Thoughts on Dartmouth engineering?

I know it’s a weird program, not ranked very highly, and you don’t come out with a specialized degree. Anyone have any thoughts about it?

For the degree to have much value in the field of engineering or to move into an engineering graduate program at another school you need to complete the ABET accredited BE. Having said that, most students these days choose engineering because they are good in math and science, though they generally have little in the way of practical experience relative to students that entered engineering programs 20 or 30 years ago. Part of that is because the HS schedules leave little free time and we are a throw-away society, so students don’t get experience trying to fix things. That’s neither good nor bad but it limits students’ ability to figure out what type of engineer they want to be before their freshman year. That is why traditional engineering schools now offer ( or even require) classes to expose students to the various disciplines.

As a former engineering professor at a welk known research university, I admit I was skeptical about the program when D said she wanted to look at it. I came away satisfied that the BA-BE sequence allows adequate opportunity to explore engineering in general and enables the student to delay specializing until they know what excites them. The small classes and low student/faculty ratio are plusses. The accessibility to faculty is a huge advantage on a quarterly system where you need to learn complex concepts in a shorter time frame than your peers at other schools.

I don’t think the BE recipient at Dartmouth comes out with the same practical education that an RPI, Wisconsin, WPI, or GA tech grad does, but it probably sets you up pretty well to pursue a graduate degree. You will come out of grad school on par technically with your peers with an Ivy education. That’s a pretty big hook for employment.

I also concluded that the liberal arts component will help most become better engineers. It adds time to the process, and that may be a turnoff to the person that knows from day 1 that they want to be an EE (or ME, CE, etc). But that element of the degree should help one become more entrepreneurial, and a socially/ethically conscious thinker, which is important as we move into contentious technical areas such as cybersecurity, self driving cars, AI, etc.

This of course is just my opinion on based on what I heard there during the info session. I’ve never met a Dartmouth educated engineer in the field in 25 years so I don’t know how they progress career-wise.

@jmk518, isn’t it true that a student has to study more than 4 years at D to complete the ABET accredited BE and can you explain how that works?

“For the degree to have much value in the field of engineering or to move into an engineering graduate program at another school you need to complete the ABET accredited BE.”

Wow, that is so wrong, that is clearly coming from a person who has taught at a traditional ABET accredited institution. I like to use Stanford and other leading institutions as examples due to the fact that the majority of their engineering programs are NOT ABET accredited, mostly because they are cutting edge programs (6 of 9 are not accredited at Stanford). There is NO requirement for ANY graduate school that I know of to have ABET accreditation to enter. They will look at your school your GPA/scores and your major to determine whether your qualified. ABET accreditation is important for schools that are not well known, or schools that simply value it, so they can reach a standard of engineering agreed upon by academia and industry.

Dartmouth does not have the engineering reputation of Stanford, so the value of choosing the ABET-accredited version of the engineering major at Dartmouth may be more significant for someone who wants to work in engineering, as opposed to traditional Ivy League post-graduation destinations like finance and consulting.

Note that Stanford does have ABET accreditation for chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering, but not electrical, environmental, materials, or bio engineering. It may be that Stanford retains ABET accreditation for those majors where PE licensing is more common (civil being the most obvious one).

@Sam-I-Am If you talk to students there you will find that some do finish in 4 years but it is a challenge. The school recommends planning for 5 and you will be done in 4+. Getting out in 4 requires early planning so that you choose courses that meet multiple distribution requirements.

@CU123 I think you missed my point. It is not the accreditation itself that is important. It is the alignment with industry expectations ( if you are pursuing the degree to work as an engineer) and the engineering prerequisites for graduate school that are important and only come with the BE. You could go to grad school with the BA BUT you’d be taking more than 30 credits to get the masters degree in science or engineering. I think that point was even made by the Dartmouth faculty at the info session.

The reputation of the school, GPA and GRE scores are far more important than ABET accreditation. There are many colleges that have ABET accreditation for there engineering degrees that are no where near what Dartmouth has to offer in its AB programs, Many of the top colleges that offer AB degrees in engineering (e.g. Harvard and Princeton) have had this question asked of them and have been told by industry that they don’t care if its an AB (usually not accredited) or BS (BS is normally ABET accredited). Just FYI, I am talking about top schools only, if not a top 20 school then ABET becomes important to differentiate programs.

