Please comment between mechanical engineering & campus culture at Worcester Polytechnic and University of Delaware? Appreciate any insight!
Have you visited both? What are the net costs at both?
I know nothing about Delaware, but quite a bit about WPI. My son almost attended before deciding on a different school right at the deadline.
There are few, if any programs in the nation like WPI. First, the terms at 7 weeks are very short. To offset that you only take three classes at a time and one will typically be a non-tech class. Unlike all ABET accredited programs that have capstone/senior projects, WPI has two major projects and if you elect, one during your first year, making three. That is how they apply theory as opposed to labs or making something simply a math class. Their travel abroad program is unique for engineers also. They have ongoing projects all around the world that they drop students into. The campus is cute and quaint. The proximity to Boston is nice. Students seemed genuinely happy.
The main knock, if this is a legit one, is that their grading is pretty lax, buy intent. They want to insure knowledge mastery, the best they can, by not allowing students to move forward with marginal or no command of material. They don’t transcript grades below C, so, like Lake Wobegon, all the kids are above average. I don’t see a problem with that because you can vet someone’s horsepower by talking about their experiences and courses. This is difficult though if an employer is getting lots of applicants and has to rely on paper to make the first round or two of cuts. In programs with grade deflation it is clearer that a grad with a high GPA, at least academically, is a standout.
@HPuck35 is well familiar with at least one and maybe both of those institutions.