Wash U v. Northwestern ENGR CURRENT STUDENTS PLEASE HELP

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
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<p>It's basically down to these two schools, and I really can't decide.</p>

<p>Wash U seems great with their quality of life and fun factor. The campus is beautiful, and I liked it much more than Northwestern's. However, I found their engineering curriculum did not seem to have as much breadth or depth as Northwestern's curriculum. Northwestern's campus was ok (maybe I just visited at a bad time-on Monday April 20, when the ice just evaporated and left a bunch of dead trees with no leaves and no grass, just dirt; so i didn't like the aesthetic characteristics of Northwestern). I feel as if Northwestern will provide me with more classes and a better program, but worse campus and no real "nurturing"/help/motive to work and research. Wash U seems VERY "nurturing" and helpful, but I am not sure if their engineering program is even close to as good as Northwestern's. Can anyone give me some feedback on what I am thinking?</p>

<p>How much better, if it even is at all, is Northwestern's engineering program than Wash U's?</p>

<p>Does Northwestern's campus get ugly around this time of the year, which was what I thought when I saw it.</p>

<p>Does Northwestern "nurture" at all, compared to Wash U?</p>

<p>Which school provides better opportunities for research, CO-OPs and internships, acceptances to graduate schools, etc.?</p>

<p>Please help me out; I am really stuck and can't choose!</p>

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<p>Which engineering?</p>

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<p>As Johnson181 is implying, it definitely does make a difference which engineering program you’re going into, actually. If you’re thinking BME or CompSci, I would definitely tend to recommend WashU.</p>

<p>I may be very biased at the moment though, as I just got back in out of the amazing weather we’re having at WashU right now and am pretty much loving life, lol. Let me get into an objective mood and get back to you on this. ;)</p>

<p>PS: Does it occur to anyone else that it would be extremely helpful if CC gave some way of posting threads like this to both WashU’s and Northwestern’s forums simultaneously, so that we could see comments from both sets of students side by side in the same thread? That would be really useful. [/random]</p>

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<p>Not a current student, but my son had the same choice and is heading to WashU with the intention of majoring in Mech Eng. The tipping factor in his choice was the semester vs. quarter system. We were also at the Wildcat Day on April 20, and one presenter made the comment that textbooks are all written for 14 week semesters, so in order to complete the work in 10 week quarters everything is at a faster pace. That may be fine for some classes, but he didn’t want to deal with that for every single class (especially the ones with intensive reading). Also, with 10 week sessions it seems like you are always studying for a mid-term or final. And lastly, your vacation schedule is off - you don’t mesh with any of your friends, summer jobs are difficult because most people can start in early May and NU isn’t done until mid-June, etc. Also, he likes the campus and dorms better at WashU and thinks for undergraduate, the quality of life (however you perceive that) is extremely important. And although at WashU you do have humanities requirements, it’s not a full 1/4 of your courses. (But, on the other hand, NU definitely has more co-op opportunities.) Good luck with your choice - you can’t go wrong either way - just figure out which is the best fit for you and then go with that and stop second-guessing.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I was not too impressed with the Wildcat Day on April 20, and I am having a hard time giving Northwestern the benefit of the doubt. They seemed fun at first with our “roller coaster” activity, but then they didn’t really explain or demonstrate much of their engineering points, but rather just showed one project that freshman were doing and had one professor talk about nanoengineering. What about the kids who don’t want to go into nanoengineering-for them (I being one of them), it was not very informative.</p>

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<p>Oh, and I am undecided on which Engineering, but am leaning towards Mechanical or Aerospace.</p>

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<p>To go along with what you said, I can’t believe they didn’t give us a tour of their facilities. Also, they could have had current students and staff eat lunch with you to answer questions. We didn’t even end up staying past 3:00 - my son decided he liked WashU better.</p>

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<p>And just so you know, there is an aerospace undergraduate minor (not major) at WashU, which is part of the mechanical dept.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I know. I think I’ll choose Northwestern University because I believe their engineering school has more breadth and depth than Washington University’s.</p>

