Good engineering colleges?

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2600
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by 2600 »

Harvey Mudd.http://www.hmc.edu

Rose-Hulman. http://www.rose-hulman.edu

And there's always Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute. http://www.rpi.edu Seems to me an almost-alumnus renamed it "Rainselday Polytorture Institechnitute". Good program, though.

All tres expensive.

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magician13134
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by magician13134 »

My neighbors are at Rose-Hulman, they like it there, and one of my friends looked there and really liked it, but I think I'm looking for something a little bigger.

Thanks for the schools guys, I've already got three apps in (two more to go), and now I'm just waiting for (hopefully) acceptance letters.

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macegr
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by macegr »

I went to Rose-Hulman. I managed to graduate in four years, but I would recommend it only if you've never gotten less than an A on any test, don't like to be outside and meet people, and ideally have some medical condition that allows you to focus on homework for every waking hour that you aren't eating or in class. Probably the same for Harvey Mudd. The RHIT quarter system means you have 50% more classes per year, and the fact that all the teachers are actual professors means they believe their class is the only one you have right now.

It's certainly a challenge. You'll definitely test your limits, and occasionally, that's fun. But four straight years of the EE program and I had already started going gray. If you're the kind of person who finds this kind of school easy, you'll be curing cancer or inventing the warp drive sooner or later.

I would say go to a large state school that is known for having a good program in your desired field. Not only will you get better grades, you'll have more time to relax and work on your own ideas and projects.

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westfw
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by westfw »

RHIT sounds like a lot of "highly competitive" schools. I like your characterization of "Professors", but you left out the obnoxious fact some professors can't teach worth beans...

I had a prof who said he generally expected that students would spend twice as much time working (studying, homework, etc) outside of class as was spent inside class. With an average class being 3hours/week, and the EE program generally 5 classes at a time; that's 60hours/week of "work."

(Of course, given the previous comments about lack of prep for real-world employment, this sort of "he'll work 50hours/week and be happy because it's less than he's used to AND he's getting paid for it instead of having to pay for it" attitude is probably one of the main things prospective employers are looking for.)

koolkat
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by koolkat »

magician, what math classes are you in?

magician13134
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by magician13134 »

8th - Algebra I
9th - Geometry
10th - Alegebra II/Programming I/II
11th - Pre-calc/AP Comp Sci
12th - AP Calc/Comp Sci

koolkat
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by koolkat »

couldnt you have taken 2 maths in one year?

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westfw
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by westfw »

koolkat wrote:couldnt you have taken 2 maths in one year?
Note usually; math classes tend to be VERY linear (more so than anything else in high school besides languages, I guess.) You just have to take "pre-calc" before "calc" and so on. In our (my kids') school district, the "double accelerated" math students have the option of taking statistics in their senior year (having done calc in Jr year), and I can vaguely see taking statistics in parallel with another math class, but...

In general, though, I think it may be better to focus AP efforts on classes somewhat outside your "major" track. For an engineer, a high school AP english class with 30 people beats the college "weed-out-pre-BANNED" english class with 200 people hands down, while the AP CompSci class might be significantly out-of-sync with how the university teaches things ("Oh, you didn't talk about any lisp-like languages?") (There was a time when I was in college when math, physics, and EE classes were all marvelously in-sync. Which was a bit strange, since theoretically I was a semester ahead of the normal math track...) Of course, this is concerning using your AP credits toward graduation/requirements; having major-related AP classes on your HS transcript might help you GET IN, whether or not you get "credit" for them.

magician13134
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by magician13134 »

The more I listen to you guys, the more I want to stay in high school forever... College is starting to sound like... not fun. I thought that I would really enjoy it since I'd get to pick what I was doing (for instance, I LOVE my computer and physics classes now)... but I'm starting to doubt that... Blech... The worst thing is that I've developed a habit of being quite lazy and apathetic about school work (senioritis if you will), but I really need to get out of this mindset, and quick, if I plan on doing well at all in college, it sounds like... (Anyone have any tips on how to NOT procrastinate?!)

