<p>Hi, I have been reading CC but now I have a question of my own. DS is a junior and he wants to study Engineering. </p>
<p>He is a strong student and attends a rigorous high school, he has high scores and I believe he is getting well prepared for Engineering. He is starting to choose which schools he wants to apply to. Besides the many factors we have been told we need to look at, we want to consider what I would call the "no life" factor. When we look at the Fiske guide, almost all the schools with strong reputation in Engineering say that Engineering is hard. But I don't think all schools are equally hard, and some seem to have other good things to compensate. DS wants to eliminate from his list those schools that are so hard that the entire college experience would not be fun at all for him. Some sleep deprivation and a lot of hard work is assumed; but not to the point where he wouldn't have a life during the college years. So far, he has crossed out Cal-Tech (which doesn't sound like what he wants from several angles) and CMU (we have heard several people say they wouldn't choose it again for the above-mentioned reason).</p>
<p>Are there other schools to cross out or any suggestions on strong programs that can still be enjoyable? (Financial aid will definitely be a factor).</p>
<p>I only go to one engineering school and don’t know how to compare it to others, but Michigan isn’t bad. Some work but it’s not the only thing he’ll ever be able to spend time on. I have tons of time to come post here.</p>
<p>Check out the University of <strong><a href=“state%20you%20live%20in”>u</a></strong>, <strong><a href=“state%20you%20live%20in”>u</a></strong> State University, or <strong><a href=“state%20you%20live%20in”>u</a></strong> Technical Institute/Institute of Technology. A lot of state schools have good engineering programs. If you’re state is one of the ones without, then still a lot of times other state’s flagship engineering schools are cheaper than private, even while OOS, and will allow him to spread the curriculum into 5 or 5.5 years for the same price as 4 years at a private school, and this can allow him to have a life.</p>
<p>mommymom, I really don’t think that this should be the approach.</p>
<p>The second that you are looking for a school where he is not going to work too hard is the second that you should consider changing majors out of engineering.</p>
<p>Also, certain engineering majors are easier than others, even within different schools.</p>
<p>In some ways, an “easy engineering program” almost sounds like a paradox. Sure, some are more work intensive and stressful than others, but overall, engineering is not an easy discipline. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but in order to be an engineer, I think one has to be prepared to/have the desire to take on some hard work. I understand your concerns about the workload, but I agree with JohnAdams12 that this probably should not be approach.</p>
<p>He may want to look at a different major. Engineering is not easy, except for the few who are truly brilliant.</p>
<p>I graduated from a western state university and found the program was incredibly hard. My social life was definetly impacted, and I can’t say it was any easier for me than CalTech or MIT is for students who attend those schools.</p>
<p>I have a son who is a high school junior that is also determined to be an engineer. While he may mentally be prepared for the hard work that majoring in engineering will require, I do not want him to attend a college that is “all work and no play”. In other words, a college experience that when he looks back is just a memory of work, work, more work, sleepless nights (not from partying & girls) and 24/7 stress. I do not believe that is how his life will be as an engineer after college and that there is many other things to learn in college in ADDITION to hard work and single minded pursuit of a goal. Maybe I’m wrong and it is not possible to balance a teen / young 20s college life and still major and do well in engineering. However, until I see differently then I’m going to believe QwertyKey is correct and hope there are good engineering programs (like UM) where you can have a reasonable balance of academics and social life.</p>
<p>I went through a tough engineering program and also had a great social life…let me clarify: an unbelievably truly great social life…</p>
<p>how?</p>
<p>I guess when I really think about it, maybe lack of sleep helped out…</p>
<p>essentially I was able to study about 6-10 hours per night for Sunday-Thursday, then take Friday night, all day Saturday and all Sunday morning off from studying. Plenty of socializing can be done from Friday night to Sunday lunch. This also involved playing an NCAA sport Freshman year and a full set of Intramurals the other 3 years. Off course, midterm and finals involved pure studying, even on weekends.</p>
<p>some students will reduce the 6-10 hours per night of studying by studying most of Friday night and all day Saturday. This was not for me.</p>
<p>this, of course, was for the toughest major at my college, ChE. Other engineering majors will involve less studying time. What is very time consuming for a ChE is the afternoon labs that are extra compared to other majors…not only are there ChE. labs but also labs in Chemistry and Physics classes, which are required.</p>
