill out applications soon. Rutgers has always been on my mind but lately I've been hearing good things about Lafayette. I know Rutgers is cheaper and known more over the country but how is Lafayette in terms of education quality? One downside of Rutgers for me is that it's so big and (from what I hear) it's like a rat race there (students don't get much personal attention from professors, there's too much red tape, etc). I do like how Lafayette is more close and intimate; there is more direct contact between students and professors, so I'm just weighing out my options.</p>
<p>Everything else aside (cost, commute, etc), which of the two, would be better in terms of education quality and future for mechanical engineering?</p>
<p>***realized I spelled Lafayette wrong in topic</p>
<p>One is a liberal arts college (albeit with a good Engineering Department) on a compact campus in a small town and the other is a large public university with thousands of students spread out over many acres in a rather dense urban setting.</p>
<p>I’m aware of the campus settings, based on them alone I would no doubt go with Lafayette. I guess what I’m asking is: how does the education quality at Lafayette match up with Rutgers?</p>
<p>I’d say the campus setting is… very bittersweet depending on your preferences. Class sizes are quite large. Even my smallest engineering classes have at least 50 students. Mechanical Engineering is the biggest department within the engineering school, so a lot of your classes may have 150-200 students. I prefer lecture halls and large classes, so I haven’t had any problem with those. My entering freshman class for the School of Engineering was around 700 students. I am not sure whether that number has changed, but last year’s graduating class was around 300-400 people. That number probably varies with each individual year. (For example, between last year’s senior class and this year’s, I hear the amount of Biomedical Engineering students has nearly doubled!)</p>
<p>If you think you’d flourish in small classroom settings and with individualized attention, Rutgers may not be for you. You really won’t get to know any of your professors or TAs unless you visit office hours, or have them in consecutive courses. If you do visit office hours, your professor is very likely to remember you and know you by name! I disliked the small setting when I was in high school, so Rutgers has been a nice change for me. In smaller departments like Industrial Engineering or Materials Science, you’d be more likely to experience that small classroom feel. </p>
<p>As far as education quality goes… it really depends on the specific engineering department/the current faculty. Individual professors have their own teaching styles, so it’s really a hit or miss. Some of my friends are content with their respective department, others not so much. I’m an ECE major, and sometimes it does feel like a “rat race.” The red tape part is true too (The “RU Screw,” haha). I’m not sure how education quality compares with Lafayette.</p>
<p>Before I came here, several alumni gave me a solid piece of advice: “Nobody is going to hold your hand.” It was very true, and I think this can be said about all large universities. As stated above, we are comparing apples and oranges here. It all comes down to personal preference. </p>
<p>We checked out Lafayette when my son was looking at colleges and we all liked it a lot. We got a great personalized tour of the new engineering building by a professor and he was very helpful in analyzing my son’s college choices. Their career services seems good too, with lots of outreach to get students started in freshman year, and good industry contacts for internships and job shadowing. It is very expensive though and they didn’t offer my son any merit scholarships while other schools did, so he did not go there.</p>
<p>@drexeler - thanks for posting your personal experiences. I definitely would enjoy the smaller setting more, though that doesn’t mean I’d completely dismiss the larger setting. And I’ve heard of the infamous RU screw before haha, funny you mention it.</p>
<p>@BeanTownGirl - yeah I’ve heard a lot of good things about Lafayette’s career services and departments/services in general. I’m going to schedule a visit sometime in the next month.</p>
<p>I’ve been doing a lot of research and I’m leaning toward Lafayette, but I’m still going to apply to and visit both.</p>
<h1>I have couple of other general questions (I don’t want to make a separate post).</h1>
<p>1) Just how much does a college ranking matter? I’ve gotten the general sense from these boards that they aren’t that important for engineering/undergrad, just figured I’d see you guys have to say.</p>
<p>2) This may be a really stupid question, but at colleges/universities is the tuition a flat cost or does it depend on the amount of classes you take? So hypothetically, if tuition is $40k/yr, is this the same whether you take 3 or 5 classes a semester?</p>
<p>1) Rankings don’t matter as much for engineering as they do in some other majors/fields, for instance finance, but you do want to make sure you go to a school that is ABET accredited.
2) Yes the tuition is a flat rate, whether you take 3 or 5 courses.</p>