Yale engineering

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>I'm thinking about majoring in chemical engineering at Yale. I enjoy the humanities and think that Yale would be a good fit, but I'm not too sure about the engineering department. </p>

<p>Here are some of my concerns:</p>

<p>1) I saw that only five chemical engineers graduated last year. With this kind of class size, how is the collaborative teamwork between students? At universities with more engineering students, I would expect that many of the students study and work together. Is it easy to find other engineering students to work with at Yale?</p>

<p>2) How are the resources for hands-on learning and research? Considering the size of the engineering department, do the classes mostly teach theory? I am aware that Yale has spent a lot of money lately on its engineering and science departments.</p>

<p>3) Is Yale engineering a solid idea if I'm not interested in finance and consulting? I'm interested in finding a traditional engineering job, but I'm not sure how well Yale prepares me for that. </p>

<p>Thanks for any advice.</p>

2

<p>I have the same questions regarding their other engineering disciplines. Deserves a bump.</p>

3

<p>

</p>

<p>Be sure to apply to ABET approved programs. Perhaps look in another direction, Purdue, Ga tech, MIT, RIT, CalTech, UCs</p>

<p>Edited to say–I see you are trying to choose between Rice and Yale. Both are nice schools. If chemical engineering is your thing–then drill down into those depts before choosing. Good luck…</p>

4

<p>^ Yale chemical engineering is ABET-accredited (so are mechanical, materials, and electrical).</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the responses. I’ve decided to choose Yale if FA works out for me.</p>

<p>However, if anyone else with knowledge of Yale engineering wishes to contribute to this thread, I think it would be helpful for several others.</p>

6

<p>Yale last year graduated only 60 students in all of engineering and claim to have a 1:1 ratio in terms of graduating students vs number of professors at 60 to 60. </p>

<p>Have you visited Yale?</p>

7

<p>Engineering at Yale is very nice! I am not an engineering student, but I am a math/science nerd who has been known to hang out in the engineering building. They have very nice facilities, lot of professors, and tons of money, meaning if you want to do any sort of project or get involved with research it is VERY easy. Also most of the majors have their own little club, which brings in speakers and host social events.</p>

<p>As far as hands on experience, I don’t know specifically about chemical engineering (usually they don’t showcase off the cool chemicals they make :P) but mechanical engineering is rather hands on. There are groups making robots, formula 1 cars, and a year or two ago some students made a cute spokeless bicycle. Introductory courses I believe usually have a fabrication element to them where you learn and use the machine tools.</p>

8

<p>hi, so I’m not an engineering major by any means, but I know at least 4 of the engineers who will graduate this year (ChemE, EE, BioE, mystery) and a first year grad student in MechE, so I’ll tell you that honestly, I haven’t heard complaints beyond the usual ones(classes are hard, too much work, etc.) They all seem happy with their choices (Yale and Engineering) and have great plans lined up after graduation(awesome job, a million awesome grad schools, etc.) So I don’t thimk Yale engineering really lets you down… :P</p>

<p>On a sidenote, were you at YES-W? If not, the engineering website should have useful information.</p>

<p>I do however, have no idea how the hands on vs theory dichotomy plays out.</p>

9

<p>Thanks for the responses.</p>

10

<p>Bump. About the future options for Yale engineering graduates - do a decent number find jobs, or do most go to graduate school?</p>

<p>After reading the comments following a Yale Daily News article titled “A small school with grand ambitions,” I’m doubtful about the job market for Yale engineering graduates.</p>

<p>I’d like the option to enter the work force in a traditional engineering job, instead of continuing to grad school.</p>

11

<p>No one can guarantee you a job, no matter which school you go to in 2016 May.</p>

12

<p>I know that no one can guarantee me a job.</p>

<p>I’m wondering whether a Yale engineering BS puts me at a disadvantage compared to a BS engineering degree from a place like Rice or UCLA. </p>

<p>One comment following the article mentioned that engineering employers were not even aware that Yale had an engineering department.</p>

13

<p>You should probably send a message to classicrockerdad. He seems to be someone who actively recruits engineers at various colleges.</p>

14

<p>As a self proclaimed math/science nerd at Yale, can you comment on the math or applied math progams at Yale?</p>

15

<p>Thanks for the responses.</p>

<p>I thought about majoring in applied math, but I’m not interested in finance or business.</p>

16

Disclosure: I am a Yale College (undergrad) Engineering graduate (ABET BS Mech. Eng. 2003) with a job in mainstream engineering. I have been working at General Electric in design engineering for about 10 years.

