<p>Please help my son decide. Money is the biggest factor.</p>
<p>If money is the biggest factor, then you already have your answer. Umass Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I need to qualify that: money is the biggest factor for ME!
He is worried about the quality of life and student body at each. One is city, one suburban. From what we understand, the quality of engineering programs are of equal caliber. I think he also worries about the "snob" factor, meaning that it sounds better to say I go to NU than Umass/d. (sounds shallow, but he's 18!). I told him to follow his heart.</p>
<p>DH is an engineer and he said it doesn't matter, the "snob" appeal is a reality for kids, but it doesn't matter in the working world, at least unless it's UMass vs MIT. They are very different school, environment-wise.</p>
<p>I work in the field. There is no question about NEern being a better choice than UM Dartmouth for engineering. UMD is an overrated regional school and NEern has a growing national rep. My only question: If money is a factor, what about UM Amherst? They have a strong national rep for engineering, esp chemical engineering and computer science engineering.</p>
<p>He did not want to go there because it is too big. I went there and just loved it. It's interesting that you say that UMD is overrated because I just never hear much about it. That in itself is worrisome. However, he is leaning toward UMD. If he's unhappy he can always transfer.</p>
<p>Overrated or not, DH has several UMass Dartmouth engineers working under him and is very pleased with them. One is leaving this summer to get a masters at MIT so it can't be all that bad.</p>
<p>Thank you, herbrokemom. You make me feel better!</p>
<p>sfpf: Another school that you (may have) overlooked is UMass-Lowell. This is not a pretty campus, but it has a fine engineering school (with a reputation and a tradition to boot-it may no longer be true, but not too ong ago I read somewhere that there were more UMass-Lowell engineers working in industry than from any other school!), But back to UMD vs. NEastern: yes, NEastern undoubtedly has a somewhat better reputation- but your son can easily make up for that by taking advantage of an idea that NEastern actually pioneered, Coop assignments, also sometimes called internships. By 1) studying hard and getting good grades; and 2) experiencing 1 or 2 co-op assignments and showing the working world what you can really do, you can render any question of school name irrelevant. It is amazing how many engineers get jobs directly through their coop assignments/internships. And even if you don't get a job that way, the work experience and recommendations from your coop company are invaluable. Consider also what herbrokemom said- these days, it is more and more common for working engineers to get advanced degrees, this is just where the profession is headed. At that point, where you got the undergrad degree is completely irrelevant in my opinion.</p>
<p>We indeed did overlook Lowell. UMD now has a coop program. While not as established as Northeastern, it seems to have partnered with a lot of well known corporations as well as smaller businesses. If he stays at UMD, he intends on participating in coop. It would not only help professionally, but financially as well. He also intends on going to grad school...I can't even start thinking about that!
Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it.</p>