<p>O.k. USNews rates Cornell's EP program as the best. And I've seen various instances on the web where their program is praised to high heaven. </p>
<p>But what's the reason? Any Cornell students out their who could give some good reasons? Or anyone else?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>As a current engineering freshman at Cornell, i know for a fact that AEP at cornell has the toughest requirements for any major.</p>
<p>You need above a B- in ALL your Math and Physics courses before you can affiliate, and it is impressed on you to take a tougher phyics courseload than the other engineers. Therefore, if u slip up in one class, or one final exam, you can't affiliate with the major</p>
<p>Id say due to its rigor and diffculty, only the cream of the Cornell Engineering crop can affiliate with the major. This could be why it is ranked so high </p>
<p>Im sure there many are other "better" reasons but this is the only one i know.</p>
<p>Thanks illmatic,</p>
<p>That helps me a lot. It sounds just like what I'm looking for. :) If anyone else has any other reasons, I'd love to hear them.</p>
<p>Seek out a guy named shizz on this forum. He majored in Engineering Physics at Cornell and really knows his stuff. He will give you a great insight into the field and the program.</p>
<p>I think a big reason why Cornell's EP program is ranked so highly is simply through default. A lot of the heavy tech hitters like MIT, Caltech, and Stanford simply don't offer EP programs. It's easier to win a title when the big boys don't even show up to play. </p>
<p>That doesn't make the Cornell EP program bad. In fact, from what I've heard, it's quite good. However, whenever you hear a school touting the ranking of its programs, you ought to pay heed to who the competition is.</p>
<p>Sakky, I am pretty sure that some of the heavy hitters offer EP. Among them, Cal, CalTech, MIT, Michigan and Princeton. At least, all of those universities have top 10 EP programs according to the USNWR. So Cornell is indeed competing against some of the heavy hitters.</p>
<p>MIT has EP? That's news to me. And that's news to anybody at MIT. What course number is it? Where is it taught? Where is the department located?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mit.edu/education/%5B/url%5D">http://www.mit.edu/education/</a>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/engineering/ddlcp/index.html#departments%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/engineering/ddlcp/index.html#departments</a></p>
<p>And Caltech also has EP? That's news to my brother, who spent 4 years there and never heard of it. So, where is the department located? How do you get a Caltech EP degree?</p>
<p>Sakky, I only know what the rankings say. I am not sure if MIT has an actual department for EP, but it is ranked #5 in EP according to the USNWR. And CalTech is ranked #2 in EP according to the USNWR. </p>
<p>I know for a fact that Cal, Michigan, Princeton and UIUC all have actualy departments in Applied Physics or in Enginering Science/Engineering Physics.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/engsci/%5B/url%5D">http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/engsci/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.engin.umich.edu/departments/%5B/url%5D">http://www.engin.umich.edu/departments/</a></p>
<p>I am sure you can agree that those four Engineering programs can be described as "heavy hitters".</p>
<p>This is a case where I think either USNews has it dead-wrong, or they're using some definition of EP that I am not aware of. </p>
<p>What I can tell you is this. Neither MIT nor Caltech have a EP/ES department that I nor anybody else that I know is aware of, nor do they have EP/ES listed anywhere in their course catalogs. Nor do they have it listed in their student handbooks as a possible course of study. The alumni/commencement databases indicate that nobody has graduated with an EP/ES degree in at least in the last 5 years at Caltech, and not in at least the last 25 years from MIT. Nor has there ever been a course-number designation for EP/ES at MIT, and every MIT course of study requires a course number (hence EECS = course 6, Sloan = course 15, ChemE = course 10, EP/ES = ?) </p>
<p>So it seems to me that if USNews has somehow decided to include MIT and Caltech in its EP/ES rankings, then both of these schools aren't exactly competing very hard for the title. After all, I would think that in order to really compete for the crown for the best EP/ES program, you would actually want to HAVE an EP/ES program. At best I would say that USNews ought to put a big asterisk next to MIT and Caltech to say that they don't "really" have an EP/ES program and they are being included in the EP ranking just for the sake of completeness.</p>
<p>I think this speaks volumes about the accuracy of the USNews rankings.</p>
<p>Jma, no ranking is perfect. That's why this forum is so good. The possibility of a mistake going unseen with som many critical eyes is next to nil. But if you remove CalTech and MIT from the ranking of the top EP/ES departments, you probably have a pretty accurate ranking.</p>
<p>Nope. No "Engineering Physics" at MIT. And no create-a-major, either, so I really can't see how one would then concentrate in it, or how the department could be considered any good. It still somehow managed to beat out all but a few schools in the country, though =</p>
<p>I wouldn't be considering a double major if EP were a non-fictional department.</p>
