Tufts University 4th on payscale for highest salary in engineering

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tufts University
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<p>Best</a> Schools for Engineering Majors - College Salary Report</p>

<p>I hadn't considered applying to Tufts ( next year ) until I saw this. I thought it was a nice university but It didn't specialize in engineering, which is my intended major. I think the validity of the data and source is very questionable but I'd have to assume that Tufts is up there given it's 4th ranking. </p>

<p>Can anyone speak on this? I've never seen Tufts in any top engineering rankings before. Tufts wasn't in the top 50 of the us news rankings.</p>

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<p>Can’t speak to the validity of this salary data, but I can say that my computer science and engineering friends have basically had jobs and internships thrown at them, and at good salaries too. The engineering program is strong and engineers themselves are well integrated into the rest of the student body, which I think is a real plus. </p>

<p>Also, get yourself out of the mindset of using US News to measure anything but vague generalities. Look at the methodology here: [Methodology:</a> Best Engineering Schools Rankings - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2013/03/11/methodology-best-engineering-schools-rankings]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2013/03/11/methodology-best-engineering-schools-rankings) and see what determines the ranking.</p>

<p>Peer assessment score (25%) - Other engineering deans rank schools on a scale of 1 to 5. First, they only got a 50% response rate; second, how much nuance do you think that allows for; and third, how can any one individual really know anything significant about more than a couple programs, let alone the hundreds they are asked to rank.
Recruiter assessment score (15%) - This is useful, but only in the right context. As I have said, friends of mine have had no trouble getting jobs in and after college. It’s obviously not going to be as easy as it is coming out of MIT or Stanford, but you’re not going to flounder.
Mean GRE quantitative scores and Acceptance rate (6.75% and 3.25%) - This is about the qualifications of the doctoral students, which won’t really matter to you that much. It will a very little bit if you do research on campus, but those doctoral students will be way more knowledgeable than you even if your SAT scores were better.
Student-faculty ratio (11.25%) - Tufts has a very good student-faculty ratio for undergrads, but this is measuring it for graduate students, which is irrelevant to you.
Percent of faculty in the National Academy of Engineering (7.5%) - This is irrelevant for you. There are world class researchers at Tufts, which is important, but a better system would be to look at a citation count index if you wanted to measure scholarly impact. It’s just indicative of a poor methodology in general.
Doctoral degrees awarded (6.25%) - Only relevant if it somehow affected your ability to do research on campus, which is not at all hard to find.
Total research expenditures (15%) - Useful, but see above on ease of finding research.
Average research expenditures per faculty member (10%) - Useful, but see above on ease of finding research.</p>

<p>So bottom line, US News sucks and you should stop using it. It is terrible, because there isn’t a good replacement. But change your methodology for looking at schools. Find the type of school where you would like to be at. Tufts isn’t a pure tech school like MIT or CalTech, and it isn’t a huge research university like Michigan State or Purdue either. But neither are we some tiny school like Olin or Harvey Mudd. Find the type of school where you think you’ll fit in and do your own investigations by emailing folks who work or go to school there and understanding it for yourself.</p>

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<p>Well, if you are into these sorts of rankings then check this out…
[College</a> Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013]College”>College Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report)</p>

<p>You need to figure what kind of environment you are looking for. Engineering schools come in several different flavors. Tufts is a nice compromise between other types of schools- it is bigger than a LAC, smaller and more personal than a large research university yet has lots of research opportunities, and has engineering. The engineering program is very good but not as well known on a national level as say RPI. But RPI has a very geeky/nerdy environment which is not everyone’s cup of tea.
So if you want to study engineering at school where most of the students are NOT engineering students, Tufts is great. Tufts students are highly motivated and most are very involved with campus activities and social causes. Lots of IR, PoliSci and pre-med students…
Great location too.</p>

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<p>To build on what BeanTownGirl said, there are many great reasons to study engineering at Tufts. I wouldn’t consider this (questionable) survey on salary to be one of them.
To name a few - fairly good facilities (EE/CS just renovated, BME building is pretty new, plenty of state-of-the-art research labs), faculty primarily focused on teaching, higher focus on undergrads = more research opportunities.
Then there’s the fact that it’s not just an engineering school; you get to interact with a diverse group of students with varied interests (both in and out of the classroom). A big focus on social action/active citizenship is also a plus for many.</p>

