What makes Olin special?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Olin College
1

<p>I'm just curious to see how others see Olin.</p>

2

<p>Wow. I’m sure that almost everyone who answers will have different ideas.</p>

<p>Olin is special because it was created to be a lab school for engineering education. That means

  1. Everything’s focused around engineering. There are no non-engineering majors.
  2. Things aren’t static. Courses change as professors get new ideas and students give feedback. To try to get more students individually working with MatLab, the first ModSim project was individual this year (it’s been done in pairs in the past). The “transporter” final project for Design Nature has also changed over time – this year there seemed to be more emphasis on the game aspect of the requirements to make things interesting for the 4th graders. Even the required courses change as things evolve. See the advent of Linearity 1 and Linearity 2 as the current required math courses as an example of course requirement changes.
  3. The pre-requisite sequences are short at Olin. Many engineering programs have pre-req chains that are really long. That reduces flexibility, makes it hard to study abroad, and makes it hard to switch majors.
  4. There’s a large education focus. Several faculty do education research. Engineering Discovery is a student activity that takes STEM activities out into the community to K-12 students. </p>

<p>Olin is small. There are fewer than 350 students at any time. The faculty really knows the students and the students know each other. </p>

<p>Because there are no graduate students, other undergraduates serve as TAs (Olin calls them NINJAs) in the classes. Also, because there are no graduate students, it’s very easy for the students to get involved in research.</p>

<p>There’s a huge emphasis on design from Design Nature in the first semester, User-Oriented Collaborative Design in the 2nd semester of sophomore year, and a design depth requirement after UOCD.</p>

<p>The Entrepreneurial Initiative is a required class of all students. In the course of a semester the students learn about business from a project idea, marketing that project, selling, and producing. Some students go beyond that and graduate with a Masters in Business from Babson at the same time they graduate from Olin (Bachelors + Masters in 4 years).</p>

<p>Expo is a day of presentations at the end of every semester (after exams). Every student must participate every semester. The schedule from this fall is here:
<a href=“https://www.olin.edu/events/docs/Expo%20Program%20-%20FALL%202013%20-%20FINAL%20-%2012.19.13.pdf[/url]”>https://www.olin.edu/events/docs/Expo%20Program%20-%20FALL%202013%20-%20FINAL%20-%2012.19.13.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;