<p>@aluminum_boat : I disagree. We don’t need one until the big 3 that typically support engineering get better. Notice the places that started (or will start) them recently such as Harvard (okay, perhaps theirs was just well hidden) and Chicago are very strong in CS, math, and physics at the grad. and undergrad. level. With the state of our depts. right now and the level of the intro. and intermediate courses (okay, physics is an exception with intermediate), they will essentially be feeding crap into the engineering courses. The foundation in “advanced” (say the linear alg, diff. eq, and multi level) would be non-uniform and in general weak. Let us not talk about physics 151/152 which behaves as if it is partially catering to pre-healths (the 141/142 sequence has higher instructional quality on average, seriously). Unless such an engineering school offered its own separate math, cs, and physics courses (which would cost crap tons of money), there is no point whatsoever right now. We should really just stick to what we are good with or throw lots of money at those 3 depts, let them attempt to fix themselves, and then maybe explore the option (whether an engineering school or applied/technological science option) in the distant future. We could have potential with maybe BME and ChemE, but again, the big 3 also help support those. The current math courses are not even good enough to help most students with pchem, let alone a whole engineering curriculum with many required courses the same caliber of or higher than pchem. </p>
<p>Also, you need not look…there are these things called “Eagle Row”, “The Tower” (and soon Harris lol), and “Atlanta”. Only real thing missing is home grown D-1 sports (however, I would call participating in intramural sports or the crap tons of orgs. and events on campus a distraction). I suppose you mean media hyped stereotypical distractions one associates with a college. </p>