Seeking Cooper Union Advice

<p>Hello CC,</p>

<p>I am a rising senior with a lot of interest in applying to CU. I really love that it is a college completely committed to engineering, but I have a few questions for current students at CU:</p>

<ol>
<li>How good are CU's economics classes and other opportunities (i.e. foreign languages, etc.)</li>
<li>How flexible is the school if I wanted to take a year off to go to a foreign country or spend time as an intern at a company?</li>
<li>How startup-friendly is CU?</li>
<li>How is the workload in comparison with other top-tier engineering universities?</li>
<li>How many opportunities truly exist in bioengineering/BME? I know there is a concentration in the general engineering degree, but I was wondering if anyone at CU has done something like this.</li>
</ol>

<p>I really thank you for your help. Feel free to PM me as well.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Economic classes: a couple of token electives, almost nonexistent. Same goes for language. **As for language and many other subjects, students with motivation and a genuine interest in fields outside what is available have sometimes taken courses at other schools though availability may be spotty and you should do more research by contacting the administration.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t think they would give you a hard time if you wanted to do something meaningful, but again you should check with administration.</p></li>
<li><p>Prof Wolf of the physics department also has a law degree and teaches patent law at Cardozo as well as at Cooper, and he can help prepare you for the patent bar as well as navigating the patent application process. There were some business and management electives available as well, however having never taken them I can’t really comment on whether or not they would be of use to you.</p></li>
<li><p>Probably about the same, however as Ive only gone to Cooper that’s just a general comparison. Since all credit hours are free though, many of the more academically ambitious students load up with courses, probably a little more so than at other schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes and no. There is a BME minor (but no major) available in the chem e curriculum, however depending what your interests are within BME (prosthetics, neuroscience, pharma) you may be better served by a meche or EE degree. BME (nationwide) is a newer major, and isn’t standardized like the main engineering majors (electrical, chem, civil, mech), and as a result I dont think people come out with as strong backgrounds as they do in other majors (just my opinion, Im sure there are exceptions to this). In the long run you may be better served by going for one of those majors, and taking electives and doing research on the side. Cooper has a decent selection of BME courses, and a few professors doing research but Cooper is not a research heavy school. As a general rule, if youre doing decently at Cooper, Columbia, NYU, and Weill Cornell researchers/profs hold cooper students in pretty high regard, and while some students do research at cooper, you can also make use of Coopers reputation to do research at other institutions. Also, faculty at Cooper are pretty supportive of students simply pursuing completely original research projects.
TL;DR BME isn’t one of the main focuses at Cooper, but there are still many resources available for people that want to pursue it.</p></li>
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