<p>I had recently decided to attend Texas A&M University for mechanical engineering. I am out of state but have received a good scholarship package. My second choice was Oklahoma State University (instate). Although there are pros and cons each way, I chose A&M over OSU because it seemed to have more overall prestige, significantly more companies that recruit there (I requested this information from each school), and more academic opportunities. </p>
<p>However, I learned today that OSU selected me to become a Freshman Research Scholar. They only accept around 12 engineering research scholars. In this program I would have the opportunity to work with a professor and branch out from his research to create my own project by the end of freshman year. I have been interested in research because it seems to be an excellent addition to job, internship, or graduate school resumes in addition to scholarships such as Goldwater. From what I can tell I would not have many opportunities for research at Texas A&M until much later. </p>
<p>With this in mind, I have the following questions. Help on one or all would be appreciated. If you take the time to answer, please include a brief qualifier such as "I have been an engineer for 20 years" or something so that I can understand your perspective. </p>
<p>1) Is research really something that I should strive for at an undergraduate level or is having an internship/co-op just as attractive to employers or admissions officers?</p>
<p>2) Although this is subject to debate, it seems to me that a degree from Texas A&M would be worth more long-term than Freshman research at OSU (not that I think OSU is a bad school). Does this program sound like something that would be worth switching schools for? </p>
<p>3) Is there anything else I should consider or find out about the research program?</p>
<p>4) For anyone familiar with Texas A&M, are there opportunities like this available at the university? (I haven't really been able to find anything similar so far). </p>
<p>To an employer out in industry, an internship/co-op looks better. To a graduate school, research looks much better. You absolutely want to do the research at some point if you think you may be interested in graduate school. However, I would suggest just doing both to keep your options open.</p>
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<p>It sounds to me that at OSU you may be able to get into research immediately according to your description of the program. However, it isn’t unheard of at Texas A&M to get a research position fairly early. I am a grad student in Aerospace here, so it may not be the same in Mechanical, but we had a couple freshman undergrads working with us last year, so I know it isn’t unheard of.</p>
<p>The funny thing is, I believe both of those people are onto other things at this point since they were only freshmen and didn’t necessarily know exactly where they wanted to be within the major yet, especially since they hadn’t taken any of the basic classes in each focus area yet. Just keep in mind that what you think you want to do now may change over the first year or two of college, so freshman research may or may not be relevant to your future further down the line.</p>
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<p>Just consider that, like I said above, choosing that professor at OSU would be kind of a crapshoot without having taken the basic fluids, structures and dynamics courses to get a flavor of what you want to do. If that OSU program doesn’t give you the opportunity to change to a different professor if your interests change, I would think long and hard about whether it was worth it. With normal undergraduate research, if you don’t like what you are doing in one group anymore, you can always try and get on with another group once you tie up the loose ends in the first group. There is something to be said for that.</p>
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<p>Like I said before, there are plenty of undergraduate research opportunities, you just have to go out and get them. OSU has flagged you as “promising” so they are guaranteeing you one right away. At A&M you would just have to email/talk to several professors that you are interested in and see if they have openings. The best way to do it is to take their class and stand out there, but you don’t have to do that if you just do your research about what they do and go talk to them about it. That is generally the same at any major engineering program.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your reply, it was very helpful and informative. You gave me some good points to consider. I hope that I will be as helpful when I am a graduate student.</p>
<p>I would definitely go with A&M. I’m currently a junior here and have been researching in chemical/biomedical engineering labs since I was a freshman (as have many of my classmates). </p>
<p>The Dwight College of Engineering at A&M is absolutely amazing in the rigor of its coursework and research opportunities. Don’t think that you’ll be barred from labs because there isn’t a formal engineering scholars program for incoming freshmen. There are tons of forums through which you’d be able to pursue independent projects and even publish! The most important thing is to research your discipline of interest and email/call professors in that field over the next few months. That way you can (1) see who is open to undergraduate researchers and (2) hit the ground running!</p>
<p>As far as future endeavors, A&M engineering prides itself on fostering relationships with grad schools and industry companies. </p>