Suggestions for Engineering Program with Hands-on Opportunities

College Majors Engineering Majors
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We have been touring east coast engineering programs with our son, a junior. This is round two at the same schools we toured with our daughter, and both parents have engineering degrees. His interest/talents are broad after years of building electro-mechanical devices for robotics, Destination Imagination and home projects. He has the coursework, GPA, and test scores for all of the schools we visited. His current plan is to start with the intention of an ME degree and sprinkle in EE and CS classes (ME needs to be taught as opposed to independently learned). He could migrate towards a EECS or any other engineering degree after freshmen year.

I’m amazed at how type of location is not a factor. The drastic differences between being able to reach out and touch the cities of Philly and NY at UPenn or Stevens versus the windy hills at Cornell do not seem to be a deciding factor. Access to great food might be more important. He wants a defined campus with some green space, so BU, Northeastern and Drexel were crossed off the list. A 5 year co-op program is not desirable.

What he is looking for a vibrant campus with at least 30% engineering (concerned about the amount of free time CAS students have in comparison), a very academically talented student body and hands-on multidisciplinary coursework.

WPI, Stevens - project based/design spine curriculum, student body seemed a bit less academically talented
RPI - seemed to be more research based but departments did not interact, so no focus on robotics. Research seemed to be more nationally funded versus industry based.

Penn (only 16% engineering), Cornell - Academically talented, passionate student body, core curriculum only has science labs until junior year. Seems project teams are very popular at Cornell. Building campaigns/renovations have been or will be soon completed at both engineering colleges.

Lehigh - Beautiful, great mix of CAS, Buisness and Engineering. He was not happy with the push for their IDEAS program for top students leaving out the depth classes he is looking for in STEM courses. Result is a degree that is not ABET certified. No focus on robotics.

Georgia Tech, Colorado School of Mines - ??? have not yet visited

Due to family circumstances, our children will likely need to get themselves to and from school. A flight from the Boston area with a long drive is probably not an option.

Suggestions for other schools to add to the list? Or experiences at the schools we have visited?

Many Thanks!

1 Like
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Cal Poly is the original “Learn by Doing” school. It was originally a vocational HS and converted to a university at the turn of last century. Unlike WPI or Olin (which you should also look at if you haven’t), it isn’t a project based curriculum. It’s strength and uniqueness comes from the fact that nearly every class has a lab. The college of engineering alone has more than 80 labs, including rotational dynamics, vibrations, multiple fluids wind tunnels and both a mechatronics and a robotics lab. All classes are small and professor taught. It has United and Alaska Service to San Fran, along with a very robust ride sharing program through the university. It’s competitive by major. ME is on par with Cornell. Our son was looking for the same thing and passed up WPI and RPI with good money for Poly. PM me if you have any specific questions.

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What about JHU or CMU?

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Does anyone else have any information about engineering schools with more hands on learning? DS is a 3rd year ME at VT and it is just not a good fit. School is too big, many TAs as instructors, little support available for learning different kids (he get extended time but no amount of time helps if you dont understand the topic). Would love to hear more from folks. He would want to be on the east coast, mid Atlantic region. He’s not big on change.

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It can be rather tough to transfer in 3rd year, especially if you want a place that will be a good fit for learning different kids. Another idea might be change of major. (My bright, STEM-loving daughter didn’t do well with all the required course sequences in Engineering. Eventually she ended up transferring to another school, as an econ major. )

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Wow, my initial thought was exactly the same as @colorado_mom (it usually is :D)…third year is way late to make an engineering school change. Certainly, what he’s experiencing can be typical of large, strong, state engineering programs, and some well known, prestigious privates for that matter.

That said, engineering is very hard. If he’s not “getting it,” it’s difficult to know how far back his weakness goes. Engineering is very cumulative. If that’s his case, no school will be able to adequately backfill and he might consider a different major.

If however he’s solid on foundational material and just struggling in the VT environment, I’d recommend WPI. He may not graduate in 4 years, but it’s a unique project based curriculum, with smaller classes and minimal TA instruction. Their support for students is very good. One caveat, the terms are short, only 7 weeks. There are only three classes at a time and often only two are technical, but the material flys by.

Wish him luck. I’m sure it mugs be frustrating.

