<p>gotopractice, I understand you feeling shortchanged because of the focus of a typical engineering curriculum, but you do not need to engage in a 3-2 program to solve that issue. As an engineering major at Ohio State in the late 60’s, it was a 5 year degree program for all engineering undergrads. This allowed us a greater opportunity to take both technical and non-technical electives, particularly the non-tech electives. Any student in an engineering program can choose to take more non-tech electives by taking full advantage of AP credits so as to substitute humanities for intro math]sci coursework, summer coursework, course overloads(hard for an engineering major), or extending the degree program a semester. </p>
<p>The non-engineering electives I took included art history, medieval/Rennaissance music, modern music, maco econ, Serbo Croatian lit, social cybernetics, US History(Reconstruction era), urban/city planning, sociology of race in the US, English composition, technical writing, ethics of Socrates/Hume/Mill, microbiology, photogrametry, social psych, intro geology/minerology, and hydrology. In addition I regularly attended on campus concerts, recitals, theater productions, exhibits, lectures and open seminars in non-engineering areas of interest.</p>
<p>The only thing lacking from my undergrad program was foreign language which I do regret these many years later.</p>
<p>At Lafayette, engineering majors, after the first year, take an extra course each semester (five, rather than the standard four, courses per semester). This is how they manage to fit in the liberal arts with engineering and still graduate in four years, I imagine.</p>
<p>Lafayette also offers an abroad experience in Germany for the engineering majors; an engineering prof goes along so that the kids can keep up taking engineering classes while away. They do it in spring of sophomore year – before the students are focusing on their major area of engineering.</p>
<p>Our son is studying engineering at Duke, finishing his junior year.</p>
<p>Unlike in some engineering programs, which have “writing for engineers,” engineering students there take the equivalent of Freshman Writing (all must take this) at the Liberal Arts school in a Freshman Seminar. Each small seminar tackles one of a wide variety of topics–can be historical, religious, cultural, and so on. So far he has also taken courses in cultural anthropology, environment, history, architecture and psych–and those are the ones I recall. Some of these were taken in a semester abroad. It takes planning and interest, but it can be done!</p>
<p>many engineering programs are now requiring freshman writing courses, at the univ S attends, he had to take a freshman writing course and currently as a first-semester jr (he worked at a co-op during fall semester) he is taking a technical writing course. He has also taken a couple of history courses, a geology course, and is currently taking a humanities course as general electives. </p>
<p>Which brings up another consideration: many engineering students do research, internships and co-ops during their undergrad years directly related to the area(s) of engineering they are interested in (with co-ops this often extends graduation beyond 4 yrs) - how easy is to do these with a 3-2 program? We considered it briefly when S was applying to schools, but in the end my hands-on learner S decided to do a 5-yr program (although he only pays for 4) but one that allows him to do co-ops and get a chance to really explore and try out the field he was entering.</p>
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Breadth in the liberal arts by either double majoring or minoring in the humanities or social sciences or by completing Latin Honors (a course from each of the 7 major fields of knowledge: literature, historical studies, social science, the arts, foreign language, natural science, and mathematics/analytical philosophy)
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Technical depth through a concentration in a particular area of engineering (mechanics, electrical systems, thermochemical processes, bioengineering, materials, engineering education, environmental engineering). This depth is developed through technical electives, undergraduate research, internships, and other co-curricular opportunities.</p>