Engineering at a Liberal Arts College?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Rose-Hulman too. OP— DH and I are both SLAC grads. He’s a software engineer, who believes he benefitted greatly from the reading, writing, small class heavy curriculum and has a huge advantage in his career because he can communicate and problem solve well. We felt very strongly about our kids attending SLACs. One did. The other is at W&M (which is close to being a SLAC) and all the other options were SLACs. We are all in on small liberal arts schools. Except for engineering. I would not send a kid to an actual SLAC for engineering.

I think you can be Rose-Hulman, Cooper Union, Olin, etc and do engineering at a small school or undergrad focused engineering. But I don’t think you can get a good engineering education at a true liberal arts school. And SLACs recognize this and offer the 3+2 and 2+2 programs— which really are the worst of both worlds.

Actual liberal arts is a rigorous program of study. Engineering is a rigorous program of study. You can’t really do both well— especially on a small campus.

Harvey Mudd is an excellent education. And may call itself a LAC. But you can’t get a decent humanities major there. It’s isn’t truly a liberal arts college, because good liberal arts colleges benefits from having majors across the humanities-STEM spectrum.

Can Harvey Mudd student double major in humanities with classes from other Claremont colleges?

Technically, maybe?? But practically?? Not in 4 years. I don’t care how much AP credit your bring in. Engineering has so many required classes. It’s nice they are with the other colleges. It adds something. They can get good humanities electives. But the school itself is closer to Rose-Human than a LAC. Not to ding Mudd which is top notch at what it does. But you just don’t have the cross disciplinary living and learning that is the hallmark of a good liberal arts education. And if you go too far into the humanities side with your courseload, you water down the engineering education. Maybe you could do both. I don’t think you can do both well. And engineering isn’t worth it if you aren’t going to do it well.

I believe strongly in undergrad focused institutions for undergrad education, and the larger schools with grad programs for grad school. I would consider a larger Purdue/VT school for an engineering kid. I’d prefer a midsize private (like Case, Tufts, Rice) or a small engineering focused school (Olin, Rose-Human, Cooper Union, Mudd) for an Engineer. Probably the midsize private because I know kids who have gotten started in engineering and changed their minds. At a Cooper Union type school, that’s not an option. At a school like Case, you don’t have to transfer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When do you think this makes sense? I have a highschooler who seems to be drawn to both, but they don't seem to overlap, except maybe at a couple schools, and then maybe not so well.

Somebody here must have had their child do engineering at a LAC, right?

Swarthmore and Harvey Mudd are the best intersection of the two. A close compromise would be Ivies or similar -sized top privates: they each have about 250-500 engineering students per year, not counting cornell which is both larger and more siloed like publics with engineering. With 250-500 in the engineering school each year it feels smaller like a LAC in many ways yet the benefit is the huge research dollars and benefits of a 5000-10000 size uni that SLACs do not have

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are all in on small liberal arts schools. Except for engineering. I would not send a kid to an actual SLAC for engineering.

Most have some amorphous notion of Liberal Arts as literally liberal and arts. It is cross disciplinary between Humanities , Social Sciences and Natural Sciences. Many don't realize that LACs have always produced a lot of really good STEM graduates. Engineering is the "E" in STEM. At Swarthmore for instance 62.5% of the credits required to graduate in engineering must be in Eng+Math+Science as compared to 66% at Cornell. This is not really very different. The balance credits are available for use across the humanities and sciences. The main difference lies in the undergraduate only teaching focus, small classes, access to undergrad research opportunities and access to high quality undergrad humanities and social science courses for balance distribution/interests.

A high percent of LAC STEM (including Eng) graduates are double majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say Rose-Hulman too. OP— DH and I are both SLAC grads. He’s a software engineer, who believes he benefitted greatly from the reading, writing, small class heavy curriculum and has a huge advantage in his career because he can communicate and problem solve well. We felt very strongly about our kids attending SLACs. One did. The other is at W&M (which is close to being a SLAC) and all the other options were SLACs. We are all in on small liberal arts schools. Except for engineering. I would not send a kid to an actual SLAC for engineering.

I think you can be Rose-Hulman, Cooper Union, Olin, etc and do engineering at a small school or undergrad focused engineering. But I don’t think you can get a good engineering education at a true liberal arts school. And SLACs recognize this and offer the 3+2 and 2+2 programs— which really are the worst of both worlds.

Actual liberal arts is a rigorous program of study. Engineering is a rigorous program of study. You can’t really do both well— especially on a small campus.

Harvey Mudd is an excellent education. And may call itself a LAC. But you can’t get a decent humanities major there. It’s isn’t truly a liberal arts college, because good liberal arts colleges benefits from having majors across the humanities-STEM spectrum.

Can Harvey Mudd student double major in humanities with classes from other Claremont colleges?

Technically, maybe?? But practically?? Not in 4 years. I don’t care how much AP credit your bring in. Engineering has so many required classes. It’s nice they are with the other colleges. It adds something. They can get good humanities electives. But the school itself is closer to Rose-Human than a LAC. Not to ding Mudd which is top notch at what it does. But you just don’t have the cross disciplinary living and learning that is the hallmark of a good liberal arts education. And if you go too far into the humanities side with your courseload, you water down the engineering education. Maybe you could do both. I don’t think you can do both well. And engineering isn’t worth it if you aren’t going to do it well.

