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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They're a terrible idea.  They're disruptive to your college social life, require that you pay for an extra year, reduce your opportunities to participate on engineering teams or do on campus research, make it harder to apply to engineering co-ops or internships, and result in a choppy curriculum that likely has gaps.

If you end up at a LAC and then change your mind and decide to be an engineer, fine.  They're probably no worse of a plan than transferring.  But no one should choose such a program at the outset.[/quote]

+1000

I'd argue if you switch your mind to Engineering, unless it's during freshman year (and who at a LA college really does that), pick a major such as Math, data science, physics (or pick a major and strong minor) and get your undergrad degree.  Then do your masters in engineering.  It's still 5 years, but you have two degrees, and a solid consistent, non-disruptive undergrad experience.

However, I seriously doubt there are many kids who pick a LAC and then decide engineering.  If it was at all on the radar, they would be at a university where it was a real option to begin with[/quote]

The real reason students don't "make" it, is who wants to skip their senior year of college to go off and do an engineering major at another school.  Students realize they have a lot of options with their current degree--and for most LAC students--kids who are drawn to a diverse number of subjects and like to read/analyze/research/write--engineering would likely be a pretty dull career.[/quote]

Engineering majors anywhere including public universities drop out after seeing their gpa plunge below 3.0 or even below 2.0.  [/quote]

Yes, but the LAC students who are initially interested in the Engineering 3/2 major find out that after keeping up 3 years of their physics or math major at the LAC that they don't really want to go and do 2 years at another school--that they can just finish up in their major and have career options from there.  So it's not for the same reason--the vast majority of "initially interested" students don't even start once they are in year 3.  Those who really want to go on to engineering realize it might be better to finish out the Math or Physics degree and then do a master's in a specialized area of engineering than to leave their undergrad program early to do 2 more years of undergrad.
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