Replies above seem about on target, but I’ll offer a few additional words to attempt to round out answers to the questions at the top, as best I can from my mostly 1999-2003 perspective:

Q1) Ease of collaboration and teamwork in Yale Engineering?
A1) The small size of the department usually means you are taking classes with the same people much of the time. As long as your classmates are friendly and interested in collaborative learning, teamwork should be readily available.

I was on the sailing team with 2 others (of 10 that year) in Mechanical Engineering, lived with these guys senior year and worked with them all the time for a few years. Our typical upper-class study group expanded to include some other MechEs as class enrollment and academic guidelines permitted. Freshman year was easier since classes were usually prerequisites and larger. I believe Yale at least was generally collaborative in the sense you ask about.

Q2) Resources for hands-on?
A2) My typical answer to this question is that Yale has generally been more theoretical and less hands-on, but was trying to be more hands-on when I was there near 2003 and appears to have persisted in this direction since then. I recall from 2003 that Yale had 2 machine shops and 1 3D printer. Yale should have more in the 3D printing area than that by now.

Note that while the field of engineering expands every year, the duration of a Yale engineering degree is still 4 years, as far as I know. I believe an old Yale justification for being more theoretical was that Yale students are smart enough to learn the hands-on techniques on their own, and eventually will. When I took Yale’s “CAD” class, we didn’t learn how to use AutoCAD/SolidWorks/UG, etc. we wrote CAD software, arguably learning the more difficult aspects of CAD.

Another part of the answer is that if you want to be hands-on, you can be hands on - just get Yale to cook up a class for you, make your senior project hands-on, do summer interships in hands-on oriented companies, join/rejuvenate engineering clubs doing hands-on work, etc.

When looking into this question again today, I found the websites below.

Yale OpenHand Project: http://www.eng.yale.edu/grablab/openhand/
The Center for Engineering Innovation & Design: http://hshm.yale.edu/center-engineering-innovation-and-design
The Yale Engineering Design Team: http://www.yale.edu/yedt/index.html

See also my answer to Q3.

Q3) Does a degree from Yale in Engineering prepare you for a role in traditional engineering?
A3) My answer is “it can certainly be the path you choose.” I view Yale’s ABET accreditation as a main link to traditional engineering that Yale should still be preserving.

Yale still appears to view Engineering in the larger scope of solving humanity’s problems in an integrated fashion (see reference to humanities at top of http://seas.yale.edu/undergraduate-study), but has careful mention of design of devices and systems and “modern software tools” which aim in the direction of more traditional engineering.

Though schools like Penn State, Ohio State, Virginia and Georgia Tech, etc. may feed traditional engineering firms more heavily than Yale and have a stronger network into these positions, there is still a Yale network that can offer some support and much of the theoretical coursework at Yale uses some of the same textbooks that are used at more engineering-focused schools. When I started at GE, I felt a bit behind some colleagues from state schools in the hands-on area (thermocouples, automobile system design, Finite Element, CAD, CFD software, etc.) but picked it up after a while and now feel I’m running a little ahead. Traditional engineering company entry-level training programs and internal training options can be used to help bridge some of these gaps, if they still exist.

And in case Yale doesn’t yet have a decent engineering career fair, you can drive down to the Princeton Engineering fair like my roommates and I did to find yourself a job.

To leverage my misreading of Q3:

Q4) Does a degree from Yale in Engineering prepare you for finance and consulting?
A4) My answer is yes. Of the 9 other Mechanical Engineers, I graduated with, I recall 2 or 3 ended up in finance or consulting. I usually add that a degree in engineering prepares you to handle quantitative aspects of hard sciences. If you can do that, you can certainly handle the easier (but perhaps more remunerative) task of the quantitative aspects of finance and consulting. As a bonus, you actually get some understanding of the companies you are working for or on, so the engineers don’t just laugh at you.