The only reason I initially mentioned ABET was to differentiate the BA from the BE, as Dartmouth does. The OP asked about the Dartmouth engineering program in a comparative light. The BE more closely aligns with the level of technical depth and specialization that graduate of a 4 year BS program will have. As Dartmouth themselves indicate, the BE is a professional degree. The BA is not. At no point was I saying that ABET accreditation is necessary for any engineering degree to be off value. As you note, it is a stamp of approval important for programs that may not be as well known. I agree with that sentiment but would put Dartmouth in that category when it comes to engineering, regardless of the reputation of the school itself. If the career objective is something other than as a practicing engineer (e.g. IP attorney), the BA is probably a great start. And I agree grades are important. Most companies have GPA minimums for engineers regardless of the school and discipline.

ABET accreditation actually is important if you work on infrastructure, which primarily means civil engineers (also certain MEs and EEs). State laws consistently prefer or require ABET degrees for PE licensure.

I think that’s exactly what Stanford is doing. For example, I was initially surprised to see that Stanford doesn’t have ABET accreditation for EE, because one subgroup of electrical engineers – power systems engineers – commonly do need PE licenses. So how does Stanford handle that?

Answer: it looks like Stanford has moved power systems out of their EE program (which lacks ABET) and into their civil program (which has ABET). Their power systems prof has an EE PhD, and has a courtesy appointment with the EE department. But he is officially assigned to Civil & Environmental Engineering, and his power systems courses are CEE (not EE).

http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&q=CEE%20272R:%20Modern%20Power%20Systems%20Engineering&academicYear=20132014

https://web.stanford.edu/~ramr/

This is a little bit off-topic, but it really is a milestone when it comes to women in engineering. It sounds like they’ve found a pretty innovative way to teach the subject. (I know I’m biased as a Dartmouth graduate. But I think easy access to professors who love to teach matters in an undergraduate education, whether in engineering or any other major.)
https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/news/dartmouth-makes-history-by-graduating-a-majority-female-engineering-class

It would be interesting to know if the Dartmouth women engineers are a majority in the “traditional” BE program, or the “lighter” BA program, or both. The cited article doesn’t specify between the engineering BS and the engineering BA.

Clearly ABET is important for a couple of majors if you plan on being a PE, BTW if you get a non ABET degree and subsequently get a masters from an ABET college all is well. Again I don’t know of any requirement for an ABET undergrad degree to get into a graduate program. In the end I agree with your assessment @Corbett.

If a licensing law calls for an ABET engineering degree, then theoretically this can be an MS degree instead of a BS. The problem is that ABET-accredited MS degrees are rare in practice. ABET does offer this option, but the vast majority of schools only pursue accreditation at the BS level.

U of Louisville is an example of a school that has ABET accreditation at both the BS and MS levels. I don’t think there are many others though. Dartmouth, for example, has no ABET accredited MS programs.

As I read the ABET website, it gives accreditation to the entire engineering program at a school, or the schools can ask for accreditation of various courses of study within the engineering program. Thus, Northwestern (a national research university) lists 10 engineering specialties, each of which are ABET accredited BS degrees. University of Illinois at Champagne, (an even larger national research university) has 14 ABET accredited BS degrees, including one called “General Engineering.” Dartmouth College, a much smaller program, lists only “engineering” which also is an ABET accredited BE degree and this degree fits the same criteria as the Illinois “General Engineering” degree. This all seems reasonable based upon the relative size and missions of the 3 vastly different schools. The smaller Dartmouth program appears to have a much higher ratio of female students. The smaller size probably appeals to both men and women looking for a smaller school experience. It may be the perfect fit for my kid, but I want to know how this degree will position my kid for immediate job prospects out of college.

If a student is interested in environmental engineering, are they better off getting an ABET accredited environmental engineering degree from Northwestern where the ABET accredits that subspecialty, a civil engineering degree from Illinois (which has a great civil engineering degree but no environmental engineering degree), or Dartmouth where the student graduates with an ABET general engineering degree and wants to practice engineering immediately after college without getting a masters?

What if a student wants to practice civil engineering? Will the general Dartmouth ABET BE degree suffice (without going back to school for a masters)? Could the student at Illinois who gets the BS general engineering ABET degree be able to practice civil engineering or environmental engineering? Why is the general engineering degree at Illinois called a “BS” degree and the one with the same criteria at Dartmouth called a “BE” degree? I am still not sure how all this works for the student graduating with a general ABET BE engineering degree from Dartmouth, a general engineering BS degree from Illinois or any other school that is certified in this fashion. Why would a student at Illinois, with 14 subspecialties to choose from, choose the BS general engineering degree? What career options are available to that student? That student would seem to have an identical or very similar ABET certified degree as the Dartmouth BE student.

You are waaay overthinking this.

ABET accreditation means that an engineering program has the “traditional” level of depth and rigor. The difference between “general” accreditation and “discipline-specific” accreditation is usually just a matter of size.

