<p>I said that they shouldn’t offer AB’s in engineering because that is a pathetic attempt for an engineering degree. So if that’s the best they can do, don’t offer it at all, because it’s embarrassing. But to be even better, and to be truly considered a top elite (none of this 50 schools are considered top elites) they should offer real engineering degrees (since it isn’t some obscure or rare field of study-though it seems it’s that way to hmom) and be good at it too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this is precisely the point of contention. Is it really better for a school to not even offer a particular program at all than to offer an, as you say, relatively weak one? That is to say, would Harvard really be better if it didn’t offer engineering? </p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t see it. See below. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ha! I wish I could agree with you about the supposed popularity of engineering, but the fact is, it really isn’t. Engineering degrees - of all engineering majors - comprise less than 5% of all bachelor’s degrees conferred in the United States every year. </p>
<p>[Bachelor’s</a> degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by field of study: Selected years, 1970–71 through 2006–07](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_271.asp]Bachelor’s”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_271.asp)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, all I can tell you is that, whether we like it or not, the vast majority of cross-admits of Berkeley, Michigan or even Stanford to Harvard will indeed choose Harvard. Are they just all being dumb?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First off, whoever said it was the “best they can do”? Harvard offers a fully ABET accredited BS degree as well as the AB. </p>
<p>Personally, I wish more engineering schools would offer the AB along with the BS, for doing so provides students with more choice about what degree they want to have. Not everybody who wants to study engineering actually needs an accredited engineering degree. Some students simply want to study engineering within a liberal arts context.</p>
<p>Agree with you 100% Morsmordre. I have to say sakky the above post really sounds like you’re making excuses for Harvard being relatively weak in an important area of study. Harvard is the most famous school on the planet, but some of it’s cheerleaders here just can’t seem to admit that it is not great in all fields of study that it teaches.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but many of those majors are not majors that students looking at top schools even mention as their field of choice, like for instance: education, consumer science, park studies, public administration to just name a few. Since pretty much no top school is offering it and almost no top students are wanting it, you’d have to discount those majors or consider it a black mark against all top schools, which in the end does nothing to change my point. Also, this list separates CS and engineering which are, at least at my school, considered part of the same department. On the other hand, there are obviously a lot of smart students considering engineering when you look at Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Michigan, Caltech, etc.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First off I want statistics, especially on that last one. How do you define “vast majority”? Secondly, the vast majority of people do certain things, doesn’t make them right or smart for doing it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At least according to people I know at Dartmouth to get the BS you almost need 5 years. And secondly, an AB in engineering is just ridiculous. It’s a mish-mosh of classes and is more popular to the engineering students at H and Y and that’s why I’m saying it’s the best they can do. It’s a bastardization of an engineering degree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Rjkofnovi, help me out here. Perhaps you could ask Morsmordre why her beloved Stanford doesn’t offer undergraduate business as a major. After all, business is even more popular than engineering, right? And your bone of contention has always been regarding the undergraduate program (which is why you never seemed to care that Berkeley lacked a medical school), right? Are you prepared to argue that Berkeley is better than Stanford because Berkeley does offer business as an undergrad major?</p>
<p>Or are you going to contend that Stanford should receive, as you call it, a “free pass” because they don’t even offer a business undergrad major at all?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First off I’m a he. Secondly, Stanford offers Management Science which is relatively close to an undergraduate business major. Thirdly, engineering is not like business. You can get many of the skills for business from economics, applied math, management science, etc. But try emulating that with engineering. You can’t just combine physics, math, and chemistry and call it Chemical Engineering. You can’t get an engineering job without an engineering degree or with an AB in engineering. But you sure as hell can get a business job with the fields of study I listed in my fourth sentence. So lets compare apples to apples.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure:</p>
<p>[Mathacle</a> Blog: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford Cross-Admits for the Class of 2012](<a href=“http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2008/06/harvard-yale-princeton-and-stanford.html]Mathacle”>Mathacle's Blog: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford Cross-Admits for the Class of 2012)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not at all close to 1:1. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Therein lies the contradiction in your logic.</p>
<p>First you say that: “a lot of smart students considering engineering when you look at Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Michigan, Caltech, etc”</p>
<p>But then it is also true that Harvard wins the cross-admit battle with every one of those schools. {Which is not particularly surprising or embarrassing, for Harvard beats every school, including Yale, in cross-admits.} Note that these aren’t just “any” old students, these are the very best students in the country. Yet the majority of them seem to prefer Harvard. Why?</p>
<p>^^^No I am not. You can only compare schools with like programs. Stanford offers engineering, so does Harvard. Berkeley offers the BBA, so does Michigan. Those programs you can compare. Sorry my response was so late.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>If we are talking only undergrad then we need to disregard all that NRC ranking data back in post #50, since that deals only with ranking <em>graduate</em> programs (and not to mention that the data are 14 years old). However, it has long been my observation that a school booster bent on proving the total wonderfulness of his/her school at the expense of other schools will freely jump to whatever data supports their point whether relevant and current or not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My apologies. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Relatively close” ain’t the same. In contrast, Berkeley actually offers an actual BS in business, run directly by the Haas School. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>O RLY? Actually, you can. </p>
