<p>Which of the two above mentioned schools would you recommend for a Mech.Eng. degree?
How does Tufts compare to WPI in terms of college experience?
Thank you!</p>
<p>Have you visited both? WPI is cute but tiny. Everyone I know who went to WPI that I know of is happy there, and there are kids active in theater, music etc. It’s in a gritty city with not to much to do, though there are a number of other colleges in town. Everyone is doing engineering or science. It runs on a quarter system - so you take fewer courses at a time.</p>
<p>At Tufts you have a smallish engineering program inside a larger university. You’ll know kids from all disciplines. The campus is acctractive. There are tons of activities. There’s Boston. There are Div 3 sports (except sailing which is Div 1.) There’s more of an international emphasis at Tufts - even in engineering.</p>
<p>I think Tufts will give you a much more typical college experience, but for a techie kid WPI might be a better fit.</p>
<p>I agree with mathmom-Worcester isn’t called “Worm-Town” for nothing, but WPI is very personal and the students are a self-selected, happy bunch.</p>
<p>I recommend visiting, then you should know where you’d feel more at home.</p>
<p>Thank you mathmom and OldbatesieDoc, but I am sorry, I cannot visit them because I live some (according to google maps) 4500 miles away - in Europe.
How does the smallish undergraduate engineering program at Tufts compare with Wpi’s one ? I can’t really find them both in the same ranking so I would appreciate your opinion.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I’d do Tufts, then. Where in Europe are you from? In Boston, there actually is such a thing as working public transportation. I think Worcester would be too much of a culture shock. I have lived in Geneva for 6 months, and spent time in France and Germany, and I think Worcester would be too big a change.</p>
<p>I’m not an engineer. I can only tell you that the one young woman I know who is doing Engineering at Tufts is still very happy there. (She’s finishing her junior year.) My older son looked at WPI for computer science - my brother likes hiring their cs graduates. We looked at Tufts for my younger son, but not for engineering.</p>
<p>Well, I’m quick to adapt to a new culture so this would not be such a problem. I am from Romania (tragically, isn’t it?) but I have visited Geneva and I have also traveled a lot in Germany and France (I love them both), so I know what you mean about public transportation. Why do you say Worcester would be a culture shock?
Yet, can someone please compare the two in terms of engineering?</p>
<p>Hi BCGeorge!
It’s not really possible to directly compare the two programs. They’re both very good, and there aren’t objective quantitative measures that can capture something as inherently subjective as where you will learn more. There are significant differences in emphasis and mission that may be able to help you make your choice.
WPI is a rigorous program strictly focused on engineering. Tufts’ program, as a school within a larger university with a broader focus, will naturally have a more multi-disciplinary inclination. Neither approach is “better” than the other, it just depends what you prefer.<br>
At WPI, you are more likely to be completely immersed in engineering. Your friends will be other engineers, the overwhelmingly majority of your coursework will be tightly concentrated on engineering, and the overall campus environment will be geared towards engineering. Taking advantage of this total exposure may well leave you with a deeper knowledge of your field than you would have if you had gone to Tufts.
While Tufts’ program is also rigorous, and your courses will also primarily be engineering, its setting within a research university with a cross-disciplinary, internationalist perspective means that you will be more likely to explore other fields. You will have friends from all walks of life, and will have significant exposure to other academic areas. You will have many chances to explore intersections between engineering and other pursuits, some of them naturally related fields (architecture, environmental planning, biomedical engineering) and some of them perhaps not so obvious (gourmet cooking, humanitarian relief, theater design). You will have many opportunities to apply engineering knowledge in various areas, and will consequently likely leave the university with a broader knowledge, both of engineering and the overall arts and sciences, as well as having been exposed to a greater diversity of other people and other ways of thinking.</p>
<p>Depth v. Breadth. Not to say that WPI can’t do breadth if you want it, or that Tufts can’t do depth, it’s just a difference of emphasis. </p>
<p>Another consideration, as most posters have been pointing out, is student life. Having spent a non-trivial amount of time in Worcester, I would say that it’s not nearly as bad as everyone else seems to think, however it still really doesn’t hold a candle to Tufts’ surroundings (except for Medford, obviously, but Tufts students don’t really hang out in Medford). There are going to be a lot more internship and work opportunities in Boston, and (in my humble opinion) a lot more to do.</p>
<p>Also, just to add a personal perspective on the prospects of some Tufts engineers:</p>
<p>My fresh/soph roommate is a mechanical engineer. At Tufts he has had the opportunity to do paid mech eng research for two years, and in the fall will be heading to his first-choice grad school, Maryland, where he will be getting free tuition.</p>
<p>Another mechie friend went to UMich Ann Arbor for grad school, and now works for Boeing.</p>
<p>A good civvie friend of mine took advantage of the opportunity Tufts offered to participate in a competition building a solar-powered house, and his work attracted the attention of a few green design firms. He is currently deciding between several attractive job offers.</p>
<p>An electrical engineer I know went to Cornell for grad school, but after a year was lured away to work for Raytheon.</p>
<p>Another friend, either mechanical or electrical (can’t recall), became enamored with theater as an undergrad, and is now at Carnegie Mellon (perhaps the single best program for her field) for theater tech, lighting design specifically.</p>
<p>I don’t know of a single un- or under-employed Tufts engineering grad.</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence is not data, to be sure, but I’m just telling you what I know.</p>
<p>This is only tangentially related to what you said, Snarf, but Medford actually has a lot more to offer than I think most Tufts students realize, it’s just a little further off campus in directions you don’t normally go.</p>
<p>There’s Oasis. And Kappy’s and Atlas, of course. What else?</p>
<p>hebrew, aren’t you an engineer, or did I make that up? Can you add to the assessment of the program here?</p>