Dartmouth vs Middlebury vs Bowdoin

Corbett
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:35:34 +0000

I feel like a BE is too much of a commitment, considering I would really like to explore other areas like languages and social sciences (Econ and foreign relations). So maybe just a BA or BS?

If you pursue a Dartmouth engineering AB (which is the same as a “BA”), then you will be able to explore other fields (and potentially double-major) over four years. The catch: you won’t get a “real” engineering degree after four years. Engineering employers and grad schools will typically perceive the AB as “engineering lite”.

If you stay for a fifth year, and add some extra engineering coursework, you can “upgrade” an AB to a BE. This does not impede you at all from studying other fields during Years 1 to 4, because it happens separately during Year 5. The catch: it means that your undergraduate studies take five years instead of the normal four, which obviously means more time and money.

You can’t get a BS at Dartmouth in any field. The only bachelor’s degree that they offer is the AB, plus the BE for fifth-year engineers. The five-year “Bachelor of Engineering” (BE) at Dartmouth is equivalent to the four-year “Bachelor of Science” (BS) in engineering offered by most other schools.