I believe strongly in undergrad focused institutions for undergrad education, and the larger schools with grad programs for grad school. I would consider a larger Purdue/VT school for an engineering kid. I’d prefer a midsize private (like Case, Tufts, Rice) or a small engineering focused school (Olin, Rose-Human, Cooper Union, Mudd) for an Engineer. Probably the midsize private because I know kids who have gotten started in engineering and changed their minds. At a Cooper Union type school, that’s not an option. At a school like Case, you don’t have to transfer.

1/3 of your classes at Mudd are in the humanities/social science. I don't think you know about mudd as much as you think you do. You could definitely take an off campus major in the humanities and double with a lower-requirement bio/chem/math major at Mudd. The core at Mudd makes it easier for you to be able to move between majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bucknell has a strong engineering program and an even stronger alumni network. You'll find Bison in high-level positions across baby industries, invitations engineering and especially finance. They love to hire other alums and help them start lucrative careers.

PP. This should read "many industries" but autocorrect, which shouldn't exist, is always a pain, and is never helpful, thinks it's smarter than I am. (It's not. I went to Bucknell.)

Ha, but some are funny… for a very quick sec I thought “baby industries” that’s awfully specific

[Anonymous]

A challenge for the graduate from any college which only offers a "General" engineering degree is that it is not nearly the same education as one receives when getting a specific engineering degree (Aero, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Mechanical, etc.).

If going into finance or banking or such like as one's career, this might not matter at all.

However, if desiring to do engineering work, then in practice one might need to get a Masters degree in a specific engineering field right after finishing the undergrad degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When do you think this makes sense? I have a highschooler who seems to be drawn to both, but they don't seem to overlap, except maybe at a couple schools, and then maybe not so well.

Somebody here must have had their child do engineering at a LAC, right?

Swarthmore and Harvey Mudd are the best intersection of the two. A close compromise would be Ivies or similar -sized top privates: they each have about 250-500 engineering students per year, not counting cornell which is both larger and more siloed like publics with engineering. With 250-500 in the engineering school each year it feels smaller like a LAC in many ways yet the benefit is the huge research dollars and benefits of a 5000-10000 size uni that SLACs do not have

precisely why mine picked an ivy for engineering and only applied to larger top publics (Mich, Berkeley, &in state flagship safety) as a backup if the elites had not worked out

[Anonymous]

Santa Clara.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are all in on small liberal arts schools. Except for engineering. I would not send a kid to an actual SLAC for engineering.

Most have some amorphous notion of Liberal Arts as literally liberal and arts. It is cross disciplinary between Humanities , Social Sciences and Natural Sciences. Many don't realize that LACs have always produced a lot of really good STEM graduates. Engineering is the "E" in STEM. At Swarthmore for instance 62.5% of the credits required to graduate in engineering must be in Eng+Math+Science as compared to 66% at Cornell. This is not really very different. The balance credits are available for use across the humanities and sciences. The main difference lies in the undergraduate only teaching focus, small classes, access to undergrad research opportunities and access to high quality undergrad humanities and social science courses for balance distribution/interests.

A high percent of LAC STEM (including Eng) graduates are double majors.

I am well aware of what liberal arts means. My SLAC kid had a STEM major, humanities minor. I’m well aware many kids double major. My W&M kid is one. She has no classes that overlapin the majors and it’s a she going to do it by the skin of her teeth. And maybe Swarthmore is a unicorn that has some super amazing funding and infrastructure and curriculum. I did not look at that school in particular. But USNWR ranks them 30th for engineering *without a doctorate* (separate scale than VT, Michigan’s, JHU, MIT— schools that offer doctorates. They are ranked behind JMU (23rd) and some very tier 2/3 colleges/ outside the T100 colleges for engineering. If a kid is talented enough and driven enough to get into Swarthmore, and you are able to pay for Swarthmore, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t send them to a medium sized private like Tufts, Rice, JHU, CMU, Case, etc, where they will still get great undergrad focus and small classes and kids from lots of majors if that’s what you want. Or a more specialize Olin, Rose Humlan, Cooper Union if small is important.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-overall?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc

But I will stand by the fact that, in general, a college with a class of 400 or 500 can’t maintain the infrastructure for excellent engineering— especially in specialized vs general engineering (very expensive!!), and other STEM (also expensive!), and business and humanities. A school smaller than my DD’s NOVA public HS can’t do everything well. Plus, they have recruit great engineering faculty, manage the necessary grants for engineering to give the kids research opportunities. And that a strong LAC curriculum is going to require cutting corners in engineering. Or doing engineering is going to cut corners in liberal arts. Because a strong engineering program is specialized and has more requirements and less freedom than a liberal arts major— even one in another STEM field. This is why good small school choose one: traditional LAC OR engineering (Olin, Rose Human, Cooper Union). And manyLACs just pay lip service with 3+2 and 2+2 programs. And I have yet to see anyone say these programs make much sense.