A small school (like Dartmouth, for example) might only have ~ 100 engineering majors per year, with no more than a few dozen in any specific discipline. In such cases, it’s not practical or cost-effective to insist that every discipline undergo a separate accreditation review. So ABET simply gives Dartmouth general accreditation to serve as a “blanket” that will cover all their programs.

In contrast, a large university (like Illinois, for example) might have several hundred engineering majors per year in the EE program alone. In that situation, ABET would probably require a discipline-specfic accreditation review just for EE. However, Illinois probably also has some other engineering programs that are too small to warrant discipline-specific accreditation, or too cutting-edge or interdisciplinary to be covered by a traditional ABET accreditation category. So Illinois probably gets ABET general accreditation too, to serve as a “blanket” over those small or non-traditional programs.

From the accreditation standpoint, it doesn’t matter. All three schools offer ABET-accredited EnvE degrees. No employer, licensing board, or graduate school will care whether the specific form of ABET accreditation is environmental, civil, or general. As long as a degree has an ABET “seal of approval”, it will be accepted as a “real” engineering degree.

Dartmouth doesn’t offer a BE in civil. It would theoretically be possible for a Dartmouth ABET BE degree in some other engineering field to practice civil and qualify for a PE license, but it would be a more difficult path. Employers normally prefer civil engineering degrees for civil engineering positions.

IIt would theoretically be possible for an Illinois ABET BS degree in some other engineering field to practice civil and qualify for a PE license, but it would be a more difficult path. Employers normally prefer civil engineering degrees for civil engineering positions.

Tradition. It doesn’t matter what the degree is called, as long as it is ABET-accredited.

As note above, ABET “general accreditation” is typically used to cover programs that are too small to warrant discipline-specific accreditation, or programs that are so cutting-edge or interdisciplinary that there is no traditional ABET accreditation category that fits.

@Corbett, thanks for detailed response above! Very helpful! I had thought that many environmental engineers construct water purification plants, desalination plants, and I would suppose wind farms, hydroelectric dams etc. But are those areas more civil engineering where you would pretty much need that civil eng specialization, or can an environmental engineer do the same work? I guess I am unsure what an environmental engineer does? And to keep this thread tied to the OP, can you or someone else comment upon how a Dartmouth degree would help an environmental engineer do whatever it is they do? I have a kid that plans to be the first engineer in the family, so I really don’t know enough to be much help in selecting a program.

Environmental was traditionally a subdiscipline of civil, and is still included within the civil departments at many schools (like Illinois). However, EnvE has become increasingly prominent in recent years, and now is sometimes broken into a standalone department separate from civil. At some schools (like Dartmouth) there may now be an EnvE program and no traditional civil program.

I suspect that some students have unrealistic ideas about what EnvEs do. They seem to think they will be building solar power plants or designing electric cars or fighting global warming. My impression is that most EnvEs, in practice, work on less sexy local issues, like municipal sewage or stormwater treatment, controlling air emissions from factories, or cleaning up contaminated groundwater under gas stations.

An ABET-accredited BE degree in EnvE from Dartmouth would be a perfectly good way to get into this field. The downside is that it is difficult to get an ABET engineering degree from Dartmouth in four years. Dartmouth has a liberal arts tradition which includes breadth in the humanities and social sciences. An ABET engineering degree, in contrast, includes a lot of specialized depth in math, physical sciences, and engineering. In practice, it’s hard to squeeze all of this liberal arts breadth and all of this engineering depth into four years.

So at Dartmouth, students typically get a non-ABET BA degree after 4 years. This degree will probably not impress traditional engineering employers, grad schools, or licensing boards; it will likely be perceived as “Engineering Lite”. On the other hand, the Dartmouth engineering BA could be a great degree for someone interested in technical management or finance or government, especially if combined in a double-major with a BA in something like Economics or Policy or maybe Chinese. A double-BA major of this kind would probably be quite feasible at Dartmouth.

Dartmouth BA grads can “upgrade” to a “real” ABET BE degree, but this typically takes another year, for a total of 5 years of undergraduate study. If a “real” engineering degree is the goal, then obviously it would be faster and cheaper to enroll in a traditional 4-year ABET engineering program at some other school. Most engineering programs have lower expectations for liberal arts breadth than Dartmouth does.

At Dartmouth, to get the BE, there are a minimum of 9 extra courses beyond the AB degree, and it usually takes 1-3 extra terms.
https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/undergraduate/be

@corbett …and this is were we diverge on opinion having been told that employers do not care if the degree is a BA or BE from a top college. If you look at placement for engineer grads with BAs from Dartmouth you will find they place well in the industry and grad schools, especially in disciplines which being a PE isn’t a big deal. Seriously are you saying a Dartmouth non ABET grad is going to get passed over for a Devry university ABET accredited grad. Ridiculous.