<p>I am an engineer by nature. I am applying as a physics major. Are 'engineers' satisfied by academics at UChicago?</p>
<p>I don't think we have even "engineers." We have a few students who considered UIUC, their in-state safety, for their excellent hard sciences and engineering, but I don't think we have any students here who go "shucks, what I really wanted to do was engineering, and now I'm in this lousy physics major!"</p>
<p>UChicago's engineering school is off the Noyes stop on the Purple Line. Word has it it's a top-ranked engineering school with big 10 sports (gasp!) and a solid Greek presence (double gasp!)</p>
<p>I think what the OP meant to ask was whether an engineer-type would be satisfied with an education that doesn't offer his particular concentration. I have no knowledge about this at all, but if there are any physics majors out there who can...?</p>
<p>(Just because Chicago's awesome, though, I'm inclined to say "yes")</p>
<p>^ haha I am hoping someone to say yes too! :D</p>
<p>I don't know exactly what you mean by "an engineer by nature".</p>
<p>Lots of people who want to be engineers don't particularly like studying anything that isn't directly related to being an engineer. A modicum of math, a modicum of theoretical physics, maybe even a little design. But really they like to build stuff, and they want to learn how to build stuff and to get lots of practice at it. They also want to hang out with other people who like to build stuff, and to build stuff together.</p>
<p>If that's what you mean by being "an engineer by nature", Chicago really doesn't offer that experience. It's not that there aren't people there who like to build stuff, and to do it creatively. Look at the Scav Hunt lists: there are a whole bunch of engineering projects there every year. ("Build a wood-burning refrigerator without freon." "Cast a city block into eternal darkness.") But your curriculum at Chicago would vary a lot from any accredited engineering program known to man, and even from non-accredited engineering-lite programs like Swarthmore's. Which means that Chicago will attract approximately no one who wants a traditional engineering education, just as it will attract approximately no one who wants to play Division I football (and could).</p>
<p>One of the unofficial, self-deprecating Chicago mottos is "That's fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?" It's a joke, of course, but for lots of engineers -- maybe most of them -- it's a phrase that represents the complete opposite of how they like to learn and to think about things. For them, a place where people chuckle and nod at that joke could only be Hell.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if what you mean by being "an engineer by nature" is that you are creative, oriented towards problem solving, and mathmatically inclined, then you are like lots of students at Chicago. And if, on top of that, you really want to read and talk about Plato, Marx, and Walter Benjamin in addition to math and physics . . . well, there aren't many places where you can do that, and Chicago is certainly one of them.</p>
<p>Why are you drawn to Chicago, notwithstanding its utter, self-defining lack of an engineering program? (Notwithstanding that the very phrase "engineering program" has approximately the same status at Chicago as phrases like "national socialism" or "papal infallibility" -- i.e., Not Our Kind?) If you want engineering + a broad liberal arts education, why not look at programs like Swarthmore's, or 3-2 programs like Wesleyan-Columbia? If you want lots of math and physics and a broad liberal arts education, and you are willing to defer any entry into engineering culture until graduate school, by all means consider Chicago. If what you mean by "an engineer by nature" is really "my parents want desperately for me to be an engineer but I sense I am going to be drawn to other things", by all means consider Chicago.</p>
<p>Here's something concrete you can do. Look at the online course catalogs for Chicago, Swarthmore, and RPI. Look at what their general requirements are, and what courses you would have to take to meet them, and how much of your undergraduate career that would represent. Look at what your major requirements would be, and what kind of courses you would take for that. Figure out how many electives you would get to take, and look at the kinds of courses offered. Then you will know a lot more than you do now.</p>
<p>I will add on just two things to the great post by JHS:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>People do go on to masters and doctoral programs in engineering after majoring in physics and math at UChicago. In fact, you will notice on the CVs of many students at elite engineering institutions that this is a quite common route from a variety of schools, even those that have engineering at the ug level. However, it is also my observation that at the two schools which I have personally attended for graduate school, particularly at the masters level, the majority of students who switch over to engineering do so because they could not get into the graduate school of their choice in math or physics, and found the career options at the BA level for their previous science major to be minimal (if they want to stay in the sciences and eschew consulting or finance).</p></li>
<li><p>If you go to any accredited engineering school for graduate studies, you will have to take some ug remediation courses depending on your area of interest. Friends I have at Cal Tech and Stanford both found this to be reasonable, and the number of courses they took ranged from two to four. The number depends greatly on how far from your initial major you stray. If you go from Physics to nanoscale engineering, and you did a fair amount of chemistry and quantum courses at Chicago, you may need no courses at all. Yet, if you switch over to computer engineering you could easily be looking at a whole years worth of electrical engineering and hardware design courses before you start any substantive graduate work.</p></li>
</ol>