I married into a family of highly successful engineers and many friends are also in the field. All highly successful and definitely no fear of being outsourced. Our D is following her dad’s footsteps. She’s a chem E and will eventually get her MBA after working for a few years.
In terms of schools I agree that schools like Bucknell sound like a good fit.
I know it’s not D3 but schools like Norte Dame and Cornell
are schools where students don’t declare their major until second semester sophomore year. That gives students a lot of flexibility.
Also will second the suggestion of doing a summer program like Purdue’s STEP. It’s a condensed version of the first year engineering design course combined with company site visits, lab demos, etc…. It’s intense. My D came back exhausted and exhilarated, knowing for sure she was on the right track with engineering.