OP: you mentioned that your C was interested in engineering, but a specific type wasn’t mentioned, and it was briefly brought up in a previous post that HMC offers a general engineering degree, while Caltech has engineering of different types in different departments. Is your C OK with the general engineering approach?
HMC is unusual in that it only offers a general engineering degree, in keeping with its liberal arts approach to teaching STEM. People wonder if that is a practical approach when employers typically look for specific types. A CC poster (no longer active AFAIK) said a several years back: “Harvey Mudd… it’s less that you’re majoring in engineering in general, and more that you’re majoring in ALL OF ENGINEERING. It’s pretty intense.” “I took a pretty critical look at it when my [sibling] went through the program, but you can specialize in several different fields, and the professors there are really well-known within their subfields of engineering. It would’ve surprised me before I sat in on several classes, looked over the exams and labs, and grilled my [sibling and their] friends, but now, it doesn’t surprise me at all that they’re ranked well in various subfields.”
To approach the question of general engineering from another direction, there are two schools that are relatively young in STEM and engineering education, HMC, and most recently, Olin College. Both were started with the intent of rethinking engineering education. Olin’s model of engineering education looks a lot like the model used by HMC. Olin’s first president earned a PhD from Caltech and was Dean at a couple other engineering schools. He hired Dr. Moody, previously the head of the math department at HMC, to be the first Dean of Faculty who evidently had influence on the education model. In addition, their senior capstone program was patterned directly on HMC’s Clinic program that was developed by Mudd about 50 years ago. I’m just saying that HMC’s approach to engineering education has apparently been successful enough that its ideas are being adopted by other schools.