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Sorry VT is not working out . Engineering is known for a " hands on, minds on" approach there Third year does seem late to transfer if he has any shot at just finishing up . You say he has learning issues. Is he taking any medication he is supposed to, going to office hours of professors or TA’s for help, study groups, support groups for his issues, etc. ? If not, he may find similar issues elsewhere. Is he better suited to another major? If he just really dislikes VT, he may need to transfer. But, it might be good to get to the bottom of why he is having such difficulties first ( and what part, if any, he is playing in that). Good luck!

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Also, has your son utilized all of the resources available at [Services for Students with Disabilities](https://www.ssd.vt.edu/)?

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And, how is he doing socially there? If he has friends, is involved in activities, he may want to try to make it work . If he is just miserable at Virginia Tech, that is a different story.

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It’s not clear to me what you mean by third year. Did he just finish and has one year left? If that’s the case, then I would just suggest finishing. It’s one year and you already know the school. To me there are too many unknowns with a switch.

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@grandscheme , Is he third year because he came in with lots of AP’s, or would he be going back this year (if he returns), for his third full year there? You might want to check to see what classes might transfer to another school before making any decisions.

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I think hands-on is more a euphemism for less math. I think for a very talented student such a choice is a mistake. Engineering is not about technology so much as it’s about building abstractions and integrating these abstractions to design very complex things. All engineering students get hands-on lab work, can participate in hands-on research and can do summer internships. Not all engineering students get a rigorous education with sufficient abstractions and hard enough problems to enable them to evolve over time.

I think some of the schools you’ve identified as more rigorous are in fact more rigorous.

I might look at Northwestern because 1) they have quarters so you can take more courses, 2) they have a general engineering component so your S would be exposed to the breadth he wants all while preserving the rigor, and 3) it’s an easy trip from Boston.

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Tell your kiddo to join engineers without borders on the school campus. Will get plenty of experience and fun!

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CMU, USC, Case Western, UMD Coll Park. might be good to look into. My son decided on UPenn SEAS - wants EE & CS. But looked at and applied to 15 or so. Happy to share any info we have gathered.

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An article about "hands-on " and engineering education. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2013/09/30/college-engineering-programs-focus-on-hands-on-learning

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I can’t speak for all school’s as I have an example only consisting of my son. That said, he goes to the original Learn by Doing school, Cal Poly. His ME curriculum has math through Linear and includes a numerical methods class. All math is through the math department at the highest level that math majors would take. There’s no Engineering light math there. Full proofs, no “this is good enough.” In fact, the math faculty make a point of letting the students know there are reasonably effective lesser ways of “getting there,” but that they are going to do it right.

They get the “hands on” component (in addition to clubs and potential for research) from the fact that every single class they take has a lab. That includes vibrations, rotational dynamics, 5 wind tunnels in the ME fluids lab alone, apart from those in aero that include a supersonic tunnel. Every single class that can have a lab does.

Again, that’s n=1, but in his case, there was no softening of math requirements.

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Check out Northwestern.

http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/academics/undergraduate/core-curriculum/engineering-first.html
http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2017/01/julio-ottino-awarded-top-national-academy-prize-for-innovative-education.html
https://www.collegeexpertmn.com/2013/09/a-visit-to-northwestern-university/
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150409/ISSUE01/150409852/why-northwesterns-engineering-school-boasts-so-many-startups

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@sevmom, he is third year though his high school peers mostly graduated from college this year ( :frowning: ). He only came in with maybe 9 credits and has really struggled to be successful after freshman year. Part of it is certainly a lack of impulse control-if his buddies want to go hiking or even surfing (yes, which means long road trips away on a weekend), he has a hard time staying behind.

He has this unrealistic idea that he can pull off a quick study and pass tests and quizzes like one could do in high school. He has failed or earned a D- in maybe 9 courses. There was one semester he had to do a complete withdraw-started taking 7 courses, ended up dropping two then eventually withdrawing from the remaining ones retroactively.

On the one hand, it may appear clear-other parents would yank him. We did have him take a forced semester off. He insisted he was ready to go back. Spring was his first semester back, he took 4 courses, all of which were repeats out of the previous semester he ended up withdrawing. He earned a C-, two Cs and maybe a B-. My husband thinks I am too harsh of a critic. I think if you are only taking 4 courses and if they are courses you already took before, that is a pretty sad showing.

We have worked with an ed psych specialist some. She explains that he does process slowly and it is not a matter of intelligence but how he learns. The only accommodation he takes advantage of is extended time on tests. He is not good about meeting with tutors or with professors during office hours (he finds most are not really accessible and he feels stupid asking questions). He determinedly took a summer course. I hired a tutor and insisted they meet 3 times/week minimum. Made it clear we would support the purchase of learning materials which might help his learning such a recording devices.

