Traditional school vs, hbcu for engineering

College Search & Selection Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU)
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I’ve been having this debate with my parents for a while now, as to whether or not I should attend an HBCU to study mechanical engineering. I’m from North Carolina and its always been a dream of mine to attend NC state, which has an amazing engineering program. my parents on the other hand feel, that as a student of color, I wouldn’t receive the same opportunities or support at NC state as I would at an HBCU like North Carolina A&T. seeing as A&T is the countries top producer of black engineers, they feel that it would be my best option to find employment after graduation and to “learn how to operate in a predominately white world” I get what they are saying, but I feel State, should I be accepted, is the best option overall. My family feels I should attend A&T for undergrad, and then do state for grad school, but I cant imagine waiting four more years to make a dream come true. Does anyone have any information on either school regarding which would be the better option. financially, A&T is less expensive, and I was invited to apply for a full ride, plus my mother works there and if needed I could just stay at home (I know they would love to keep me close to home), but my school district received a special grant from the Say Yes to Education foundation, and every graduate will receive full tuition scholarships to any instate public school, so all my family would have to cover is room and board, which my father has specifically told me he can easily pay, but he doesn’t see the need to pay 10,000 dollars for me to sleep somewhere at the school he doesn’t even want me to attend when I could stay at home and attend the school he approves of at virtually no charge. I’ve also been accepted to UNC Charlotte which was originally my 2nd choice, but the same debate begins when I bring up that school as well. I suppose if I wanted to do an HBCU, id try Florida A&M. I don’t know a lot about their program, but I’ve heard good things and I enjoy Florida, but unless I received a full scholarship, I doubt my parents would go for it.

my info
gpa: 3.8
act: 29
sat: math, reading, verbal-1920
math,reading-1270
math:600
reading:670
verbal:650
activities-track and field, cheerleading, orchestra, student council vice president, certified in 4 AutoCAD softwares, lots of community service, and the school musical.

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Well, 3.8 HS GPA and 29 ACT does get a full ride at Florida A&M. If you are a high school senior who is interested, check to see that it is not past the deadline.

Be aware that its engineering division is shared with Florida State and is a short bus ride away from both main campuses.

But it does look like parental concerns about cost are the biggest factor in your college choice.

1 Like
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I didn’t know Florida A&M and Florida state shared an engineering school, I wonder what that’s like

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It means that you need to take into account the bus ride or other transportation between the main campus and the engineering campus when scheduling classes (i.e. probably a bad idea to choose adjacent time slots when one is on the main campus and one is on the engineering campus).

It also means that there is an arbitrage opportunity between FSU and FAMU for engineering majors. Same engineering, but FAMU is probably less expensive for most students (particularly those who can get the full tuition or full ride scholarships). Oddly, it seems that more than 3/4 of the undergraduate engineering students there come from the more expensive FSU (see http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2015/02/19/bog-approves-famu-fsu-engineering-fixes/23690101/ ).

Here are the scholarships at FAMU: http://www.famu.edu/Scholarships/DSA%20Scholar%202015-2016.pdf
However, these “scholarships are awarded until the funds are depleted”, so ask the school to find out of this is the case; if these scholarships are still available, apply as soon as you can.

Here are some other big scholarships:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

Note that the automatic-for-stats list includes (besides FAMU) other schools with engineering that you qualify for full rides at: Tuskegee, Prairie View A&M. NC A&T is listed in the competitive list (i.e. the scholarship is not assured; your stats merely qualify you to apply).

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Yes, FAMU and FSU share an Engineering Campus, and the engineering school continues to be a controversial political football. That doesn’t mean that you wont get a fine engineering education there, but just know what you’re getting into. That said, the ongoing debate about whether or not to divide the school probably doesn’t significantly impact engineering students’ day-to-day activities, but if you’re concerned you should seek out advice from FAMU-FSU directly.

You parents must be made to realize that NCSU is the strongest STEM university in North Carolina. The others, including A&T, have their assets, but no other school in the Carolinas can match the strength of engineering at NCSU. It’s good to ask about student support at various engineering schools, my guess is that NCSU can find ample support if they seek it.

Finally, don’t bother thinking about graduate school at this time. Most B.S. Engineering alumni are gainfully employed with just a B.S. And getting admitted to graduate school is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. By the way, being an engineering student who commutes is a different and challenging world altogether. If you were a commuter you may have to adjust your study habits and time management tremendously because every reputable engineering curricula is no joke.

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Will you qualify for a pell grant? If so, you might be able to afford State on your own with loans, grants, and jobs.

If not, your choices are obey your parents or try to get a full ride. Have you considered the 3 + 2 program between NCCU and State? NCCU offers full rides - you get the best of both worlds.

