Engineering schools

[sakky]

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When I mentioned Harvard only had 3 majors, my point was to say it’s program is “limited”. It’s not a top-15 program to me because, well, I just haven’t seen anything that lists it in the top-15.

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<p>Look, I am not saying that Harvard is a top 15 engineering program either. But so what? It’s still better than the vast majority of other engineering programs out there, if, for no other reason, the vast majority of them are no-name programs. Surely nobody will dispute that. </p>

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Within the ES major, none of the concentrations is equivalent to a full-blown major elsewhere.

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<p>First of all, I’m not even sure that’s true. Take a gander at the requirements for the Engineering Sciences SB major (the ABET-accredited version). From a curriculur standpoint, it basically matches up quite well with the engineering major at most other schools.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.deas.harvard.edu/undergradstudy/engineeringsciences/pdf/S.B.%20Booklet.pdf[/url]”>http://www.deas.harvard.edu/undergradstudy/engineeringsciences/pdf/S.B.%20Booklet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>But even if it is limited, so what? I will explain this below. </p>

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Harvey Mudd is limited in engineering. The program looks more like a mini-EE than anything else. That’s probably the reason their webpage mentions only EBay, Google, Microsoft (instead of biotech/chemical/manufacturing/auto/geotechical/civil/environmental firms) as some of the companies their recent graduates work for. Good luck if you want to have choices for courses in biomedical/chemical/mechanical/material sciences…etc. An astonishing 50% of graduates go to grad schools and that’s where they get to study civil, chemical, biomedical engineering…etc

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<p>Which only goes to show why, even if it is limited (a premise that I do not fully accept), so what? You said it yourself - an astonishing number of their graduates go to graduate school where they will complete degrees in civil, chemical, biomedical, etc. But don’t you see what that means? It means that even if the HMC curriculum really is so limited, it’s apparently still good enough to get their students into graduate programs for civil, chemical, biomedical, etc. Keep in mind that before you can do such things in graduate school, you first have to get ADMITTED to these graduate programs. Why are these programs stupidly admitting all these HMC students if their education really was so limited? </p>

<p>In fact, this reminds me of a discussion I had on the Caltech section of CC. Some people at Caltech were insinuating just what you were saying - that Mudd was somehow deficient. My response was that Caltech itself admitted plenty of Mudders for graduate school, so why was Caltech doing that if Mudd really was deficient. Is Caltech being stupid? Basically, if the top eng graduate programs are admitting Mudders, then clearly the Mudd engineering education couldn’t be THAT bad. </p>

<p>Consider the following Caltech commencement data regarding their PhD grads. I notice a lot of people who Caltech awarded various kinds of engineering PhD’s in (civil, chemical, etc.) who did Mudd for undergrad. But why did Caltech ever stupidly admit these Mudders in the first place, if the engineering education at Mudd really is so limited? For example, in 2005, Caltech awarded a PhD in Civil Engineering to Steven Wayne Alves, who graduated from Mudd in 2000. How did Alves even manage to get admitted to the Caltech civil engineering graduate program in the first place? Caltech also awarded a PhD in Geophysics and Civil Engineering to Georgia Cua in 2005, who graduated from Mudd in 1998. Again, how did she even manage to get in? </p>

<p><a href=“http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/05/phd.pdf[/url]”>http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/05/phd.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I would also point out that in 2005, 2 people were conferred engineering PhD’s from Caltech who had done their undergrad at Mudd. That’s equivalent to the number of people who got their Caltech engineering PhD’s in 2005 who did their undergrad at MIT or Caltech, and actually MORE than the number who came from Berkeley and Stanford. {Caltech conferred a lot of science PhD’s upon people who did their undergrad at Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT, but we’re just talking about engineering here.}. That doesn’t mean that Mudd engineering is “better” than those other schools. I didn’t say that. What I am saying is that it’s clearly not that bad.</p>

<p>In fact, I am fairly certain that other people who came from “broad-based” engineering schools still got beaten out by Mudders. For example, when the Caltech Civil Engineering department admitted Steven Alves and Georgia Cua into the PhD program, other people who had actual Civil Engineering degrees from broad-based engineering schools got rejected. So what’s so good about getting a eng degree from a broad-based school if you end up getting beat out for grad school admissions by somebody with a ‘limited’ engineering degree? </p>

<p>The point is, I don’t see what is the problem with ‘limited’ engineering education. The truth is, engineering is pretty much the same across disciplines. ChemE thermodynamics is not significantly different from ME thermodynamics. ChemE fluid mechanics is not significantly different from AeroE fluid mechanics. Circuits are circuits. Heat transfer is heat transfer. That’s why people can move across disciplines. That’s why engineering companies hire from a wide swath of engineering majors. For example, Intel hires EE’s, ChemE’s, MatSciE’s, ME’s, IndustrialE’s, chemists, physicists, ec.</p>