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<p>My son is becoming interested in Rose-Hulman. Anyone want to share the good, the bad, or the ugly? Especially in regards to computer science.</p>

<p>Good: small class sizes (max size 30, average is 23), every class is taught by a PhD-holding professor (no TA's or Grad Assistants), professors are available 9-5 every day in their office for help. no "office hours". You're going to get personal attention here. It also means you can't hide.</p>

<p>Opportunities are abundant. Rose has a 94% placement rate before graduation and it climbs to 100% within 6 months, average salary is 56.5k. 90% of the students do an internship or co-op here, many do multiple. We have 700+ companies recruit our students each year.</p>

<p>Also, because every student here is a math, science, or engineering student, your course load doesn't disadvantage you when it comes to extracurriculars. So if you want to be in one of the drama clubs productions there are no performing arts majors competing with you. If you want to be the chief editor for the newspaper, there are no journalism or english majors. 1/3 of our students are varsity athletes, but we don't offer any athletic scholarships, so it's all people just doing it for fun, as a hobby. Lots of people say that going to a small, specialized school like Rose is a disadvantage as far as opportunities to do extracurricular activities go, but I've found that it's the opposite, because everybody else is taking just as many hard classes as you and doing just as much work as you.</p>

<p>Bad: Cost, you're paying for some great facilities and not just classrooms. If you visit campus, you'll see our Sports and Recreation Facility is a huge place and it's top notch. Ditto with our auditorium. SRC was built in 97, Hatfield Hall (the performing arts center) was built in 04. Classrooms and labs are very well equipped and everything is there for the undergrads.</p>

<p>You're paying for professors who spend 75% of their time on teaching undergraduates. That's their focus. They don't focus on publishing papers and getting research grants. They do that too, but that's secondary to undergrad education. You really benefit from that. </p>

<p>I always tell people, if you come to Rose, you're going to pay a lot so you've got to take advantage of the clubs, activities, and facilities here. Get your money's worth.</p>

<p>Other big disadvantage in my mind is geography. We're in the middle of Indiana. Terre Haute's not much to look at. There's plenty of restaurants and a Wal-mart nearby and a mall and movie theater in town, but it's not that great a city. Indy's about an hour away. That and Rose is not that diverse as far as student body goes. I mean, we're a bunch of math and science nerds. Everybody has other interests, be it sports, movies, video games, whatever. If that doesn't bother you, you'll fit in fine, but no denying it.</p>

<p>Also, if you decide that math/science/engineering is not for you, tough luck. Don't come to Rose if you're deciding between Art History and Computer Science.</p>

<p>Hope that answers you a little bit. If you have anything specific you'd like to know about I'd be happy to help you get an answer. You or your son can also email me at <a href="mailto:nicholas.kirkland@rose-hulman.edu">nicholas.kirkland@rose-hulman.edu</a> with any questions.</p>

<p>Fireflyscout ~ We just returned from a summer trip to look at colleges for our rising hs junior. We visited RHIT, and it definitely rocketed to the top of the list of possible schools for her. The comments of Nic767 seem pretty much right on target from what we could see. Also, we had our DS along who is computer science at a top school now (rising sophomore) and he was very impressed...kept muttering about a transfer to RHIT...</p>

<p>We also saw the class of kids taking the Catapult program in July, and we were all struck by what nice, friendly kids they seemed to be. Also, how committed and already experienced in engineering topics they were! DD definitely wants to apply next summer for Catapult.</p>

<p>The only weakpoint I could see was that it looked like the food was ordinary. I mean not better or worse than the average of what we saw at six other colleges on this trip. Although some of the food stations in the cafeteria were not open due to reduced student population during the summer.</p>

<p>The facilities were very good, as described above.</p>

<p>Reasonabledad, thanks for the report! Here's the mother question - how are the dorms? So far my son is very interested in Rose, and he also wants to go to Catapult next summer. </p>

<p>He's been looking at the Fast Track Calculus course - any pros or cons?</p>

<p>fireflyscout I would definitely recommend Catapult. It's a good experience for them to learn about engineering and to learn about college.</p>

<p>Fast Track Calculus is a program for incoming freshmen where they come here 5 weeks early and do a year's worth of calculus. Obviously it's an intensive program. It's not for beginners in calculus, they only take students who have taken some calculus at some point (95% of our students come in having taken calculus to some extent, its not required though).</p>

<p>If your kid has taken AP Calc BC and thinks he/she'll get a 4 or a 5 it's probably not worth it (the money and the work) to get credit for one class.</p>

<p>Dorms are pretty good compared to other freshmen accommodations. Every room comes with bunk beds, two big wardrobes with a rod for hanging clothes in, a dresser with 6 drawers, 2 desks, 2 chairs, and one small refrigerator. All freshman dorms are approximately 12' x 15', the exact size varies from building to building.</p>

<p>One thing your kid is going to like that you may not necessarily approve of is we have a cleaning staff here that changes your sheets and makes your bed once a week, they sweep and dust each week, they really take care of you. They don't leave chocolates on your pillow, they do make cookies at Christmas though.</p>

<p>reasonabledad, did you guys come to an open house program? because otherwise, I was your tour guide.</p>

<p>Nic767 ~ Amazing! I bet you were our tour guide! Do you remember a group that came through with one fellow in a wheelchair? That was us.</p>