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The NCCU - NCSU 3+2 program only allows the majors of physics (at NCCU) and electrical engineering (NCSU):
http://www.nccu.edu/academics/sc/artsandsciences/dual-degree-program/index.cfm

Also, financial aid after transfer to NCSU should be investigated before a student chooses this path, since financial aid or scholarships at NCCU do not carry over to NCSU (and the total is five instead of four years).

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3+2 programs are, in the main, a losing proposition. There, I said it!!!

You can adhere to your parents’ desires (unless it will make you miserable) or seek out alternatives that you can afford or where you have a shot a significant financial aid. You won’t find many engineering schools that are better than NCSU but there are some very well regarded programs in various parts of the country that will provide a great foundation for your career in engineering. You would be a very attractive candidate for admission at the schools below. Deadlines are approaching so get cracking!

Case Western Reserve University
Rochester Institute of Technology
U of Dayton
U of Rochester
U of Tulsa
U of Portland
U of San Diego
Illinois Institute of Technology
Ohio University (dedicated engineering scholarships)
U of Akron (dedicated engineering scholarships)
Kansas State University
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (low COA)
U of South Carolina-Columbia

9

Congratulations on your strong high school record and your acceptances. I will leave the engineering discussion to others better equipped to comment. Reading between the lines, there may be 2 concerns on your parents’ part - cost and wanting to keep you closer to home. I would suggest you speak with them more, to see if there is more to their focus on NC A&T. Money is always an important consideration. Good luck to you.

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NC A&T isn’t a bad option, it (and FAMU) are well recruited by engineering firms, but with keeping that in mind…

NC State is better funded and has more resources. This means a lower student to faculty ratio, better career resources, more (and better funded) clubs/design teams, and more technical electives (to choose from). It it worth $10K a year? That’s up to you and your family.

If you want to make a case for NC State, you need to be specific with your reasons and talk honestly with your parents. Keep in mind, no matter which school you attend, you will be a success! Ten years down the road, as a working engineer, no one will care much which school you attended, this is more about your experience over the next 4 or 5 years.

Good Luck!

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NCSU is a better school overall, with more funding, more alumni, better networking and contacts in industry, higher-level peers, more resources. While A&T is a good school, it’s not in the same class as NCSU which is a top school of engineering (as good as Virginia Tech or many Midwestern Tech schools).Your parents may worry you won’t get sufficient support at NCSU, so investigate that. Also, check other issues such as campus climate, etc.

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I know that your parents’ desire puts you in a tough position, but they must be made to understand that commuting and living at home for an engineering undergraduate is not an optimal situation. Engineering work and education is all about collaboration. You need to be on or near campus to fully participate in the supplemental or anciliary work that supports your engineering education. And that takes time management, which is harder to get control of if you are commuting to and from campus from any distance that is not insignificant. Finally, full rides are hard to come by. You folks need to understand that an engineering education for 10 grand is a bargain.

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@senri12 I say go to NC A&T or FAMU which are the top producers of black engineering students. I know black engineers from both schools with great careers and an amazing connection with their schools unlike blacks from non-HBCUs. It’s very common for me to hear blacks from schools like NCSU gripe and complain about the subtle/overt racism and/or isolation (being one of very few blacks) they dealt with during their matriculation and all that could’ve simply been avoided by enrolling at a HBCU.

And NCSU engineering school is “too crowded and overly competitive” so I think it will be harder to be noticed for your talents. I think you should go to a HBCU because 1) You’ll be more comfortable which will benefit you socially 2) There’s nothing like an undergrad HBCU experience so it’s best to take advantage of it while you can 3) The engineering programs at NC A&T and FAMU are just good as NCSU despite NCSU having more money … believe it

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I went to an HBCU. I LOVED my HBCU, and I’m a big proponent of the education there. I still think that your parents are wrong (mostly) wrt “I wouldn’t receive the same opportunities or support at NC state as I would at an HBCU like North Carolina A&T.”

NCA&T is a great school with really excellent engineering programs. I have some friends who went there (several engineering majors!) and did very well post-graduation. But others are right in saying that it’s in a different class than NCSU. NCSU is better-funded and has better resources. The recruiting for post-graduation jobs and employment is probably also better there (although maybe not by that much - many top companies go to the best HBCUs to diversify their employee ranks). So in some ways some of the opportunities and support you’ll get from NCSU will be better.

You will be in the minority in the engineering school at NCSU, and sometimes that can be hard. One of the best things about going to an HBCU is that you are never in the minority for anything, and that can be a really empowering experience. I always say that I never felt like there was something I couldn’t do because every day I had dozens or hundreds of examples of my peers and alumnae doing those very things. The idea, for example, of black scientists wasn’t foreign to me because I personally knew so many. The cultural support at an HBCU is pretty great.