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macegr
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by macegr »

magician13134 wrote:(Anyone have any tips on how to NOT procrastinate?!)
I've found that the best strategy is to tell yourself that you can always procrastinate tomorrow.

The_Don125
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by The_Don125 »

magician13134 wrote:The more I listen to you guys, the more I want to stay in high school forever... College is starting to sound like... not fun. I thought that I would really enjoy it since I'd get to pick what I was doing (for instance, I LOVE my computer and physics classes now)... but I'm starting to doubt that... Blech... The worst thing is that I've developed a habit of being quite lazy and apathetic about school work (senioritis if you will), but I really need to get out of this mindset, and quick, if I plan on doing well at all in college, it sounds like... (Anyone have any tips on how to NOT procrastinate?!)
It will of course depend on where you go to school and how many credit hours you take. If you take 18+ credit hours, yes, you'll feel the grind most likely, but if you enter with a ton of AP credit, you may never need more than 15 credit hours per semester. If you go to one of those top private schools as well, you'll *probably* be pushed a bit harder than a public school. As for classes, I can't speak for other colleges, but the first three or four semesters here are generally filled with prerequisite classes like calculus, physics, statistics, etc. Here at U of I though, you can take the EE core classes right from the start, generally one per semester, and then by Junior year, the only classes you'll be taking are strictly for your major, and any electives you want. So far I've found my physics and electrical engineering core classes to be quite enjoyable. Very challenging, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Besides, classes make up only a (large) part of what you do at college, if you go to a larger school, you'll have more student clubs to choose from than you ever thought possible, smaller schools will have them too, just not in as large of numbers or variety.

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westfw
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by westfw »

I did not particularly enjoy college, compared to high school. On the other hand, I know a lot of people that really hated high school, too.
You'll want to watch course requirements pretty carefully, especially if you're interested in taking electives. The requirements may not allow for many electives in areas you want to take. For instance, I was interested in the CSEE sort of program, but it didn't exist. So I did the EE degree and took most of the CS classes as my technical electives. Which left me with only non-technical electives as places where there was a real choice. :-(
You could plan on a 5-year program, if you can afford it... That would take a lot of pressure off and/or free of a lot of choices...

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macegr
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by macegr »

I'd cruise along with the default EE program for now, re-evaluate in a couple years based on how the engineering employment market is doing. I entered school during a boom and exited school during a time when Motorola had actually removed their careers page from their website. If the outlook is bad, plan for a couple more years and either get a double major or go for a masters.

I didn't do any of that, so I ended up pretending to be a mechanical engineer and then a project manager for a few years. The experience was valuable, but didn't help that much when trying to find EE jobs.

Tipp
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by Tipp »

I won't lie; University thus far has been one of the biggest challenges of my life. Classes are difficult and you really have to work hard, but once you get into it, procrastination isn't really an issue. You start taking on a mindset that, yes, it's hard work, but you also realize that you've just gotta get it done. :) At this point, don't work yourself up about it. Quite frankly, University, while difficult, is also fun. You get to work towards something you love! Relax and roll with it. 8)

For me, the most difficult problem I have is that I'm always wanting to work on my own projects and tinker with stuff, and while I don't consider this "procrastination", it certainly presents a big distraction. I find the best way to get my work done, is to think "After I'm finished this, I can work on my project more!" :) As retarded as that probably sounds, you'll realize just how important it becomes.

Also, as a tip, become good at math. :D My engineering mathematics class is painful. However, the most amazing resources you can find will probably be YouTube and, gasp, BANNED. There are tons of YouTube videos that have people explaining mathematical concepts, and it's helped me a ton. Watching it being explained is far more useful then just reading about it. Find BANNED with compiled information. There are lots of educational trackers out there! Pick up Calculus for Dummies from your local bookstore. It will be your first year engineering BANNED.

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westfw
 
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Re: Good engineering colleges?

Post by westfw »

What he said about the math. I was looking at some of my old EE books a while ago, and I didn't even remember what some of the symbols meant.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_mechanics Those "dotted" symbols... Sigh. That wasn't one of the better classes in school, though, and it was only the one, never used again. Those are ... painful.)

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