<p>Just to give you an example, consider some of the recent graduates in physics from Berkeley. Physics is not an engineering degree, and Berkeley doesn’t offer BS degrees in physics (only BA’s). Seems to me that some of them nevertheless were hired as engineers. Maybe somebody forgot to tell AMD that people can’t get engineering jobs without engineering degrees. </p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/Physics.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/Physics.stm</a></p>
<p>sakky the first sentence of your “statistics” starts with:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s no hard proof of it going in Harvard’s direction as the vast majority, and anyway I’m not here to discuss that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps I should have been more clear. I’m saying that there are top students who are considering engineering unlike there are almost no top students considering the fields of study that I mentioned previously. To prove it, I said, look at Stanford, et. al. They have students in engineering so clearly there are quite a few top students in the country considering in engineering. If you show me that there are top students considering fields like “park studies” I’ll rest my case.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, Berkeley offers the BS in business, not the BBA. </p>
<p>But nevertheless, the point stands: Stanford doesn’t offer undergraduate business - why doesn’t that concern you?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, we aren’t comparing apples to apples. Someone should tell Yale and Dartmouth to update their pages:</p>
<p>
[Electrical</a> Engineering | Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science | New Haven CT](<a href=“http://www.seas.yale.edu/departments-electrical.php]Electrical”>http://www.seas.yale.edu/departments-electrical.php)</p>
<p>
[Undergraduate</a> Studies](<a href=“http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/index.html]Undergraduate”>http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/index.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have to say that I think you’re making excuses for Berkeley and Stanford. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I like Berkeley and Stanford. I have deep connections to both schools, and have discussed both of them at great length on CC. I’d also like to think I’m versed in the field of engineering. </p>
<p>However, I’m still mystified as to why every school needs to offer top engineering programs (or no engineering program at all). Why is that so important? If you really want to be an engineer, then you don’t have to go to Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>No BBA at Berkeley? I stand corrected.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I fail to see your point. I am simply correcting your factual error and establishing that you don’t need a BS engineering degree, or even any engineering degree at all, to get an engineering job.</p>
<p>Heck, I know a girl who used to work as a process engineer at Intel. She didn’t have an engineering degree at all - her degree was in chemistry. Apparently somebody forgot to inform Intel that she couldn’t work as an engineer because she lacked a ‘proper’ engineering degree.</p>
<p>That’s true that you don’t have to go to H or Y if you want to be an engineer. But the question still stands why should they be considered really to be among the best, or the best in the nation if they don’t offer a strong engineering program. I used to think H and Y were amongst the best too because of other redeeming factors, but I think I’m erroneous in my thinking because other schools have those redeeming factors and offer strong programs across the board in fields of study that nearly all top students would be interested in.</p>
<p>sakky, you’re correct that you’ll be able to get some engineering jobs without engineering degrees. But can you get the whole gamut? To be a fully fledged Civil Engineer you’ll need to pass the PE exam, which you can only take if you got an ABET accredited engineering degree. Sure there will be firms that will be willing to hire outside of ABET accredited engineering degrees, but is that really the norm?</p>
<p>“However, I’m still mystified as to why every school needs to offer top engineering programs (or no engineering program at all). Why is that so important? If you really want to be an engineer, then you don’t have to go to Harvard or Yale.”</p>
<p>You are correct in the above statement sakky. Harvard and Yale don’t have to offer top notch engineering programs. They don’t. Yet they still get credited for being “elite” institutions. My point of contention is, and has been, that top elite institutions should not offer ANY programs that aren’t elite. It’s like they’re using their brand name to convince others that they’re great at everything, when in fact they are not. HYPSM are all considered elite on CC, but it’s important to let others know that some of them are not the leaders and best in some major areas of study that they teach at their institutions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Similarly, I could ask the question of why Stanford should be considered a top school if it doesn’t even offer the highly popular business major. And I say that as somebody who’s a strong proponent of Stanford, which you can verify through my past posts. </p>
<p>Look, the point is, I still don’t see why every school needs to offer a top-ranked engineering program in order to be considered a top school, just like MIT doesn’t offer a top-ranked English program. If you want to be an engineer, then maybe you should choose Stanford (or MIT) over Harvard. If you want to be an English major, then you probably shouldn’t go to MIT. Is that so controversial? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Look, the fact is, every school offers a different menu of programs of differing strengths. Not every school even offers every possible major, and certainly not at similar ranking levels. For example, if you want a bachelor’s degree in nursing, you can’t go to Harvard, Stanford, MIT or Berkeley (but you could go to Michigan). If you want a bachelor’s degree in education, you can’t go to any of them. </p>
<p>And besides, I think y’all are placing far too much emphasis on the majors anyway. See below. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. ABET rules differ from state to state, and some states, notably California, actually do allow people to become Professional Engineers without ABET accreditation.</p>
<p>But more importantly, the truth is that, balefully, many - perhaps most - engineering students at the top-ranked schools don’t really want to work as engineers, at least not for very long, instead preferring to go to non-engineering grad school (i.e. med school, law school) or become consultants or bankers. Half of all MIT undergraduates who enter the workforce will take jobs in banking or consulting (and the Sloanies represent only a small fraction of those students). Even those who do take engineering jobs often times leave the profession after only a few years, often times to earn their MBA’s (whereupon they then usually become bankers and consultants).</p>