<p>FireFlyScout ~ Wouldn't it be cool if our kids were at Catapult next summer together? In terms of the Fast Track Calculus, I want to emphasize that I don't have a kid at RHIT, so I only know what I hear. It sounds good to me, except for one small thing: if you have a kid who pretty well knows Calculus, then that kid can consolidate their knowledge in the Fast Track Program and move forward with Calculus behind them. This is really good for most kids, but there could be one unanticipated problem: as I understand it, your freshman then moves directly into Differential Equations with the other advanced math kids.</p>

<p>My wife and I are both engineers, and we both know that understanding Calculus when you walk in the door is a big advantage for a freshman, because the first year is hard (in fact, all of the years are hard...). So if your kid is a super math genius, jumping into Differential Equations as a freshman might be fine. On the other hand, coming in as a freshman knowing Calculus, and then taking it again at RHIT gives a freshman one class where they should be able to succeed with certainty, making the first year just that much more manageable...at the moment Fast Track seems like six of one, half dozen of another to me...</p>

<p>Nic, do you have a thought about this?</p>

<p>Was it a grandfather in a wheelchair?</p>

<p>Anyways, yeah, with the Fast Track you do Fast Track and you jump right into DE 1 and 2, but you will be with other Fast Trackers, some sophomores, and people who've taken Calculus at a community college or university.</p>

<p>On the other hand if you're like me and take AP Calculus BC in high school and get a 4 or 5 you'll get out of Calc I and II and take Calc III, DE 1 and 2 your freshmen year. For me it wasn't worth the money and all the hard work that Fast Track is to get credit for one course.</p>

<p>95% of our students come here having taken some form of calculus, it's not a requirement, it's just the kind of students that come here. About half of the freshmen start in an advanced math class be it Calc II, III or DE.</p>

<p>Also with your reasoning about coming in here and retaking calculus...there is no such thing as an "easy A" here. Take the credit you can get. The math department isn't going to give you credit for a class that you haven't earned, so if you got a 4 or 5 on the AP test and can start in Calc II (if you did Calc AB) or Calc III (if you did Calc BC), do it. They obviously feel that your performance on that test indicates that you're prepared to start off in and advanced level and it's money in the bank as far as credit for those classes you get out of for you.</p>

<p>Hope that explains it better.</p>

<p>I'm assuming you are able to sign up for Fast Track Calculus after you get your AP scores?</p>

<p>fireflyscout,</p>

<h2>You actually apply the spring of your senior year of high school, so if you won't have your scores yet. The application consists of your standard application + a letter stating why you want to get in + a letter of recommendation from your Calculus teacher.</h2>

<p>I thought I'd give my 2 cents on the Fast Track program.</p>

<p>I completed Fast Track two summers ago, and overall it was a good experience. I took AP Calc AB my senior year (ended up with a 5). Fast Track is intense, but that's just how Rose is in general. One of the greatest benefits is just going through the program with 50 other freshman. You get to meet people before the year starts which is really nice. Also, you develop a pretty close bond with your fellow classmates, as the program really stresses working together.</p>

<p>Also, regarding DE 1 and 2. Fast Trackers get placed in their own sections of DE1 and DE2 - there are only freshmen in those classes (which usually equates to Fast Trackers and maybe at most a couple extremely gifted freshmen who are able to jump into DE even without Fast Track). Also, the professors who teach Fast Track teach those DE classes, which helps since they know your Calculus background.</p>

<p>Lastly there are a couple of minor fringe benefits. One of them is that Fast Trackers, during their freshman year, get to register for classes before everyone else (even the upperclassmen). Also, you get to move your stuff into your dorm early (you can spend move-in day meeting people instead of lugging your stuff around) and you get your laptop early.</p>

<p>Nic767 ~ Yes, that was us. My father was in the wheelchair so that he could keep up with the tour. Thank you for an excellent overview of the school!</p>

<p>What are the EE lab facilities like? Is there a clean room?</p>

<p>The EE lab facilities are great, in my opinion. I don't have much of a point of reference, for Rose's labs are the ONLY EE labs I've extensively used. Nevertheless, I imagine that they're pretty competitive for an undergrad school.</p>

<p>We've got two general circuits labs that are used for introductory circuits classes and other general EE stuff. Each has somewhere between 20 and 30 stations. Each station has a great Agilent scope, a couple of multimeters, a power supply, and a signal generator...basic stuff that's necessary for introductory courses. I think one of the two has slightly different equipment, but I've not used it before, so I don't know how it differs.</p>

<p>We also have a high power lab. I've had class there, but I don't take "Power and Machines" until this year, so I don't know what everything in the lab does. But it's pretty friggin' cool! I imagine there are a lot of three-phase transformers and cool stuff like that. There's also a controls lab that the EE department shares with the Mechanical Engineering department. It features computers hooked up to some really neat mechanical machines. I used the lab in some of my sophomore systems courses to drive a mechanical system and analyze its transient response. I'm sure that when I take controls this year I'll learn about causing the system to behave in a certain way over a long period of time.</p>

<p>We have a Digital Signal Processing lab that was donated by Texas Instruments, I believe. I haven't taken DSP yet, but at each station there is a desktop computer, a nice scope, and probably some signal processing equipment that I haven't been introduced to yet. </p>

<p>Finally, there IS a clean room, and it is called the MEMS lab. MEMS stands for Microelectromechanical Systems, which is a fancy word for really tiny machines. MEMS is neat because it's sort of a combination of three majors on campus -- Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Physics. Because really small machines are being fabricated, a little knowledge from each of those majors is needed. It looks like a pretty cool setup.</p>

<p>There may be even more labs that I'm neglecting. As you can tell, though, we've got a great number of labs set up for the EE department! I think that it's pretty competitive with other undergrad schools around the country.</p>

<p>y2kwizard: Thanks for your informative reply!</p>