<p>Sakky, it is true that MIT does not offer a formal Engineering Physics undergraduate degree. The Physics department does, however, offer THREE degree paths, one of which is called the Course VIII-Flexible option. Do you think one can cobble up an EP program out of this option? Is that, perhaps, the intent behind this option? Do you know what a typical Course VIII-Flexible program looks like?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Nope. No "Engineering Physics" at MIT. And no create-a-major, either, so I really can't see how one would then concentrate in it, or how the department could be considered any good. It still somehow managed to beat out all but a few schools in the country, though =\
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hey, maybe that's a testament to how highly regarded MIT really is. MIT is so prestigious that it can earn high rankings for programs that don't even exist. </p>
<p>Or maybe that's what the mysterious course 19 is all about. Funny, I always though that course 19 was 'Hacking', but maybe it's secretly been EP all this time, and nobody ever knew it. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, when it comes to rankings of non-existent programs, looks like Caltech has MIT beat. Caltech's EP/ES non-program beats MIT's EP/ES non-program. Darn those Pasadena sunshine boys! </p>
<p>But I wouldn't lament too much for MIT. Who I feel really bad for are all those schools that actually did worse than MIT. Just think of the indignity. You go through all the trouble and expense of creating an actual bonafide EP/ES program only to get beat by a nonexistent program. In other words, if MIT's EP program is nothing, your program must then be worse than nothing. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky, it is true that MIT does not offer a formal Engineering Physics undergraduate degree. The Physics department does, however, offer THREE degree paths, one of which is called the Course VIII-Flexible option. Do you think one can cobble up an EP program out of this option? Is that, perhaps, the intent behind this option? Do you know what a typical Course VIII-Flexible program looks like?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First off, I am not aware that course 8 offers 3 programs. I thought they only offered 2.</p>
<p>Now, as far as the flexible option goes, I suppose you could cobble together something that strongly resembles an EP program. But heck, you can do that at any physics program at almost any school. </p>
<p>As far as what a typical Course 8 flexible program would look like, you can see some from the link above.</p>
<p>Actually- I'm considering an 8b major (what you call the course 8 flexible program) along with 16. It really is only more flexible in terms of the NUMBER of classes that you need to take, in that it allows you to fit in more classes outside of the requirement. It makes the assumption that 8b majors will then fill in the rest of their schedules with physics classes in the particular discipline that interests them most- be it astrophysics, particle physics, quantum, whatever. 8b also makes double-majoring with physics, though by no means easy, a FEASIBLE option. So if your two majors are engineering and physics, well, take out the 'and' and it looks a lot like engineering physics :)</p>
<p>Thanks, pebbles. Do you know what most people do after they graduate with VIII-Flexible?</p>
<p>("The Physics Department offers three different programs leading to a Bachelor of Science in Physics": <a href="http://web.mit.edu/physics/undergrad/firstyear/degreereqs.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/physics/undergrad/firstyear/degreereqs.html</a> )</p>
<p>I should point out that it's hard to rank engineering science programs because there isn't a commonly-held definition of engineering science. Princeton's program is actually something of a minor for engineering or physics students, not a full-on major! </p>
<p>One can make a case for including applied physics, applied mechanics, "engineering and applied science", and other such courses in rankings of engineering science programs because of the vagueness of the term. Caltech has such programs.</p>
<p>That said, USNews's inclusion of schools that clearly do not have engineering science programs in the engineering science ranking is yet another testimony to the lack of rigor in their rankings.</p>
<p>Quentin articulates exactly what I assumed USNews to be basing their ranking on. I severly doubt they just threw Caltech and MIT in just because they are so prestigious. Caltech, for example, only made it onto 2 specialties lists: Engineering Physics/Science and Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronomical engineering.</p>
<p>4thfloor-</p>
<p>this page should be useful to you:</p>
<p>and you should be able to view it since it doesn't seem to require a certificate. If you scroll to the bottom you can access the various requirements for a bachelor's degree in either 8 or 8b. From what I've heard speaking to upperclassmen and the such, most 8b majors have specialty interests elsewhere- double majoring or majoring and minoring. In some cases, they want more flexibility in the degree program, in others, they're having trouble passing some classes in the full 8 program. Either way, 8b's aren't much different from 8's and would either follow a career track in physics or their other major/minor as the case may be.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>Even among the 4 schools you mentioned, Berkeley doesn't really have an "engineering physics" "department. It's sorta like a concentration within the "engineering sciences" department. UIUC doesn't have engineering physics department either. Just because its physics department is in their school of engineering doesn't make it "engineering physics" (UIUC is odd in putting ChemE under their school of arts and sciences also).</p>