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<p>My son visited Tufts twice and for the most part liked it. He was accepted to Cornell ED but Tufts was on his list. One thing we didn’t like was the disconnect of the Chemical/Bio? Engineering building from the rest of the campus. It was quite a walk down by the athletic fields. Tufts has only offered engineering since the early 2000’s, I believe.</p>

<p>Best of luck</p>

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<p>1898, but who’s counting?</p>

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<p>Biomedical engineering has only been offered for the past couple decades, maybe that’s what they meant?</p>

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<p>Here is some information to provide context :</p>

<p>Military and civil (i.e. non-military) are the two oldest forms of engineering.</p>

<p>West Point appears to be the first institution to offer engineering in the US (1802)
Norwich University appears to be the first private institution to offer engineering in the US (1819)
RPI appears to be the first private technical institute to offer engineering in the US (1824)
University of Virginia appears to be the first non-military college to offer engineering in the US (1836)
Union College appears to be the first private non-military college to offer engineering in the US (1845)</p>

<p>Tufts first offered engineering (civil) in 1865 and MIT enrolled its first class in 1865.
Cornell and WPI enrolled their first classes in 1868.
Tufts organized its various engineering offerings into a separate undergraduate college of engineering in 1898.
Tufts officially transitioned from a college to a university in 1955.
Tufts started offering graduate engineering degrees in 1961.</p>

<p>Biology is one of the most recent introductions to the field of engineering.</p>

<p>MIT introduced biological engineering as a separate division in 1998</p>

<p>Tufts introduced biological engineering as a part of what appears to be the first interdisciplinary biochemical engineering department in 2000 (chemical engineering was first offered in 1898 and the chemical engineering department, created in 1901, appears to be the 5th in the US.</p>

<p>Tufts created a separate biomedical engineering department in 2002.</p>

<p>Since Yomega commented on the building that houses both the biochemical and biomedical engineering departments, she is likely to be referring to when Tufts started offering biological engineering programs. In that context, his/her dates would be correct.</p>

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<p>With regards to the biochem engineering building:</p>

<p>Due to the fact that biology is a relatively recent addition to the world of engineering , the relatively new biochemical and biomedical engineering building is on the “outskirts” of the Tufts Somerville/Medford campus. It houses the Tissue Engineering Resource Center, a new, leading edge, national research lab created in partnership with Columbia University and NIBIB.</p>

<p><a href=“http://ase.tufts.edu/terc/”>http://ase.tufts.edu/terc/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I could see how that building might feel isolated, because there is a large, old, warehouse building between it and the rest of the campus. As it turns out, that warehouse is being converted into a brand new interdisciplinary engineering/science center that will serve as a new gateway into the Medford/Somerville campus. This article describes the new interdisciplinary engineering/science center (scheduled to open in early 2015) along with the update to the electrical/computer engineering and computer science department building that Hebrewhammer mentioned. The new center should better integrate the biochem engineering side of the campus.</p>

<p><a href=“http://now.tufts.edu/articles/new-and-improved-buildings-campus”>http://now.tufts.edu/articles/new-and-improved-buildings-campus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>To provide some context :</p>

<p>Tufts Medford/Somerville campus is 150 acres and located in the heart of the number one biotech region in the world, 2 miles from Harvard, 4 miles from MIT, and 7-8 miles from the Tufts, Harvard and BU med school campuses and 5 miles from Boston.</p>

<p>Cornell’s Ithaca campus is 4,800 acres ? Cornell is 225-230 miles from its medical school campus, Columbia and NYC.</p>

<p>Tufts Somerville/Medford campus is 208-210 miles from Cornell’s medical school campus, Columbia and NYC. (Yes, Tufts is closer to Cornell’s med school than Cornell is.)</p>

<p>This data would suggest that the amount of walking and the feeling of isolation would be quite a bit higher at Cornell than at Tufts – especially for a bioengineering major :-).</p>

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<p>^But you can’t throw yourself into a gorge if you get depressed. JK</p>

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<p>At Tufts there are therapy dogs help prevent stress or depression…</p>

<p><a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;

<p>Which is one of the advantages of having a vet school and a citizenship-focused culture…</p>

<p><a href=“http://as.tufts.edu/news/2013therapyDogs.htm”>http://as.tufts.edu/news/2013therapyDogs.htm&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://vet.tufts.edu/paws/”>http://vet.tufts.edu/paws/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;