However, that doesn’t mean that you won’t get good support or experiences and opportunities at NCSU. I went to a predominantly white university for graduate school, and found lots of support from mentors and peers of all races. There’s also something really fun and unique about having friends from lots of different cultural backgrounds and learning about them and teaching them about yours. Of course, it’s not all peaches and roses - there are definitely moments of isolation and doubt. But quite frankly, working in the world will be like that too. I work at a technology company that is actually stunningly good at confronting issues of race and diversity in other areas. I discuss race with my coworkers openly and talk about the ways in which our differences on different dimensions impact our work in really intelligent ways. I’m still the only black woman on my team, and one of very few black people in my part of the company, and it’s still kind of disheartening despite expecting and being used to it.

Can you visit the NCSU engineering school? Sit in on some classes, meet with some professors? It might be worth it to see if there’s a chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers on campus, and contact one of the members. Then you can talk to them frankly about what it’s like to be a black engineering student on campus.

Also, as a side note, HBCUs do not teach you “how to operate in a predominantly white world.” Quite the contrary, entire days - sometimes weeks - would go by in which I would not interact with another white person (or non-black person) other than my professors. The reality of your life in tech and engineering is not going to be like that, and it’s not like there are How To Interact With White People 101 classes at HBCUs, lol. I will admit that it was a bit of a culture shock going from a virtually 100% black space to going to a predominantly white space again. There are certain…adjustments you have to make. I still would do it over again given the choice, because I think attending an HBCU gave me something really special. It gave me a strong sense of identity and a cultural touchpoint as a black woman, which I think only strengthened me for being the only black woman in most of the spaces I operate in now. It also gave me a community of really powerful, successful black women and men to look to and look up to. Like I said, I never have to wonder whether or not I can do it because I have so many examples of people who look like me doing it already. But it’s only an experience I would recommend if students really WANT it. I wouldn’t force it on anyone.

I do agree, though, that there is nothing like an undergrad HBCU experience! :smiley:

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<<<
my parents on the other hand feel, that as a student of color, I wouldn’t receive the same opportunities or support at NC state as I would at an HBCU like North Carolina A&T. s
<<<

This seems odd to me, as well as the comment that attending an HBCU would prepare you for working in the “white world”. Maybe I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that largely non-black schools would bend over backwards to help a black engineering student succeed.

I wonder how much of this is simply your parents wanting you to commute from home?

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Your overall scores are good but your SAT-M is a little low for a prospective engineering major at NC State. At A&T, on the other hand, that score would place you well into the top 25% of all students. You may want to think about whether you’re ready to hit the ground running at a much larger school where most students may be better prepared, or if you’d be better off at a school where you’re a relative stand-out, Most students at both schools do not graduate in 4 years, so in a tough major, especially if you need more courses to develop your math foundation (or a reduced load to keep up for the first year), your family may be facing that ~$10K cost difference for more than 8 semesters. Would that, in turn, put more pressure on you to hold down part-time jobs?

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The Meyerhoff Scholars at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) program looks worth checking out. I saw a 60 minutes episode on this and checked it out. It looks rigorous and has a great track record for producing STEM PhDs of color.

http://meyerhoff.umbc.edu/

The reason I mention this is that your math SAT and your ACT are a little low to be competitive in top engineering programs. You may get in, but many of your classmates will be advantaged. The UMBC takes students just like yourself with great GPAs and puts them through boot camp to get them to where they need to be to be nationally competitive. It’s pretty unique.

You had to have had nothing less than a B in a STEM subject though.

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I’m such a fanboy when it comes to UMBC’s president, Freeman Hrabowski. ;))

The 60 Minutes segment on President Hrabowski and UMBC’s program:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsAYyf1BOOA

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Some mostly white departments might do that for an engineering student in an effort to increase diversity in the field. But some schools don’t do it at all. Many companies and schools are talking about ways to increase diversity amongst their ranks, but only a few companies and places are actually doing some great things in that space not only to recruit talent but to retain it and make the working environment a good one. In any case, black students still have to deal with being in the extreme minority in these environments - moreso than they would be in the general population, and usually much more so than they were in the communities they come from (because of de facto residential and school segregation). So what a potential black student would find really just varies.

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That’s why the Posse Foundation is so great. They send groups of students to college together and provide them resources. Most schools just accept underprivileged students without offering what they need so that the students can gain parity with the advantaged students.

The UMBC program does a similar thing with much more of a STEM focus to produce more diversity in science and engineering. By the time they graduate college, the Meyers Scholars seem to go beyond parity and are attractive PhD candidates in their chosen field.