Son is torn and down to three choices

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>he is looking at EE or Computer engineering as a major</p>

<p>His final three choices are </p>

<p>USC -- Accepted expect decent package
Northwestern -- Still waiting until April 1st
Univ of Arizona -- Full ride</p>

<p>(Utah is still a dark horse BTW)</p>

<p>He is hoping for a hands on experience and good opportunities for Co-OP and internships. </p>

<p>I like the free ride Idea of Course :) but Northwestern and USC have some pull. Thoughts would be appreciated. To me, for the undergrad degree in engineering, unlike business, the name of the school seems less important as long as it has a good reputation with employers.</p>

2

<p>Take the full ride! The others do no merit additional cost!</p>

3

<p>depends what you mean by "decent package" from USC
if its close to Arizona I'd pick USC in an instant</p>

4

<p>we hope USC comes in at about 15K per year plus 3K in stafford loans.</p>

5

<p>Well I'm biased as I'm EE at USC, but anyways. EE is probably the strongest dept. of USC engineering and they have some really great profs who teach the undergrad computer engineering classes.</p>

<p>Has he visited the schools? A visit sometimes can really help narrow down choices a lot - at least it did for me.</p>

<p>Is the full ride at UofA the national merit finalist one? USC offers auto half-tuition scholarship to NMF as long as you declare USC the top-choice school by the deadline.</p>

<p>Feel free to PM questions :)</p>

<p>
[quote]

The others do no merit additional cost!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Huh? I can't decipher. USC offers full, half, quarter merit rides too.</p>

6

<p>Both my parents went to U of A as engineering majors and can recommend it highly. Dad = mechanical engineer, Mom = electrical. Dad actually picked U of A over Carnegie Mellon (another GREAT engineering school) because Arizona gave him money.</p>

<p>Will your son be in the honors college? That makes a big difference.</p>

7

<p>jbusc,</p>

<pre><code> Sorry...that was a typo. "The others do not merit additional cost. " is what I meant to say. I don't believe 15k a year for USC would be worth passing up a full ride. Of course that all depends on how much money you have!
</code></pre>

8

<p>UA is a nice school. My dad is retired in Tucson and I have visited several times. But before any decision I'd strongly urge if he hasn't to visit the school. Tucson is a nice area but it isn't for everyone. Even without going to summer session the heat can be frightful and during most of the year it doesn't rain except during the Monsoon season.</p>

<p>The campus is downtown and the area around it has the usual level's of college places that the kids can get easily to. The sports facilities are nice and they have a very large stadium. Lots of kids are into biking, hiking, and Sun worship so there is alot of that avaliable. The Catalina mountains and Sabrino Canyon are places where UA kids hang out. While there is alot of money in Tucson there is also alot of poverty. It is also commonplace for there to be border related and drug problems quite often in the area.</p>

9

<p>thanks for the responses</p>

<p>Yes the AU is the NMF scholarship and he has been accepted in the Honors college. We have visited UA and he enjoyed the visit (more so than ASU)</p>

<p>Yes we are aware of the USC NMF scholarship and factored that into the total cost of 15K/yr to attend. Now that he is accepted we visit first week in April.</p>

<p>Northwestern is the wild card. The Co OP program is really strong but no acceptance yet as they don't announce until around April1st.</p>

<p>Money is tight with two sons going to college this fall (twins) and a middle class income. So for these far away schools we only visited after the acceptance was in hand. That may prove a problem for the schools who announce late.</p>

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<p>Is he SURE he will stick with engineering? If not, which schools offer the highest quality alternative programs? IMO, 1. Northwestern 2. USC 3. UA
But there's that intense Chicago weather...</p>

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<p>"intense" Chicago weather? lol.. I moved here from South Florida, and I managed fine. I don't know.. I'm a MatSci Engineer @ Northwestern.. the freshman core is tough, but I'm sure a lot of schools are like that. Have you visited all the schools to get a feel for them?</p>

12

<p>drizzit,</p>

<p>I just found this thread:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=307178&highlight=northwestern%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=307178&highlight=northwestern&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>NU'S EE is ranked 15th. Every department there is ranked in the top-20 (NU has no aerospace engg or engineering physics depts)</p>

13

<p>florastar,</p>

<p>The freshman core (engineering first) you are taking is unlike most others. Freshman in the majority of other schools typically take the year-long physics, chemistry, calculus (or linear algebra/differential equations if they place out the calculus) and very little engineering--very much like a premed. What do you like/dislike about the freshman core?</p>

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<p>Basically.. freshmen take as you said "Engineering First", and calculus and chemistry (placing out of those is rare unless you take college calculus (at an actual college, AP only places you out of Calc 1 and 2, and Chem AP places you out of the gen/accel chem sequence that's required for all the Eng majors, except for Industrial/Computer I think) As for the other two classes...</p>

<p>Engineering Design/Communication - It's a lot of work.. but a lot of fun. I just finished my first quarter of it (there are two) and it was a lot of work, like I said, but worth it. You're placed in groups of 3/4 people, and have to design the solution to a problem (with a real-life client), projects this year ranged for a way for an injured turtle to be lifted from the water safety for treatment (for the Shedd Aquarium) to my project, which was to design an easy-to-use TV remote control for C5/C6 Spinal Cord Injury patients at the Rehab Institute of Chicago. This past Saturday, each group had created a poster/prototype (ours was fully-functional) and presented them to a group of judges/general public. You also have to write a design-related essay for the class. </p>

<p>Engineering Analysis - The bane of all engineers here. It's a 4-quarter sequence.. a saying is that you can't spell death without EA. First quarter - Linear Algebra/MATLAB (Comp Prog), Second - Static Newtonian Physics, Third - Dynamics and Systems, Fourth (soph year) - Diff Eq. EA 1 has Programming labs every week, EA 2 has a design project that is hell, EA 3 (haven't taken) has quizzes every day of class within the first 3 minutes on the reading, and I've heard EA 4 has labs slightly like EA 1. Engineers here are known for staying up late and flailing because of the EA problem sets, and all non-engineers have heard us complain. </p>

<p>Frankly, I hate EA, but I feel that's a consensus among engineers here. I'm sure that the core is good, because we'll be using the skills throughout a lot of the courses here, but it's difficult, and a lot view it as a weed-out process, much like the Chem (especially Orgo) program is a weed-out for premed.</p>

<p>Basically.. my fresh schedule is/was
Fall - EA 1, Calc 230 (Multivariable Differentation), Chem 171 (Accelerated Inorganic Chem), and Marching Band
Winter - EA 2, Calc 234 (Multivariable Integration), Chem 172 (Accelerated Physical Chem), and EDC
Spring - EA 3, Nano EDC (a special section involving nanotechnology and teaching concepts from it to middle school kids), Analysis and Performance of Literature (either that or public speaking is required for all engineers), and EECS 203 (Intro to Computer Engineering, a technical elective for Mat Sci)</p>

15

<p>florastar,</p>

<p>Thanks for your response in details. I read about them before so I actually know what they are; what I'd been curious about is how time-consuming/intense they are and if students like them. I haven't seen any NU engineering major on CC so I haven't had a chance to ask and now I know why I haven't seen any of them--you guys are way too busy to come here. :) The freshmen core you've been taking looks much more time-consuming, if not much more intense, than a typical curriculum. I think you guys are learning much more than I did (before they had this curriculum; I did my freshmen year at WashU anyway). When I took physics, it wasn't clear to me how it would be applied in engineering and I'd forget like 80% of it not long after I took it because it wasn't really used. Same goes for linear algebra as a math class (theory based), as opposed to approaching it as an applied engineering math with programming practice.</p>