<p>Unless someone can convince me of otherwise hah.</p>

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<p>TheMan-</p>

<p>I don’t know if this is going to convince you otherwise, but from everything you posted, it seems like you would feel happier at Wash U. You should choose Wash U, then, hehe :slight_smile: You’re going to live there for 4 years, so you should have as few concerns as possible about the school you’re attending, and it seems that most of your concerns about Northwestern were about pretty important things. That’s just what it seems like.</p>

<p>Regarding breadth/depth of the Engineering school, here is the course offerings for the Mechanical Engineering dept, copied from the course book:</p>

<p>Tons of Math (too many to reasonably list… the Math department has like 8 entire pages of course listings)
Tons of Physics (too many to reasonably list)
Machine Shop Practicum
Computer Aided Design and Advanced CAD
Engineering Mechanics I, II, and III
Strength of Materials
Introduction of Aerospace Vehicles
Machine Elements
Heat Transfer
Spacecraft Design
Quality Control and Uncertainty Analysis
Design of Thermal Systems
Thermodynamics
Structural Behavior and Analysis
Fluid Mechanics
Materials Science
Independent Study with a professor
Manufacturing Processes
Behavior and Design of Structural Systems
Modeling, Simulation, and Control
Aircraft Flight Dynamics and Control
Analysis & Design of Modern Structures I and II
Structural Dynamics and Vibrations
Mechanical Engineering Design Project</p>

<p>That is just for the Mechanical Engineering department. There’s also the BME department, Computer Science, Electrical & Systems, and Energy/Environmental & Chemical. </p>

<p>Wash U Engineering also has the following Research Centers available:
-Aerospace Research & Education Center
-Center for the Application of Information Technology
-Center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems
-Center for Biomedical Informatics
-Center for Materials Innovation (*many Mechanical Engineering students do research there)
-Center for Optimization and Semantic Control
-McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
-Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis
-International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability</p>

<p>Although I’m not an Engineering Major, I think that is pretty broad and deep. I really don’t think there’s going to be a tangible difference in your educational experience at one school or another. At the undergrad level, there’s not many different ways to teach you the basis of MEchanical Engineering. There could be some variation between course offerings, but what undergrad really comes down to is:</p>

<p>-Opportunities for faculty interaction (Wash U is awesome in this)
-Opportunities for research (again, Wash U wins in spades)
-How comfortable you feel on the campus… the people, the look, the feel
-Freedom to explore other fields of study (if you have more than one interest… and Wash U is probably the best place in the world for this)
-Do you want to study abroad? WUSTL’s Engineering school has some programs available for that. </p>

<p>Graduate school is where you really start specializing in one department. I don’t know the first thing about graduate schools for Engineering, but what I do know at the Undergrad level is that there’s not going to be a tangible difference between most schools. Unless you go to MIT or CalTech (maybe a couple other exceptions), your education is going to be pretty darn standard. </p>

<p>Any decent undergrad school will have you be very prepared for the future (internships and careers). Wash U, I know, has great relationships with McDonnell Douglass, Boeing, Monsanto, and Motorla, and I imagine most people in that school have no problem getting internships and jobs. Engineering is a very high demand field, no matter what the economy is, so the very fact that you are an Engineer is going to put you in a great place anyway. </p>

<p>Again, I don’t know if this at all helped you, but if your concerns are breadth/depth of Engineering, I think your concerns are very misplaced as they relate to Wash U.</p>

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<p>Also, I decided to do some research and look at Northwestern’s engineering curiculum… this is what they have available in Mechanical Engineering:</p>

<p>Required courses - 11 courses as follows:
Seven core courses
Mech<em>Eng 202 Mechanics II
Mech</em>Eng 224 Experimental I
Mech<em>Eng 240 Int. Mechanical Design & Manufacturing
Mech</em>Eng 315 Theory of Machines - Design of Elements
Mech<em>Eng 340-1 Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Mech</em>Eng 377 Heat Transfer
Mech_Eng 390 Int. Dynamic Systems</p>

<p>One course from
Mech<em>Eng 314 Theory of Machines - Dynamics
Mech</em>Eng 363 Mechanical Vibrations
Mech_Eng 391 Fundamentals of Control Systems I</p>

<p>One course from
Mech<em>Eng 362 Stress Analysis
Mech</em>Eng 365 Finite Elements for Stress Analysis
Civ_Eng 327 Finite Element Methods in Mechanics</p>

