@GB1904: With respect for your father, his conclusion (citied in your initial post) is based on a premise that I – and I, too, am a “technical person,” having spent 40+ years in tactical aviation engineering and program management, as a naval officer and a Lockheed Martin executive – find most unlikely. Let’s presume that for the extremely rare UNDERGRADUATE prodigy in a STEM field (I’ll use physics, simply to illustrate my point), “a Purdue” might conceivably provide marginally more “scientific and technical” education than “a Smith” (I am not at all certain that is true, but I want to give your father’s position every possible advantage).
However my central point is, the overwhelming majority undergraduates – including exceptionally bright, accomplished, and focused ones – will NEVER approach the academic/intellectual limits provided at either “a Smith” or “a Purdue”. Therefore, on the day of her/his Bachelor’s commencement, both young alums will essentially be equally prepared for careers and for postgraduate school.
Add to this a few quite relevant elements:
- The cross-registration permitted at UMass can allow for course not available at Mount Holyoke (go Lions), Smith, etc.
- More critically, the learning imparted from all those liberal arts courses – that many pure-STEM undergraduates at “a Purdue” seldom take – really does provide highly important benefits. As my career evolved and I became responsible for larger programs, for the performance of many hundreds of colleagues, and for billions of dollars of taxpayer money, I increasing relied on my in- and beyond-classroom liberal arts background. At some point in his/her career, many STEM leaders will have lots of teammates to do the math, science, engineering, and operations “grunt work;” their vital job will be the combination of management, systems and program integration, leadership, prudent decision making, and judicious/farsighted aggregate program execution.
If you believe it might be wise, please share this post with your father.