pmanliu

Hey all, im very torn between these two schools...

factors to leave out - money, campus

facots to factor (bad wording?) - business program... and how i applied to UVA engineering

so this is my problem. I cant decide btwn bc and uva. I made it into Bc's CSOM (management school) and UVA's engineering school. I contacted the dean and he said he would let me transfer but i am just thinking about majoring in engineering and minoring in business. I was wondering which school you guys thought would be better to attend/more prestige. I know this is a UVA forum but minus the bias, what do you guys really think? thanks so much!

Dean J

I have ties to Boston College and think it's wonderful school. That being said, have you looked into what they're offering in the way of engineering? If memory serves, the options were limited and there were no majors in engineering.

2007mom

a little confused here? why would you have picked either of these schools for engineering? everyone (and it is most of my family and many of our friends) went to either MIT, Cal, or GT. Just wondering since these schools have the best engineering depts in the country?

HartinGA

We chose UVA engineering over GT, and GT was in state. To each his own. Reasons: S loved UVA, quality of undergraduate teaching seemed much better than GT, liked the broader interests UVA offers to e students vs a pretty tech heavy approach at GT. Quality of students is roughly the same; avg SAT at UVA SEAS is very close to, maybe even a tad higher than GT.

phdinee

Some people do not understand the differences between undergraduate (UG) and graduate education. As mentioned many times in this forum, UG engineering, and other majors as well, just teaches basic engineering skills to groom the students to be ready for basic engineering tasks, whether for an actual job or for more specialized research in a graduate school. Consequently, UG engineering schools do not need an extensive and heavy resources such as top research faculty and state-of-the-art labs in order to provide its students with basic knowledge and skills in engineering that are required to get BS degree. Hence, if we talk about just engineering education itself for an undergraduate, it won't make much difference where you get it, and the decision should depend on personal interest, fit, overall school UG reputation, location and etc.

However, graduate school is totally a different story. A PhD from MIT or Stanford will be valued much higher than a degree from a lesser known schools. That is mostly because graduate degrees are, Masters with lesser extent, research degrees and very specialized and narrow in the field. You basically work neck-and-neck with your advisor professor and become an expert in your chosen area, whereas UG is supposed to produce a "generalist."

If a student chose UVa over GT for his/her UG engineering education, quality wise it won't make much difference, while the college experience will be vastly different. If this same student wants to go to graduate school to study engineering further, then he/she should consider his/her field of interest carefully and choose school accrodingly. This is because not all well known engineering schools are excellent in all fields of study. For example, Princeton graduate engieering is known for its theoretical, mathematically oriented programs rather than practical, whereas MIT is more profound in computers, digital signal processingv for video/audio signals and etc etc etc.

In summary, for UG engineering, basically it won't matter much, you should decide based on your feel, possible fit, school reputation, location, tuition, and other factors.
For graudate education, should depend on chosen field of study, and it is true that usually big name engineering schools have better engineering resources and provide better graduate education.

As a final note, UVa graduate engineering program, though not considered as one of the mega names in engineering, it has been consistently producing first class researchers and educators who have contributed significantly in the industry and engineering education, and I am so proud of it.