<p>One course from
Mech<em>Eng 370 Thermodynamics II
Mech</em>Eng 373 Engineering Fluid Mechanics</p>

<p>One design course from
Mech<em>Eng 340-2 Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Mech</em>Eng 366 Finite Elements for Design & Optimization
Mech_Eng 398 Engineering Design</p>

<p>Electives - 5 courses as follows (a maximum of two 399’s are allowed)
Two 300-level mechanical engineering courses
One 200- or 300-level technical elective</p>

<p>It looks remarkably similar to classes that Wash U has… and you can even say that Wash U has MORE classes available to choose from.</p>

<p>Why is it that you want Nortwestern so badly? Not that it is a bad school by any means (on the contrary, it is a great school), but given everything you’ve said so far, it really seems like Wash U more closely matches your preferences in a college??</p>

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<p>vbball90,</p>

<p>I am an engineer; so I can tell you what the OP was probably thinking. In terms of breadth and depth, NU has 8 departments while WashU has 4. The ones that WashU doesn’t have are civil, eng sci & applied math, material science & engg, and industrial/management sci. So the OP would have more choices at NU. It also doesn’t hurt that most of them are ranked in the top-20 with two in the top-5 even. Also, NU’s engineering has a unique first-year curriculum that emphasizes design and hands-on/real-world engineering experience. There’s also a well-established co-op program (up to 6 quarters). </p>

<p>kaykay,
The humanities/social sci requirement at NU is not 1/4 of your courses. It’s actually far lower than that. It’s only 7 out of 48 courses. You do have 5 unrestricted electives but that 5 don’t have to be humanities. Perhaps you were misinformed and thought otherwise and therefore 7+5 = 12 and 12/48 = 1/4. No, you can take whatever you want with those 5 unrestrictive electives.</p>

<p>Also, basic sciences like math, chemistry, physics, and bio are not taught faster at NU, unless you choose the accelerated version. 1-yr chemistry is simply splitted into 3 quarters there instead of 2 semesters. It’s true that other courses are faster but you also take less courses. 4 instead of 5 or 6. So it’s not like it’s necessarily easier at WashU as you’d have more to juggle simultaneously.</p>

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<p>Sam Lee -
Thanks - you probably should have been giving the presentation and tour instead of the professor and student we heard at Wildcat Day. It sounds like you have better information. I didn’t mean to imply anything negative. I think NU is a great school - it wouldn’t have been one of my son’s top 3 choices (he was accepted at 7 great schools) had we thought it was in any way inferior. It just wasn’t the best fit for him.</p>

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<p>@Sam Lee
The ones that WashU doesn’t have are…eng sci & applied math…industrial/management sci.</p>

<p>WashU actually does have something pretty similar:</p>

<p>[Bachelor</a> of Science in Systems Science and Engineering - Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering - Washington University](<a href=“http://www.ese.wustl.edu/Academics/BSSSE.asp]Bachelor”>http://www.ese.wustl.edu/Academics/BSSSE.asp)</p>

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<p>We went to an accepted student event and a college president told us that 80% of students change their major at least once. Go to where it’s a better fit for you. A couple of things, you should consider, trimester vs. semester (lots of threads complaining about trimester on CC), and the weather (while St. Louis is no nirvana, Evanston is brutal). Good luck.</p>

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<p>I am very familar with both institutions. While both are excellent schools, as far as engineering is concerned, Northwestern’s is better than WashU’s by FAR. Even within the state of Missouri, students interested in engineering choose to go to public universities such as Missouri S&T, which has far better engineering program than WashU.</p>

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<p>153fish - i wouldn’t make such a general statement about MO engineering students choosing rolla over WashU, it’s not necessarily the majority. Things like cost factor pretty heavily in that decision too, not just ranking.</p>

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<p>At the same time, Missouri-Rolla (Now S&T) is very highly thought of for engineering undergrads, especially by those who know what’s what. They may not have the ranking of some other schools, but employers will tell you they turn out some of the best grads, especially in civil, mechanical, and electrical. And you are right laurezer, as a value proposition even for OOS, it is fantastic, as long as you don’t mind the small town.</p>