Hello I was accepted to both schools not sure which to pick … Any advice?
Tough decision. Glad it’s yours not mine, LOL!
Pros of Penn:
Surrounded by brilliant peers
Prestige
Department with strong research culture - many of your peers will go on to grad school and should you decide on a research career, this would be better
Ability to transfer to A&S at Penn if you find engineering is not what you really want. You can’t underestimate the value of this.
Cons of Penn:
40 UPenn courses for an ABET degree in ChemE just seems brutal and overkill. 40 is 5 per semester. MIT doesn’t even do that. There is zero margin for error. I heard the Dean of Engineering speak and he seemed sadistic and proud of the pain that the engineering students endure. It struck me as pain for it’s own sake which horrified both me and my D. ChemE is hard enough without pain for it’s own sake. Just an impression. My D who is a ChemE and did a summer program there in HS nixed this school rather quickly in her search. I assume people do actually thrive in this environment, but my D clearly didn’t think she would have.
Pros of Northeastern
Better City - Boston is hands down a better college town. (I’ve lived in both places and live in Boston now).
Co-op
Fewer hum/ss required (I think).
Cons of Northeastern
Pre-professional atmosphere
Less designed to go to grad school.
Both schools seem to emphasize biotech over petroleum.
Thank very much this helps a lot!
“Both schools seem to emphasize biotech over petroleum.”
Yes but UPennsylvania is strong in materials research and materials research is interdisciplinary with Chemical Engineering. Also, I have high hopes for growth at Northeastern University because of the new engineering building presently under construction.