<p>Anyone know much about these? Advantages/disadvantages for a strong student who isn't sure if she wants to commit to an engineering program right out of high school?</p>
<p>For all intents and purposes, these are creatures of admissions brochures and few, if any, real world students ever do them.</p>
<p>a) who wants to leave their college for senior year?</p>
<p>b) who wants to spend 5 years getting a college degree?</p>
<p>c) who wants to pay for 5 years of college to get a degree?</p>
<p>d) who wants to argue with the old and the new college to see if anyone will offer financial aid?</p>
<p>e) who wants to major in engineering without taking a single engineering course for the first three years? How are you supposed to decide if you even like engineering without taking a course?</p>
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<p>If you want engineering, go to a school that offers engineering. If you want to check it out, but have options, go to a liberal arts college that offers engineering (like Swarthmore or Smith) or a university that makes it easy to sample departments (i.e. not one where you are accepted to only the engineering college).</p>
<p>I concur with IDad on this one. We looked into some of these 3-2 programs for my son, and ended up suspecting that they are meant to lure additional students, mainly males, to a small liberal arts campus, and don’t generally result in an engineering degree. </p>
<p>If you are considering such a program, do get data on how many students actually do end up switching to the engineering program at the related school, compared to how many planned to do so as entering frosh.</p>
<p>My son is now at Lafayette where he can explore engineering classes from his first semester, has the resources there, etc. and can also get a liberal arts education. As IDad says, there are several other schools where you can do this.</p>
<p>If anyone reading has a kid who has gone the 3-2 route, perhaps they would post here about their experiences and suggestions.</p>
<p>I would love to hear from anyone who completed a 3/2 program or whose child did.</p>
<p>I was going to reply but the previous 2 posters beat me to saying pretty much the same thing. Pick a U that has a good options outside of the engineering school, so if you decide engineering isn’t right for you then you can readily switch.</p>
<p>In Georgia, these serve a real purpose. For instance, the University System of Georgia has a designated Technology school - Georgia Tech - and a designated liberal arts school - Georgia College & State University. Georgia Tech is all tech and only tech. No “English” Department - only communications technology. The History Department teaches “History of Technology.” The studies in Music are “Music Technology” and housed in the School of Architecture. Georgia College has outstanding liberal arts departments. You can do three years of a classic liberal arts experience at Georgia College + two tech-intensive at Georgia Tech, and you wind up with two degrees - a diploma from each university.</p>
<p>Good post Idad. Agree wholeheartedly.</p>
<p>I agree with the above; when my DD was considering engineering, we were unable to find anyone who actually finished a 3/2 program. I think that is why so many big name engineering schools are willing to lend their names to these programs.
There are many places where an undecided engineering student can get a good start and transferring to the college of arts and sciences is as easy as filling out a form. The only difficulty is if the student enters the college of arts and sciences and then decides to start engineering. That student could possibly lose a year.</p>
<p>gadad- I’m curious, when a student undertakes a 3/2 with GT, does that student actually graduate in 5 years? The reason I ask is that we discovered that GATech students (those who start there) don’t often graduate in 4 years. So I’m curious how long the 3/2 program actually takes.</p>
<p>Three-Two Liberal Arts/Engineering Programs are for people who enrolled in LAC’s and once there figured out they want an engineering degree. A 2/3 program maybe a viable solution for them, but not for anyone who knows beforehand they want engineering. To enroll in such a program at the outset would be a needlessly expensive, non-sensible waste. And very un-engineering like to boot.</p>
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<p>Even then, it’s a poor approach because you have to decide to transfer (that’s what the 3/2 programs really are) to an Engineering school without ever having been exposed to a day of engineering classes.</p>
<p>The real-world need is for students who think they want to try engineering, but aren’t ready to commit to it sight unseen as a high school senior or who already know they want to combine it with something else (economics, music, cognitive, biochem, philospohy, whatever). Those students are probably taking a big gamble going to a pure tech school. </p>
<p>So, I very much think that there is a place for schools that offer a general engineering degree alongside a stronger dose of humanities and social science courses than a pure engineering school might offer. There are both small colleges and universities that offer that kind of flexibility. Several of the LAC options have been mentioned, but I believe that’s largely the approach offered by Harvard and Dartmouth as well.</p>
<p>My whole theory on majors is to preserve as many potential options during the first two years of college and make a final decision once you’ve got semesters under your belt and have moved a lot closer to adulthood than when you were applying to colleges fall of senior year. Nowhere is this more true than engineering, which has more students potentially interested in the idea than are able to flourish in actual practice.</p>
<p>U of Rochester is an example of a not huge school where you can move between liberal arts and engineering.</p>
<p>These programs also exist here and there for Architecture.
Maybe they make a little more sense than the engineering programs do.</p>
<p>Architecture is inherently very interdisciplinary.
You can do the math and physics, plus the art history and the studio work, at a LAC for 3 years, then go get the architectural design training in years 4 and 5. So it’s not as if you’re getting zero “architecture” for the first 3.</p>
<p>But all the other problems IDad mentions still come into play.</p>
<p>Rice is also a small school (3000 undergrad) where you apply to the University, not the department, and don’t declare a major until end of soph year. It’s the perfect school if you don’t want to commit to engineering but want to try it. There are no “caps” on the departments (except architecture and the music conservatory) so you can switch at will. Very flexible and excellent engineering and strong all around.</p>
<p>What InterestedDad said.</p>
<p>anxiousmom, don’t Rice applicant’s have to state an intended major any more? I remember counting on that helping one of my kids…</p>
<p>I only know one kid who is currently at his second school for a 3-2 engineering program. He really really misses his friends and old school. Frankly, if your kid wants a LAC environment, how about a math degree, a year or two as an engineering tech and then a masters in engineering?</p>
<p>I’m BS Engineering, MS Engineering. I’ve always felt somewhat short-changed because of the lack of humanities courses I had room for in my class schedules. The 3/2 programs seemed to be a great solution to that problem. But I have to admit that I never understood how you could fit in all the necessary engineering coursework in less than 4 years.</p>
<p>Case Western is another good possibility.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody, for your input. And thanks for suggesting alternatives!</p>
<p>mafool - I don’t know about the likelihood of getting all your GT classes in in five years - it’s a good question that I need to check into.</p>