My D graduated from Lafayette (not an engineer) and loved it. At this point you have to wait and see if the school comes in at a comfortable price. Other than Laf, I’d probably focus on Rutgers Honors and RPI.
When all decisions are in I would try to revisit the top two or three choices. Attending a few admitted students days helped my S make a college decision.
Personally, I think a student should study what they want, not what is practical.
My engineer did do the latter though - and it’s worked out well. His passion is weather, but he’s not complained, etc.
That said, I don’t think CS is dead but kids need to evolve. Kids do seem to be getting jobs - for every horror story, you know good ones.
I mentored a young man, who will be starting at Microsoft this summer. He’s had 3 internships at 3 companies with Microsoft being the third and will be finishing a Masters this Spring.
In the end, you have to study for four years - so why not love it - but nothing wrong with his chosen path too.
The world changes so quickly - you don’t know what will be relevant tomorrow - and that’s many majors.
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I have a kid at RIT, and they just had to amend the rules for the Co-Op requirement for the CS majors/computing school (not the engineering school FWIW) - and Co-op is central to their mission/ethos. (Note, coops are still required, but they have set up a process to get an exemption because so so many kids couldn’t get a co-op suddenly. Also Note, I am not sure how often this has happened in past due to economy and such (or if it has happened in past) but this change just happened a few months ago.
This has not been what I’ve seen. Sure, they are tough programs. But engineering colleges have a structured program that gets kids out in 4 years. For example the one for ME at Rutgers is at Mechanical Engineering Curriculum | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and you can find similar schedules by searching for “sample program mechanical engineering school-name”.
If anything you’re kind of tied into it because many engineering courses are only offered one semester a year, right when the sample schedule shows. Since so many courses are prerequisites for the next if you slip off the schedule things quickly become unwieldy.
That was our experience as well. My D didn’t know anyone that needed an extra semester. Advisors were very good about keeping students on track to graduate in 8 semesters. Occasionally someone would need to retake one class over the summer but that was about it.
Agreed. I know plenty of engineering students, and only 1 took an extra semester, and that was by choice.
Overall, most US college students (all majors combined) take more than four years to bachelor’s degree.
But there is a strong correlation to student academic strength and lack of financial difficulties to graduation rates. So a 4.0 HS GPA student attending an easily affordable college is more likely to graduate in four years than a 3.0 HS GPA student who needs to work 20 hours per week to pay for net college costs.
I would vote to research if the opportunities for clubs/research at RPI and Embry Riddle would lead to better co-ops/internships. A lot of entry level jobs these days are return offers from previous internships/co-ops.
UAH - isn’t on the table. I simply offered up since they had ERAU on the list - as a lower cost sub. Stat dependent.
I think return offers are more about - did you perform in the internship vs. school name. That’, and they have openings.
I wouldn’t pick a school based on that type thing.
Wasn’t there something similar that happened at Northeastern a few years ago?
Could be a general caution at co-op focused schools for popular majors which are popular in part due to job prospects with the risk of an industry downturn in hiring.
I think the five years thing happens more for programs that have required school year coops. If you are doing two coops and each is a semester long, you make take five years to graduate. But you’re earning money during those coops and it’s not like five years of classes, so it’s not really the same thing.
Yes, co-ops extend calendar time to graduation, but do not extend (tuition paying) school time. I.e. 8 semesters, 12 quarters, or equivalent in school gets spread across more than four calendar years. The same can apply to any kind of gap semester taken while in college.
Of course, co-ops can earn money, but can also incur living expenses.
I don’t think a co-op was ever a true grad requirement, there, though was it? it is the norm but I don’t they hold their diploma like RIT does for many majors.. RIT has limited exceptions on what counts in many majors, too.. Unpaid doesn’t count, research doesn’t count in many programs, for instance. It is intense. RIT considers the process of finding the job and struggle part of the education.
That said, yes, the students at Northeastern also were having a very hard time getting coops at one point, and they were being limited to applying to a certain number …I suspect that is true now too. I think now that northeastern has many (most?) students graduating in 4, not 5 years, their co-op program is a lot more marketing than substance, personally. Still a great school, my kid likely will apply, but it isn’t what it was 15 years ago even. (I used to work at an org with a ton of NU coops and the system was different. We, as an employer, were basically handfed some great co-ops as we treated them well - they applied to not very many each, either. They all seemed to have 2 great and varied experiences and seemed pretty easy. (This was now, 15-20 years ago). It isn’t like that now.
Thank you for all these perspectives on the coops. At this point I think we would prefer a college that is co op friendly but is not a requirement.
This kind of supports what I meant in the comment above. On paper, RPI may not be the least expensive option but it is worth researching if going to a less crowded private school provides easy research/recruiting pipelines compared to a crowded state school.
But there’s also a $52K-ish Delta over 4 years that might be meaningful to the family (compared to Rutgers)..
No one would argue RPI isn’t great.
But I would argue that if Lafayette is the top vibe choice, that RPI likely would be the least choice vibe wise.
Ditto. Both of my s’s transferred INTO engineering and both graduated in 4 years. One s chose to take a summer class at GT while he was simultaneously doing an internship (with permission from the internship site) b/c he was double-majoring and wanted to be able to take all the courses on schedule.
Not sure if anyone mentioned, but RPI has a dual degree with Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace engineering. I did this as I was unsure and ended up focusing more on the mechanical side for my career.
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Just $2K….but $13K more than Rutgers and $25K more than NJIT - which will save vs. budget.
But with loans or part time work, even in summer, it’s likely not insurmountable vs. their cash outlay.
But that would be up to them.
Rutgers and NJIY would give them cushion for grad school, a car or something else.