Engineering/CS at a LAC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb to attend a LAC for Eng/CS.

Yes, unless you want a sound, well-rounded education.

+1

It’s for those who wants liberal arts education AND engineering. You’ll be surprised to learn that many engineering schools emphasize and value liberal arts background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of reasons to recommend small school engineering programs. My niece did engineering at Swarthmore (and a semester at Mudd, I believe) and ended up doing grad work MIT, so clearly they see the value. I think MIT is the most common destination.

Sure, if your plan is to go to grad school, but if not, I would not do small SLAC for CS.

MIT will take undergrads from SLAC, of course. But, if your destination is the job market just out of college, I don't think SLACs for CS is your best bet.

16% Oberlin CS students take a job at Google.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not recommend a SLAC for CS/Engineering. I went to one for science and you are restricted by limited offerings and resources. No way can a small school match the courses, robotics teams, research opportunities of a big school like Michigan or Cornell. And you won’t get the variety of professors either.

Problem is all those resources you mentioned are available mainly to grad students, not to undergrads. This is where LACs come in. High performing students even research with profs and PUBLISH their papers in professional journals. How can you beat that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

16% Oberlin CS students take a job at Google.

Well someone needs to be in charge of censoring conservative YouTube videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

16% Oberlin CS students take a job at Google.

Well someone needs to be in charge of censoring conservative YouTube videos.

You’ll be surprised. Silicon Valley politics go better with Oberlin values than with Hillsdale’s.

[Anonymous]

I would not recommend a SLAC for CS/Engineering. I went to one for science and you are restricted by limited offerings and resources. No way can a small school match the courses, robotics teams, research opportunities of a big school like Michigan or Cornell. And you won’t get the variety of professors either.

Smaller schools come with different advantages that larger schools lack like small classes, connections with professors, and research opprotunities from the very first semester, zero or minimal competition with grad students for opportunities, tight knit and very loyal alumni networks, Etc.

Problem is all those resources you mentioned are available mainly to grad students, not to undergrads. This is where LACs come in. High performing students even research with profs and PUBLISH their papers in professional journals. How can you beat that?"

All of these things are somewhat true but also blatantly false depending on which SLAC and which university you try to compare it with.

The vast majority of SLACs have too few majors in many STEM subjects and so don't offer the most advanced courses that EVERY university with a grad school offers every year for their grad students.

While some resources are restricted to grad students, at almost all universities all that means is you need to show some perseverance. You don't get to "lead" a project as a junior but if you bother to join the lab after freshman year, as a senior with 3 years of growing responsibility, there is no reason why you can't be tutoring first year grad students about how to use all the labs resources. This might not be true at MIT or other tippy top schools where each grad student is hand picked because of prior publications. But at most flagship universities there is no lack of resources due to grad/undergrad status. Which is not the same as time based restrictions where undergrads just don't have the time (have more classes to complete) to devote to research to get the best projects.

Then you have to balance the quality of the professors (sophistication of the research) and the projects they can offer to undergrads at SLACs. This issue is vanishingly small if you are interested in the SLAC's star professor's research but it can be a big deal if you are only interested in the work of assistant professors who need to make their teaching mark as well as their (constantly limited) research mark for tenure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not recommend a SLAC for CS/Engineering. I went to one for science and you are restricted by limited offerings and resources. No way can a small school match the courses, robotics teams, research opportunities of a big school like Michigan or Cornell. And you won’t get the variety of professors either.

Smaller schools come with different advantages that larger schools lack like small classes, connections with professors, and research opprotunities from the very first semester, zero or minimal competition with grad students for opportunities, tight knit and very loyal alumni networks, Etc.

Problem is all those resources you mentioned are available mainly to grad students, not to undergrads. This is where LACs come in. High performing students even research with profs and PUBLISH their papers in professional journals. How can you beat that?"

All of these things are somewhat true but also blatantly false depending on which SLAC and which university you try to compare it with.

The vast majority of SLACs have too few majors in many STEM subjects and so don't offer the most advanced courses that EVERY university with a grad school offers every year for their grad students.

While some resources are restricted to grad students, at almost all universities all that means is you need to show some perseverance. You don't get to "lead" a project as a junior but if you bother to join the lab after freshman year, as a senior with 3 years of growing responsibility, there is no reason why you can't be tutoring first year grad students about how to use all the labs resources. This might not be true at MIT or other tippy top schools where each grad student is hand picked because of prior publications. But at most flagship universities there is no lack of resources due to grad/undergrad status. Which is not the same as time based restrictions where undergrads just don't have the time (have more classes to complete) to devote to research to get the best projects.

Then you have to balance the quality of the professors (sophistication of the research) and the projects they can offer to undergrads at SLACs. This issue is vanishingly small if you are interested in the SLAC's star professor's research but it can be a big deal if you are only interested in the work of assistant professors who need to make their teaching mark as well as their (constantly limited) research mark for tenure.

Then do 3-2 fusing the best of both worlds.

It may not for everyone. In return, a student graduates with 2 degrees. Dartmouth and Columbia are two of the best known stops for SLAC students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb to attend a LAC for Eng/CS.

Yes, unless you want a sound, well-rounded education.

+1

It’s for those who wants liberal arts education AND engineering. You’ll be surprised to learn that many engineering schools emphasize and value liberal arts background.

It is not like you can’t take humanities courses at bigger universities. At Columbia, Engineering students still have to do part of the core curriculum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of reasons to recommend small school engineering programs. My niece did engineering at Swarthmore (and a semester at Mudd, I believe) and ended up doing grad work MIT, so clearly they see the value. I think MIT is the most common destination.

Sure, if your plan is to go to grad school, but if not, I would not do small SLAC for CS.

MIT will take undergrads from SLAC, of course. But, if your destination is the job market just out of college, I don't think SLACs for CS is your best bet.

16% Oberlin CS students take a job at Google.

So much for those social justice values I guess. Ditch them as soon as they are inconvenient

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of reasons to recommend small school engineering programs. My niece did engineering at Swarthmore (and a semester at Mudd, I believe) and ended up doing grad work MIT, so clearly they see the value. I think MIT is the most common destination.

Sure, if your plan is to go to grad school, but if not, I would not do small SLAC for CS.

MIT will take undergrads from SLAC, of course. But, if your destination is the job market just out of college, I don't think SLACs for CS is your best bet.

16% Oberlin CS students take a job at Google.

I went to a pretty good traditional New England LAC, every math and CS I knew who wanted to go to Silicon Valley had no trouble going there. LACs are what you make of them - if you don't bother with class and graduate with a C average in Art History you're probably not competitive in the job market, if you do well in something related enough to what you want to do, you'll be fine- doubly so if you plan on grad school anyway

[Anonymous]

I am so tired of 60+ year olds that don’t understand what a LAC or SLAC means or offers in the current century chiming in about how they only offer humanities courses and general studies majors never amount to anything.

It’s not 1970 anymore.
Do some research before you offer advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb to attend a LAC for Eng/CS.

Mudd says hi!

Um. I went to Mudd. It is NOT a LAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dumb to attend a LAC for Eng/CS.

Yes, unless you want a sound, well-rounded education.

I got a sound, well-rounded education at a STEM school. They all have liberal arts requirements, nitwit. Try again!

[Anonymous]

Liberal arts are college on the cheap because of the lack of more than token engineering labs. Simulations are sophistries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts are college on the cheap because of the lack of more than token engineering labs. Simulations are sophistries.

I bet in the long run, they do better than you’ll ever do in your lifetime.