What are some good colleges out there for a student highly interested in aerospace engineering but also looking for a very good 4-year liberal arts experience? Grades are pretty good (4.0, maybe a little higher), SAT/ACT will probably be pretty good and an Eagle Scout. Any schools come to mind that you can share?
You have smaller tech schools like IIT, FIT, WPI, RPI, MIT that probably won’t fit the bill. Case Western, Notre Dame, Stanford would be better. The best approach might be to study physics/math at a liberal arts college, then specialize in aerospace eng in grad school. Dozens of schools would be on the table.
If the student is interested in a Liberal Arts College, rather than a University with good liberal arts programs:
I don’t know of any LAC that offers a major in aerospace engineering but for getting into the field, a math or physics degree from an LAC followed by graduate work in aerospace might be a path to follow. Another path is a 4-2 engineering program where the student competes 4 years at his LAC and then takes another 2 years to get a second bachelor’s degree in engineering from a university. (The 3-2 program is more well known but it’s best to assume that a student who loves his LAC isn’t going to want to leave early, so if the family is willing to pay, the 4-2 might be the better way to plan.)
My first recommendation though would be for him to look at Harvey Mudd College as well as Swarthmore. Both of these top schools offer engineering degrees (but not “aerospace engineering”). Both are super competitive in terms of admissions though, so choosing other LACs with top math and science programs is an essential backup. Also, both Mudd and Swat are very unique “feeling” types of schools. They may not appeal to the student on a level other than academics so that’s another reason to cast your LAC net wide.
Other than Mudd and Swarthmore, I’d look at Reed, Carleton, Grinnell, and Bowdoin as offering the best of the LAC experience with great math/science programs.
That said, universities with aerospace engineering majors will offer plenty of liberal arts opportunities.
Obvious choice - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
All ABET-accredited engineering bachelor’s degree programs will include liberal arts courses – about 25% of the course work will be in math and science, and about 20-25% will be humanities and social studies breadth requirements. It is not required to choose any specific type of college (LAC, university, etc.) to get a liberal arts experience, though some colleges (particularly universities) may have a much more pre-professional oriented student body that may not be what you want.
Wesleyan. It doesn’t offer an engineering degree, but, there seems to be enough high-level STEM research going on that they have a page devoted to different courses and resources that could be of interest to someone with an engineering bent. It’s worth checking out:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/engineering/courses_research_opportunities.html
We know a kid that wanted the same. He’s at ASU Barrett.
I’d guess your best bet will be a large public university with strong liberal arts core curriculum as well as engineering. UCSD Revelle college comes to mind, but most engineering students intentionally avoid Revelle precisely because of the core requirements and how hard it is to graduate on time in engineering.
@ctparent2019 Stanford is probably the best choice for what you are asking.
A traditional ABET-accredited engineering BS program includes a great deal of depth.
A traditional liberal arts BA program includes a great deal of breadth.
Unfortunately, you can’t just combine the two, if you want to graduate in 4 years. You simply can’t cram in all of the engineering depth and all of the liberal arts breadth in that time. You either have to pick one or the other, or else go to a 5-year plan.
Furthermore, note that aerospace engineering is a relatively specialized engineering field. You are most likely to find it at larger universities – which are unlikely to provide a small liberal arts college atmosphere. Smaller schools will probably offer mechanical engineering (which could include some coverage of aerospace).
You might look at schools like Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette, Trinity College (CT) or Dartmouth. These are all old, relatively small schools in the northeast that emphasize the undergraduate experience, and which offer both liberal arts and engineering degrees. Probably mechanical, although Lehigh has an aerospace minor.
Some of these schools, like Lehigh, Dartmouth, and Lafayette, will let you graduate with a dual degree in “engineering science” and liberal arts in four years. However, the engineering part won’t be ABET-accredited in this case. You would need to add a fifth year of study to get a traditional ABET engineering degree.
UC Boulder
Harvey Mudd College by design is a STEM-focused liberal arts college.
It’s nearly unique in that respect. So it might attract a higher concentration of like-minded engineering students with strong arts/humanities interests than you’d get at a school like Colorado-Boulder. The trade-off is that you get a more limited engineering curriculum at Mudd.
UT, TAMU, UMD, UIUC
@ctparent2019 Penn also does a very good job of balancing STEM with liberal arts. They call it a STEAM approach ( science, tech, engineering, arts and math). However, they are not offering an aerospace engineering major.
http://www.thedp.com/article/2015/02/full-steam-ahead-inside-penn039s-approach-to-education
The linked “STEAM” article doesn’t explain how “balance” is achieved other than by resisting pressures to increase the engineering school’s enrollment/funding. There must be more to it than that, but from a simple Google search I’m not finding more documentation. So I wonder how Penn’s STEAM approach is any more balanced/integrated than what you’d get from distribution requirements (or a core curriculum) at other universities.
Carnegie Mellon
This isn’t really true, although I supposed it depends on the specific definition of breadth. Obviously if a student wanted to take the same amount of electives as a BA they’d need five years. But people have already listed a bunch of great colleges with native engineering programs that also have wide-ranging liberal arts requirements.
Another suggestion is Columbia.
You could do a liberal arts living learning honors program within a larger university that has an aerospace program.
For example:
https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/academics/cornerstone-honors-program/
http://www.honorshumanities.umd.edu/index.html
https://blount.as.ua.edu/
http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/resprog/#sletext
Haverford for 4 years with a Physics or CS or Math degree + 1 year at Penn for a Master’s in Engineering.
Aerospace engineering is specialized, probably better for graduate level studies after a general undergraduate STEM degree (the student could even try to take 1-2 aerospace electives at his flagship’s summer school, but all in all, aerospace engineering would likely lead to a Master’s degree.)
Science/tech schools that offer humanities courses at nearby LACs might work - of course there is MIT and Harvard, and Harvey Mudd with its consortium, but also Olin offers courses at Brandeis, which should combine the best of both.
Pomona and they have an affiliation with Caltech