He does not know it yet but his grade in that course has just been posted. He earned an F. He called me the day before the final and asked if he should withdraw from the course (though I didnt really know how it was going-he does not share much). I was not in favor of that, having sunk a full summer housing and tuition expense commitment. I told him to buckle in and push through. It was going to do damage to an already weak GPA but I figured we need to just push him to get done. He has insisted on not changing majors and not changing schools. We have tried to get him to choose a major he will be more successful in. He finds ME interesting and although he is not able to get an internship due to his poor grades, he feels he does not want to change majors because school would take longer to finish.

So what do we do? Will we scar his self esteem for life, forcing him to withdraw completely from ME at VT? He is unrealistic to think sticking with the major will be faster than transferring to a different non-engineering degree, if he can’t manage to pass his courses. He is a great creative thinker and very willing to be hands on. Really wish I knew how to find an ME program more hands on and less difficult. Thanks for weighing in everyone. Havent gotten to read everything yet. Got sidetracked with a medical issue and am headed in for 3 1/2 hours of cardiologic testing today. Ugh.

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I just did a quick read of some suggestions above. Thank you so much for helping me to brainstorm this. Just pulled an all nighter and really need to go get ready for the doctor’s but he doesn’t hate VT, he has some great friends there though they all are in a similar place-struggling with engineering and yielding to temptation to adventure on weekends. Son is registered with Student with Disabilities office but does not take advantage of available services. He finds it difficult to get tutoring help, even through SSD. and he does not like going to office hours as I mentioned above-he doesnt like looking stupid to the professor or TA and assumes if there is a line for help that it is a waste of time for him to be there.

He is adamant about not changing majors other than maybe switching to a different engineering discipline. We have tried to have the conversation a number of times to no avail. He is the second of four kids. When we bring up the cost of retaking courses and extending college time, the kids throw back that we “always get back to money”. They feel their education is a right and what they major in is entirely their call (this pertains more to child #3.) He went in considering architecture, applied math, dentistry or foreign service and now he is considering psychology, astronomy,art, French. He is doing fine in school, went in with around 16 credits and will finish in 3 1/2 years. Good student, good habits, good learner. But I’m not paying what we pay for OOS top university for a degree that won’t lead to being self supportive. I’m NOT saying those are not worthy fields of study. I just disagree when he says its his choice to make. Well yeah, except for when its not. We are not paying for 4 years of learning to be a grown up. We are paying for him to gain knowledge which will help him to succeed being self supportive. We have a 25 year old struggling to complete her bachelors degree (a former gifted learner) so are more and more sensitive to the big college picture.

Sorry to be muddled. Trying to speed type and think. Got to go for now. Any and all input welcome. @eyemgh WPI sounds like a good match for him. Dont know if I could get him to make such a change but will explore it. the fewer courses in shorter terms would likely be a good fit for him.

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@KLSD - This is a really tough ask, as the component parts of your description feel incongruous. Lots of hands on / tools / toys (which would suggest large school) with a high percentage of engineering students (30% is a high bar).

If you’re looking for green space, multi-disciplinary academics, good food / access to a city, a focused student body and mulitple engineering experiences, I would suggest you look at Swarthmore.

I am a parent of a Swat engineering student. I appreciate all of the limitations that others will point out (they only have one wind tunnel versus the wind-tunnel campus at pick your State U), but for the right student (like my child) it has been a perfect fit. Exposure to all disciplines of engineering (the degree is ABET accredited general engineering…no specialized degrees), first name interaction with all of the department professors, and lots of opportunities for research / internships. The non-STEM courses have been fantastic as well.

I’ve typed elsewhere on CC recently that the difference between Swat students and others (myself included) is that those kids don’t waste time. They go to class, they play sports, they go to parties, they do other EC’s…but when they aren’t scheduled to be doing something, they generally focus on school work. They do so because they enjoy it. That’s (broadly speaking) the entire school. No need to find a 30% solution…I’d guess 70%-80% are very focused. Those who aren’t, are generally uber-intelligent and can excel with limited effort.

Swarthmore is a unique engineering environment. It is definitely not for everyone, and isn’t the place if you know you want to be a specific type of engineer when you graduate college. For those who aren’t sure…want to experience multiple disciplines…want engaging LA classwork along with STEM…it’s an interesting option.