Hello. I got into UMD’s Computer Engineering program and the First-Year Engineering program at Purdue. If I do go to Purdue, I would choose the ECE major after my first year. I’m having some trouble deciding between the two schools. Maryland offered me admissions into the College Park Scholars Program and a $2,000 per year scholarship. I did not get any money from Purdue, but it does cost about $10,000 less than UMD. I was hoping someone could give me some advice. Anything would be very helpful. Thank you so much!
Look at the four year plans of study at both schools and be sure you are comfortable with the differences. CS and ECE are quite different.
If you like ECE curriculum, Purdue for less money for sure. My D is a second year engineer at Purdue and loves it. She turned down scholars and a scholarship at UMD for Purdue (UMD would have been less in her case). But, she wanted engineering.
I’m going to page @BrianBoiler for input. His son is at UMD for CS but he’s a Purdue grad. He can give you a good comparison.
Like @momofsenior1 says, I’ve a son who is graduating from UMD with a CS BS and a Applied Math BS in May. He is in Computer Science, not Computer Engineering, but I suspect the programs overlap quite a bit. He was in the Honors college, which is another live and learn community at UMD. He grew up in Indiana and then we moved for his Junior year of HS to the east coast. Subsequently he had quite a few friends back home who went to Purdue and he visited often over his college career. If he had it to do over again, he would have went to Purdue. Especially if it was going to be considerably less expensive.
He felt that the honors college was not really all that much. It did avail him to a few different sections of classes. Four years ago, UMD would let every admitted student declare Computer science as a major and they were woefully under prepared for the number who did. In his Junior year two things happened. 1> They limited who could be a CS major and 2> opened the Irbe Center for CS. Both alleviated the strain on resources in the major.
I for one enjoyed my time on campus in WL. Times were different then, I applied to Purdue because I lived in Indiana and I wanted to be an engineer. For the most part my peers and I in Indiana really only had one option. We didn’t realize how well respected Purdue is. Now that I live outside of Indiana and have progressed in my career, I’d say I was extremely fortunate to have not one but two Purdue degrees (BS and MS). If you lived in Indiana and was accepted to both MIT and Purdue, I’d advise you to go to Purdue for undergrad, unless you were set on entering academia, and then it would still be a tough choice. MIT may be better, but it isn’t worth 3x the expense. For engineering undergrads, there really isn’t that much difference in the classes and the bigger programs have more extra curricular options.
When my son was choosing schools, I think he wanted to follow his own path and that is why he went to UMD. He was also lured by the “honors college” distinction which he later found out to be “not all that” and probably would have not done it if he had it to do over. However, when he was interviewing for the job he really wanted and eventually got, the recruiter was impressed with his work on the project he did for the honors college program.
You need to make up your own mind, the things that are important to you may not be as important as they are to others. However, given just the expense difference, I think I’d lean heavy towards Purdue.