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[quote]
Rochester recognizes that no two students are alike, so your college education can't follow a "general education" path.</p>
<p>That is why the Rochester Curriculumunique in higher educationhas no required subjects. You build your own path and learn what you love.</p>
<p>Students in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering pursue a major in one of the three great divisionshumanities, social sciences, and natural sciencesand complete a cluster of three or more related courses in the two areas outside their major. The result is an education that reflects students' priorities.
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<p>That doesn't sound unique to me. Most engineering schools allow students to choose their own humanities/social science classes with various breadth and depth requirements that sound very similar to Rochester's cluster requirement. </p>
<p>So, what's unique about engineering at Rochester? Or if not "unique" what are Rochester's strengths as an engineering school?</p>
<p>mathmomvt, I can’t speak to engineering but sounds like you have a lot of questions (hesitancy?) about UR. I would encourage you, if you haven’t already, to read through the thread that begins “2011 Grad taking questions…”. There is some good stuff in there, and the site here in general has several very articulate parents who seem as though they and their kids could not be happier (Creekland, WayOutWesternMom, Lergnom, etc). </p>
<p>Do you live in VT? You should definitely visit. My own experience with my kid is that the more you know, and the more time you spend there, the more you like. I am extremely picky and critical (and my D has been accepted to some other outstanding schools) but IMHO UR is a superb school and one where I think my D would be very, very happy.</p>
<p>We will definitely visit at some point. My S prefers a non-urban, smaller engineering school, and we pretty much need him to get merit aid (which I think he had a chance of getting at UR) and so UR looks very good to us on paper. Also have several glowing reports from friends who have visited. So, at some point we will head up there and check it out in person. In the meantime, we’re trying to gather as much detail as possible through other means, including reading here.</p>
<p>D graduated 2 yrs ago, and her experience was very much like that of Lergnom’s and Chedva’s kids. Slightly nerdy vibe, but kids who balance work and fun. Not a cut-throat kind of place. Very solid academics. Safe beautiful campus. Rochester may not be NYC, but there is a lot to do. Yes, the 19th Ward is on the other side of the river, but you’d have to go deep into the neighborhood to find the really scary areas.</p>
<p>Engineering, in general - across all ABET schools - requires a bunch of classes which doesn’t leave as much time for other classes, so many schools relax their core curriculum requirements for engineers making it very similar to UR. If you were looking at a different major, then UR is different - only the freshman writing class required and then some breadth of courses at the student’s choosing. Where my oldest goes he has a set of required courses - one each year - that ALL students take. It’s a bit more typical of some LACs. At big state U where I went, we had to choose among accepted clusters (some choice, but not nearly as much and every subject was included - not just fields). Even there, engineers did not have to do as many clusters.</p>
<p>All ABET schools offer the courses necessary to become an engineer right out of college. The hearsay I’ve read about URoc’s engineering is that it is heavy on theory - which would match a research U. However, it’s just hearsay as I don’t have an engineering-inspired offspring.</p>