What do you think of Villanova’s Engineering program(s)?
What are best aspects of it?
Where is it lacking?
Thanks!
I’ve also been accepted into the engineering program and was curious what others thought of the program
Hi, current engineering student here, feel free to pm me.
Pros:
Flexible liberal arts core curriculum. You’ll take about one liberal arts (writing, philosophy, ethics, arts) class a semester, but you won’t be required to take a language or any particular classes you don’t want to take.
Small undergrad focused engineering, which is very uncommon. There are about 60 students per major per year in engineering, so you’ll know all of the students and professors in your dept by the time you graduate.
Research opportunities. Small college with few grad students = lots of research positions for undergrads as long as you’re doing well in your classes.
30% of engineering school is female (18% nationally).
Great business school and its pretty easy to pick up a business minor.
Medium sized school so you’ll make a lot if friends outside of engineering
Con’s:
Facilities are a mixed bag. CEER (labs and admin) is great, chem engineering building and structures lab are pretty good, tolentine (professors offices and lecture rooms) has room for improvement.
Grad program and research are not nationally competitive like the undergrad program, so don’t expect the next great engineering breakthrough to come from nova. However this doesn’t matter much for undergrads.
Summary:
Villanova is great if you like the smaller community feel and want a well-rounded education vs strictly technical. Some engineers feel like they’re wasting their time taking liberal arts classes, others like it. I would recommend going to accepted students day so you can see your department’s facilities and meet some students/professors.
I agree with the pros. Are there really 30% female students now? WOW. I would like to add to the cons. (Sorry I am just a negative person.) The different departments could do a better job coordinating their lessons. The engineering department didn’t know what the math department was teaching. And they all used the same symbols for different things. That was the trickiest part for me. So your professor would say you should have learned this in calc. No no… you should know what we learned in calc. And the other negative is the lack of hands on projects and applying what you learn in class to the real world. Almost everything is theory and done in classrooms. They will show you the electric race car and concrete canoe, but do not have the space for hands on projects like larger universities have. The year I was there the Soph design project was a joke and the lab tools and lab help could have been way better. Research the choices for professors well. I was always late registering and got stuck with the “other” professor. You don’t have many to choose from for each class. And by the time you find out the professor you got stuck with is not the best, you are too late to transfer into a class with the other professor because their class is already full. And I also got stuck in a feminine rights english class and had to read the most boring books. So be careful with your liberal arts choices also.
But my gripes are minor. It is a decent program.
How are the career prospects at Villanova as an engineering major?
Is there a good amount of internships available too?
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@AimlessTom that’s a pretty broad question, so let me try to compartmentalize it.
Post-Grad career placement rate (percent of people in a job or grad school after graduation) is about 99% just like most engineering schools. If you’re able to graduate from any engineering school you’re in a good place career wise. So then you have to worry about some other factors such as:
Industries. Not ever engineer goes into engineering. Some go directly to finance or consulting. This happens fairly often at nova engineering, but I couldn’t find any sort of statistics to back that up.
Companies. This is tricky because it varies by major. As a computer engineer, I mostly know about the process as it effects computer and electrical engineers. Nearby companies tend to be the most visible in recruiting by sponsoring projects and research at the school, but people go to work all over. It would help to know your major.
Internships. First of all some notes: I would define an internship as sonething thats directly related to your discipline, not an unskilled summer job that might be labeled an internship. Also some people do co-ops during the semester but not many so I’ll leave them out. Considering that, my very rough numbers based the method of remembering what my friends have done over the past few summers are:
25% of people have internships after freshman year
50% have internships after sophomore year
75% after junior year
I know the engineering school keeps stats on this I just don’t know where to find them if you want the real numbers.
Also around 10% have research fellowships each summer, usually at nova but sometimes elsewhere.
@kfjnah I applied to Villanova as a civil engineering major. However I might change to some other sort of engineering.
Thanks for your response. I think I might be going to Villanova next fall. Just worried a bit About their engineering strength because the school is famed for business and not so much engineering.
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@AimlessTom if you’re down to a few engineering schools and academic strength is going to be your deciding factor, then I would recommend taking a look at what companies go to each school’s career fair. Ask the following questions: are there a lot of companies recruiting civil engineers? Are the companies located somewhere I would like to live? Does the work sound interesting to me? And so on. Here is the handout from villanova’s most recent engineering career fair:
http://www1.villanova.edu/content/villanova/vpaa/careers/eventscareerfairs/_jcr_content/pagecontent/download_7/file.res/Employers%20at%202015%20Engineering%20Science%20Technology%20Big%20Data%20Career%20Fair.pdf
Academics are a huge factor, but keep in mind you’re also going to be living at whichever school you choose for four years. Most schools including nova have an accepted students day so you can talk with current students (like me!) and often they’ll let you sit in on a class. Good luck making a decision!
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Oh and Nova just released career placement stats for the class of 2014 here:
http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/vpaa/careers/placement/2014.html
And full stats for engineering here:
http://www1.villanova.edu/content/villanova/vpaa/careers/placement/2014/datasearch/_jcr_content/pagecontent/download/file.res/College%20of%20Engineering%202014%20Career%20Outcomes.pdf