<p>What reasons have many of you chosen NU engineering? What do you or did you thing of NU? Thanks!</p>
<p>Even though I am not an engineering student at NU, but I have done a summer research program there. Overall, I think NU engineering is very good. I worked in the MSE department, so it's top notch! What I really like about NU is its view. The campus is right by Lake Michigan and the view from Cook Hall is just wonderful. Academically, NU Engineering is excellent. Some departments are a lot stronger than others. Overall, it's a great engineering school.</p>
<p>Northwestern's engineering is pretty strong. Don't let its well-known "soft" fields like journalism and theatre fool you. Pretty much all departments are in top 20. The best, as ecc already mentioned, is material science (ranked #2 in the country and the field actually pioneered there). Another really strong one is industrial and management science (ranked #4 and has placed the most number of PhDs graduates as assistant professors among the top-10 IE departments). Others that have been or are currently in top 10 are civil, biomedical, and mechanical. The chemE (wish I studied) and environmentalE are also within top 15. The weaker ones are computer engineering and electrical but they are still ranked around 20th nonetheless.</p>
<p>Ranking aside (should be taken with a grain of salt), what's unique about its program is the innovative "Engineering First" curriculum that exposes students to real engineering problems and design literally the first week of school instead of just taking calculus/chem/phy in the first year like in most other schools where freshmen often don't get a feel of how the phys/chem they are taking is applied to engineering. The college also has a very well-established co-op program which gives you as much as a year and a half working experience upon graduation. The new $30 million design center, funded by Ford, should be a great facility especially for product design.</p>
<p>Think*</p>
<p>Thanks guys! Do any of you know how big their department is? How about as compared to Stanford engineering? Or even Princeton's orfe program? I am mostly looking into industrial and management science. I figure that that could be a good background for bussiness school. Againd...thanks!:)</p>
<p>The industrial engineering and management science program has about 70 graduating seniors each year, according to their website. It's very popular and the second largest department behind BME. I wouldn't be suprised if they were larger than BME in some years in the past. I don't know about Stanford undergrad MS&E but I did take a Decision Analysis class there when I did my grad study in a different field there. The class had about 200 students but it's open to upper-level undergrads and grad students (including many, like myself, from other fields).</p>
<p>Thanks Sam Lee and ecc! It sounds like NU engineering is stronger than I expected. I mean I know that Purdue, for example, seems to be ranked a little higher but I do not want to go to such a big school. MIT is ranked number one but I appreciate being surrounded by the liberal arts. Stanford is ranked number two. (Although, as said before, rankings arn't everything:))</p>
<p>Same Lee-with your experience at the two schools which one did you like more? Which one did you find most helped you, had best access to professors for undergrads, and offered the most opportunities for students? </p>
<p>Did anyone hear take ORFE(operations research and financial engineering) at Princeton? As you can probably already tell I am one for the nice liberal arts schools, outside of the city:) Stanford, Princeton, and Northwestern, are my top three at the moment. I like Dartmouth and Yale, but realy want to see where an engineering route could take me. </p>
<p>Again...Thanks!!</p>
<p>Purdue is ranked higher than all Ivies, except maybe Cornell (don't remember the exact ranking); so don't worry about NU being ranked slightly lower. But the ranking isn't everything and I am pretty sure the average caliber of students are higher at NU. </p>
<p>I actually can't give you comparison because I didn't pursue that field. At NU, students are encouraged to approach professors about research opportunities. I think the same holds true for Stanford. None of them have too many students so I don't think there's too much competition for undergrad research unless you have narrow interest in some very specific area. At NU, not everyone is interested in academic research; some want working experience instead and focus on getting co-op.</p>