Undergrad Engineering

<p>Love to hear comments on Stanford's Undergraduate Engineering program. We had a general tour in the spring of the campus and a group meeting with admissions (mostly focused on HOW to apply, not WHY), but didn't get much info about the engineering program.</p>

<p>I get that at Stanford, unlike the UCs and USC where you apply to the Engineering school not LAS, you apply undeclared and then select engineering as a major later, like any other major. So I assume that means your first 2 years are less engineering focused than at UCs, more liberal arts.</p>

<p>What else? What's good/bad about Stanford engineering? Thanks.</p>

<p>It's one of the best in the world.</p>

<p>The program is excellent, but it's a tough major. You don't have to declare your major till the end of sophomore year, but if you want to major in engineering, you have to start taking at least some engineering-related classes right away to keep your options open.</p>

<p>I'm not positive, but I would bet that there isn't a huge difference as the focus of courses for your average engineering major from Berkeley or Stanford. Some difference, yes, but not more than a handful of courses more in the humanities/social sciences. </p>

<p>PS. The sciences (as well as mathematics) are within the liberal arts.</p>

<p><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/liberal%20arts%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/liberal%20arts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Any sense of how the culture is/isn't different from Berkeley or UCLA engineering? Cal is reputed to be particularly intense and competitive.</p>

<p>That's what they say about it. Many times, however, it's quite cooperative, friends helping each other out in study sessions and what not. At least this is true to many in Berkeley engineering (not sure about UCLA).</p>

<p>I heard that Stanford's engineering program is catered to grad students and research, and that it screws over the undergrad students. I don't necessarily believe it, but it's just something i read on some forums.</p>

<p>As a grad student in Stanford EE, I've taken a couple of undergrad classes, and my opinion is that the undergraduate EE program is a cakewalk compared to my undergrad experience at UIUC, and I've heard the same from MIT, Caltech, and Berkeley students as well. The EE program is very heavily focused on grad students (1000 grads, 100 undergrads), so IMO this isn't the best place to study EE as an undergrad.</p>