<p>If considering academics only, what majors are good at Tech? For what major would you pick over same at JMU, W and M, U of Richmond and Wake? </p>
<p>And, in those majors, will you have any good teachers the first 2 years? I think the major concern at Tech is the quality of majors and getting into grad programs. I wonder if the engineering is so cut throat and concerned with "week out" that any average kid gets lost. then you are stuck with a poor GPA.</p>
<p>caity,</p>
<p>Here are a few of Tech’s programs that are strong:</p>
<p>Agriculture and Life Sciences including:</p>
<p>Agricultural and Applied Economics
Agricultural Sciences
Animal and Poultry Sciences
Biochemistry
Biological Systems Engineering
Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences
Dairy Science
Environmental Science
Food Science and Technology
Horticulture
Human, Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise </p>
<p>Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Industrial Design, Interior Design, Urban Planning: (All among top UG programs in the country)</p>
<p>Natural Resources including: (many ranked among top UG programs in the country)</p>
<p>Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences
Geography
Geosciences
Wood Science and Forestry Products
Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation- Watershed Management, Urban Forestry, Environmental Resource Management</p>
<p>Biological Sciences are gaining ground…not as strong as UR’s or WM’s in my opinion, don’t know about Wake or JMU…probably on par with JMU? New Medical school is going to be a huge factor in the continued improvement of the sciences at VT I think.</p>
<p>Business: Maybe not up to WM and UR imho (don’t know about Wake) but on par with JMU;
we know quite a few VT business grads who have done very well. </p>
<p>Some of VT’s strongest majors/programs aren’t offered at the LAC’s like WM or UR or Wake, (or even JMU for that matter) so that is what makes it very appealing to some kids. One thing is that for incoming engineering kids, if they don’t like the demands of engineering, or find it isn’t in their best interest to continue in it, they have many options to changing into when they go to a large school like VT. It has many strong programs for students to find their niche. </p>
<p>As far as strength of the teaching and professors, well, it depends on the professor 
I mean you are going to have great ones and average ones, but we haven’t had any complaints from our son who is finishing his second year. He has been very happy with all of his, both in and out of his major. He shared with us that a couple have had accents that were challenging to understand, but he has managed to do well regardless. I think that the accent factor is going to be prevalent at any technical oriented school, though. So many of those super sharp profs are from abroad.</p>
<p>Anyway, hope this helps and best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Engineering isn’t cut throat at all, not sure where you got that from. It’s hard but it isn’t cut-throat. The weed-out classes aren’t hard because they’re conceptually difficult, they’re hard because you have to do a ton of work. After your freshman year you’re basically out of them though.</p>
<p>VT’s Chemical Engineering degree produces the highest paid graduates out of all their engineering disciplines.</p>