bandgeek05

I'm aware that Smith boasts the only all female engineering program in the country. I like the idea of Smith and what it stands for, however after canvasing their website I still have some questions. For example:

Does the program properly prepare young women for careers within their discipline? That is to say are Smith women capable of acclimating to the male dominated industries under the engineering umbrella?

Do top graduate programs recognize and respect a Smith degree?

Are engineering majors isolated from other students because Smith is a liberal arts school?

I know this opens the door to generalizations, but I'm really interested in seeing whether it'll be a fit.

SmithieandProud

There's a poster here named smithiegr who is an engineering major, she can answer most of these questions better than anyone, maybe you should send her a PM (or just wait for her response).

The only two I can really answer are: Yes! top graduate programs recognize and respect a Smith degree. In fact, I think the program has automatic acceptance agreements with some of the top engineering graduate schools (as in if you maintain good grades at Smith, you're garaunteed acceptance to such and such graduate school) and grads from the engineering program have gone on to MIT, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and lots of other great grad programs.

And 2, engineering majors are actually not allowed to be isolated. It's the only major at Smith that requires its students to take classes in every liberal arts discipline, so even though you have a demanding engineering schedule, you have to take a set number of credits in the humanities, and other math and science classes too, so you're mixed in with the other students a lot. Yes, you have to spend a lot of time in lab (or at least my friends who were engineers did!) but you're no more isolated than an art major who has to spend a lot of time in studio, or a history major who's often holed up in the library.

That's all I really know about the program first hand. Except that Smith just built a huge new science facility specifically for engineering (it houses other science departments too, but Ford Motor company gave the money so that the women engineers from Smith would have the best facility to work in).

SmithieandProud

Ah, I've been told that the automatic acceptance partnerships aren't in place anymore (they were there to help the first fledgling classes but aren't really needed for the new classes). Now that the program is well known they don't need the extra help to get into the good grad programs.

CarolynB

Here's is a nicely presented video about Smith engineers:

YouTube - Smith's First Class of Picker Engineers at 5

bandgeek05

bump10char

CarolynB

Bandgeek05, I would PM smithiegr to get some answers for yourself. She's often on the Smith forum but you know how life sometimes flows. I'm sure she'll be happy to answer your questions, but she may not be aware you've posted questions specific to engineering. Go for it!

Keilexandra

I know how much you love your alma mater, Smithie, but your logic is somewhat nonsensical. If I were told that auto-admit partnerships had been terminated, my first reaction would be to wonder if a) Smith's engineering department wasn't grading hard enough and too many students were qualifying, or b) the auto-admit students weren't measuring up to the usual standard. If there wasn't a "problem" of some sort, why bother terminating the agreement? Pure speculation, but from my POV it seems to make more practical sense than your hypothesis.

I agree that Smith's engineering program is quite renowned, but I doubt that ending auto-admit partnerships is beneficial for Smithie engineers.

SmithieandProud

Actually, I think your logic is faulty. Since auto-admit ended, Smith engineers are still getting into these top programs and still getting hired by top employers, in equal, if not greater numbers. If the students admitted under auto-admit were judged to be faulty, logically no more or many many fewer Smith students would be admitted to those programs once auto-admit ended.

The purpose of the auto-admit program as I understand it was to help engineers from a program no one knew anything about and while it was accredited, it's caliber was not judged because there were as of yet no graduates from this program to be judged. Normally it would take many years for a program to establish itself enough to get top level recognition, but knowing that there was a tremendous lack of women engineers, Smith probably wanted to help this special program get a running start, hence why it worked with neighboring institutions to set up auto admit.

Now that there have been two or three graduated classes from the program, grad schools have had a chance to see what it can do, employers have had a chance to see what it can do, and so there really is no need for an auto-admit program to give these women an extra boost. The program is not new anymore, but strong and thriving, so the graduates are able to compete on a more or less even playing field with their counterparts from other colleges that have had engineering programs forever.

Keilexandra

1) Not that I don't believe you, but I'd like to see statistics on those admissions if possible.

2) "...so there really is no need for an auto-admit program to give these women an extra boost." Interesting. So your argument is that the auto-admit program was a form of affirmative action that is now unnecessary? That implies that some Smithies in year X admitted under the articulation agreement would not have been admitted in year Y when the agreement was ended.

Presumably if the agreement had continued once Smith's reputation was established, even more Smithies would be admitted than currently post-agreement. I stand by my hypothesis that ending the agreement should not be somehow construed as a "benefit." Rather, it simply forces Smith engineers to complete on a level playing field (e.g. with other female graduates of top engineering programs) when previously the field was tilted in their favor.

Keilexandra

So the program actually didn't help anyone? (Smithie would disagree, it seems, as she refers to "no need for an auto-admit program to give these women an extra boost.") I'm surprised by that, but as I know very little about engineering, I'll take your word for it. I suppose in that light, it was better to end the false advertising.

CaliforniaDancer

^I remember at one point that someone on this board said that while it was nice to have the guarantee of getting into top grad programs, with the stats that were required, they would have certainly been admitted anyway. I'm not sure if that explains it, but I just remember that and thought it might be relevant?

I'm glad to hear that the numbers haven't dropped without the auto-admit part. I'm seriously considering Smith for engineering (if accepted, of course), so this thread is of particular interest to me

SmithieandProud

CaliforniaDancer, the auto-admit standard was pretty high as I recall (there's a thread about it on this board somewhere, maybe you can do a search?) I was not an engineer at Smith, but some of the smartest, most fun and interesting women I met there were, so I'm glad you're interested. I hope you get a chance to visit and see the new engineering building (I haven't even seen it yet!). In some of the older threads on engineering, there's probably some more info about it, smithiegr seems to have dropped away for the time so looking for older posts by here would be your best source of info (finals are nearing, so I'm sure she's gotten busy).

Momwaitingfornew

The required GPA to get into those graduate programs was a 3.5, pretty high for engineering, male or female. Engineering remains one of the most grad deflated majors across the board at any institution.

The automatic acceptance had a real use at first because the Picker Engineering Program started out as unaccredited. It had not yet been established nor visited by an ABET accreditation team. Smith needed first-rate engineering schools to agree to accept their students or else no serious engineering student would have enrolled. After two years (if I remember correctly), accreditation came through retroactively (that is, those who graduated without an accredited degree were granted it after the fact.)

The automatic acceptance was a program marketing tool. Potential students (and more importantly, perhaps, their parents) were assured that entering a new program and doing well would gain them entry into a top flight program. And it wasn't one way, not just to Smith's benefit. Engineering graduate programs are always trying to attract quality female students, and this connection to Smith fed such students to the involved institutions. Their only worry was that the students be properly prepared for high-level graduate work; I'm sure they worked with Smith to make sure of that. And once several Smithies went to, say, Dartmouth, then the link of future applicants became established: sophomore Mary knows another student who went to Dartmouth engineering and loves it, so she'll apply, too.

Picker offers something that no other program in the country does: a female engineering culture. Unless you've seen engineering at other schools, you have no idea how very male it is. Some engineering classes might have only one or two women. This tends to skew not just the gender statistics but also the attitude and atmosphere. While this will be true in both the graduate and working worlds, it's tough for a young woman to adapt to that while struggling to keep up with a strenuous workload. Yes, it can be done, but it has to be much more enjoyable to have female friends in your classes.

Momwaitingfornew

I've been corrected. Accreditation came through FIVE years later.

CrewDad

Swarthmore added Smith to its illustrious Engineering Recruiting Consortium.

experience.com