<p>Lehigh is regarded as one of the better engineering schools in the country, top 40 overall and top 20 in certain departments, and also one of the better party schools (on the list of Playboy’s top 20 party schools)…</p>
<p>students there believe in the study hard/party hard way of college life.</p>
<p>Alll I can say is engineering is a stressful program by nature and will require a lot of focus and dedication.</p>
<p>There are engineering majors and you can find balance. In my experience, balance and a social life didn’t happen unitl my third year of school. The first two yeras were very hard and required an incredible degree of focus. I think most graduating engineers felt similiar. </p>
<p>What I can tell you is this – for the majority of engineering majors, those who believed it was important to have a good social life freshman and sophmore year didn’t graduate in engineering or didn’t graduate at all. There were exception of course.</p>
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<p>Yes, this sums it up well. An engineer’s social life is Friday night, Saturday day, and Saturday evening. You don’t want to wake up with a huge hangover Sunday (or too tired) because Sunday is a study day.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your opinions. They are certainly valuable. U. of Michigan Lehigh, and several state schools are definitely in his list and it is great to hear there can be some balance. </p>
<p>I see a difference between looking for an easy Engineering program (which we’re not) and trying to avoid a no-life program. We assume it will be hard, and it will require a tremendous amount of work, but hopefully still enjoyable (at times…) </p>
<p>JohnAdams12, thanks for all your comments, the number of hours certainly gives us some perspective.</p>
<p>DS is looking more into Mechanical or Electrical or he may discover something else while he is in college. We’re hoping these are not the hardest…</p>
<p>You do realize that Electrical Engineering is perhaps the hardest engineering major? This is subject to endless debate, but I think everyone agrees Electrical is hard. It is very math intensive and typically students find math intensive studies to be very difficult.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, engineering is very enjoyable in college. It’s enjoyable being a student in the most employable major with the highest starting salaries of any of the colleges. You get to know people and there is a strong social aspect because it’s college. You do have fun when you can. But, first and foremost, the engineering major is a student and studies have to take priority over socializing.</p>
<p>6-10 hours of studying per night? That is insane. I probably didn’t average more than 2 to 3 during undergrad, and during busy times, it would get bumped up to maybe 4 or 5. Even during finals I probably never made it to 6 hours per night.</p>
<p>^ Are you included time spent writing lab reports in your 2-3 hours?</p>
<p>If so, you were either a fast writer or lab reports were graded easy. I could spend 15 hours in a week just working on one lab report (for those classes that had particular graders).</p>
<p>There were 3 classes with ridiculous lab reports, all in different semesters and due every other week. As long as I didn’t try to do them in one shot I could space them out over a couple nights and only spend 2 or 3 hrs each of those nights. It helped that 2 of those labs were classes I loved and that I was good at (heat transfer and fluid mechanics).</p>
<p>The real issue here is that I only spent 3ish hours total on other homework assignments for the most part and probably about the same for exams not counting finals.</p>
<p>Of course, in this time estimate I am not really including all the time I wasted on the internet. For example, I was prone to taking unscheduled hour breaks and wasting it on the Internet or something and I am not counting that wasted time.</p>
<p>I feel like there are almost as many exceptions to his rule as there are people who fit that mold. Many of the best engineers I know are the ones who were able to successfully manage both their studies and a reasonable amount of social activities. That said, they still worked a heck of a lot more than your average person in the business school, but not everyone’s life has to be totally dominated by engineering.</p>
<p>To answer the actual question of the thread:</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t subscribe to the theory that certain engineering schools are innately harder than others. I feel like there are some lesser programs that are innately easier, but I don’t really think even the very top schools are harder as far as the material goes. The difference is the level of competition. When everyone around you is an incredibly intelligent individual, it is more likely that you will feel behind or even fall behind in classes graded on a curve (I personally didn’t have many classes graded on a true curve), but that doesn’t make the material itself any harder than at other schools.</p>
<p>That said, ANY engineering school will be hard if you (a) don’t like the material and/or (b) aren’t willing to work as hard as necessary to keep up.</p>
<p>during junior year, I averaged one all-nighter per week.</p>
<p>all-nighter means 7:00 pm (after dinner) to 8:00 am the next day, or 13 hours non-stop.</p>
<p>studying for finals and mid-terms, of course, is a differnt story. It would not be uncommon for students to study 15-20 hours per day for a week at a time.</p>