I know what it’s a symbol of. As I mentioned, I hired exclusively in the aerospace industry for years and have hired hundreds of engineers since then in a variety of industries. But thanks for pointing out what ABET criteria are…
My husband’s opinion. Going to an ABET accredited engineering program means you went to a program meeting a standard (that he feels is important). In addition, most ABET accredited programs get you all set for the Fundamentals In Engineering exam which is the exam taken first for those seeking a PE.
A PE is not required for all those who are practicing engineers. But why limit your options by not getting this?
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" I wish he were the kind of kid who was comfortable calling up kids he doesn’t know and asking about their experiences. But he’s not. Not yet."
You can help him with this. Break it down into small parts so it doesn’t feel overwhelming to him.
Part one might be to talk to his math teacher “am I good at the kind of things that your students who have pursued engineering have been good at”. And part two could be having that same conversation with his science teachers. Part three might be “Did you teach anyone who went on to study engineering that you’ve stayed in touch with?”
People who are shy often make the best detectives and journalists. They excel at gathering and assimilating information, and unlike their more extroverted colleagues, their own “presence” doesn’t get in the way. Being shy does not preclude someone from having exceptional research skills!
A summer program sounds like a great idea if he’s willing.
And I agree with many of the posters that it’s a false dichotomy of small/nurturing vs. anything is possible/out of his comfort zone. There are highly introverted kids like your son who have fantastic experiences at HUGE universities. Sometimes because it’s their state flagship and is the ONLY affordable option so they make it work- and sometimes because they know that once they are taking the 8 person seminar on “Dante and Chaucer’s impact on Reality TV” with a guest lecture by Jeff Probst they’ll have figured it out.
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The Dartmouth program is unique in that its engineering major is actually a dual-degree even for its own students:
All engineering majors first earn the Bachelor of Arts (AB) before the Bachelor of Engineering (BE). Many earn both the AB and BE degrees in four years, while others opt to add a fifth year of study.
Dartmouth Engineering | AB
They seem to realize that for certain students, four years may not be enough to squeeze in the “all you can eat” LAC buffet and an engineering degree (it also makes it a perfect way for like-minded LACs to latch on to their program.)
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Yes, and as mentioned before, engineers are very practical people. For a lot of us, seeing that a student has a degree from an ABET accredited program is more important than the name of the school. “Prestige” doesn’t mean that much to us (I’m a PE in structural engineering).
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Wonder if Tsbna son will get a PE?
Honestly, the first I heard of a PE was many months ago when it came up on chats.
He’s not mentioned it.
He’s hiking, biking, skiing - well was and had the best 6 months of his life.
Now he’s in Phoenix hiking and biking.
But coming home tomorrow from a work trip in Kalamazoo for the weekend…yay!!!
I imagine in a couple years he’ll start talking about an MBA…but he’s never ever mentioned a PE. I can ask him if he’s aware of it.
But just a kid working at a Fortune 500 company. I’ve never heard it mentioned at my company either - by an of the engineers - or my last company when I worked with many engineers.
Maybe it’s not something corporate people get? I dunno.
It’s interesting when people mention it. You learn a lot…
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A professional engineer license and stamp are required for certain types of jobs, most notably in the public sector. Not getting this will limit your son’s ability to do engineering work in those areas, if he shifts gears.
But ABET accreditation doesn’t mean you have to get a PE. It means a school has met a bar for the program.
PE licensing is most common in civil engineering, for reasons that are obvious when you know what contexts a PE licensed engineer is needed.
But it may not be that commonly mentioned in other areas of engineering.
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Yep, in my D’s circle it’s just the civil engineers that sit for their FE and then PE exam. My D’s close friend couldn’t get hired until that was done. Some mech e friends too but that’s more industry dependent.
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Raises hand! I got my civil PE over 25 years ago. I’m about as introverted as they come and I had a fantastic college experience at Virginia Tech. For someone like me, a small tiny school would have been painful. I hated small classes. The bigger the better. 500 kids? Bring it on. I wanted to be anonymous in the classroom and no better place than in a crowd. A class of 50 when I was the only girl? Guess whose name the teachers learned first. Ugh.
I’m also strange that I definitely wasn’t gung go about engineering. I was good at math and science and my Dad was an engineer (aero/applied mechanics) and it was assumed that’s what I would be. And I also never found the classes to be as difficult as many describe here. I partied a lot - definitely too much my first two years and still graduated summa cum laude. And I also took piano lessons and trained for marathons all 4 years and had a minor part time job accompanying other vocalists/instrumentalists.
I’m also in the camp that ABET is important and I’d choose it if possible.
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We have a bunch of Hokies in the family. (Or homies, as autocorrect would have me type.) It does seem worth looking into. Among other things I hear the food is excellent!
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and the nicest big college campus in America (opinion of course) - I mean really nice.
Food is way underrated by the way.
Many kids complain about food at colleges…some don’t eat, get low blood sugar and cranky, etc.
It’s a criteria probably more should include - good food - on the search mechanism.
My daughter decided very late (like late fall of senior year) to even look at engineering schools, and then decided even later (like late fall of freshman year) to be a civil engineer, so we were lucky the school she picked was ABET for civil and several other majors. We just had no idea to even ask.
It is not too late your your son to decide on engineering, civil or otherwise.
My daughter did have to take the FE and PE, but not until she already had a job. She passed the PE and still had to work another year (you have to have 4 years experience) before she could get her stamp. She’s very proudly been stamping away for more than a year now. I’m not sure if she got to stamp the curb cuts for the new Buc-kee’s opening soon! My nephew is a MechE and he did not take the PE, but his girlfriend did as she is an environmental engineer, which is a subset of civil.
Some engineering schools are smallish like LACs, so he could still get that same feeling, but IMO what you lose is the fine arts and really good English and history. My daughter’s school had the basics, but nothing that would wow you (and she didn’t care one bit). It did have a very nice theater program but just for fun (students, faculty, staff all participated), a college radio station, a textile art museum and some classes in that, an orchestra (like the theater, for all) and really good psychology department. At a school like Harvey Mudd, the ‘extra’ classes can be found at the consortium schools.
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Is this anecdotal to someone…or is there data to support this?
And I do apologize because this IS off topic.
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@goldbug noted food at Va Tech.
Am I a doctor - no ?
I’m a parent I lived with two kids, nephews, and nieces who get cranky when they don’t eat.
When my kids call home whining and mom says you need to eat ahd they do, problem solved.
Kids that don’t like the dining hall often don’t go.
Food is something really important than many don’t look at when choosing. We didn’t. But I’ve read enough Georgetown parents on here about how much extra they spend for their kids to eat bcuz the dining hall is so bad…or was…haven’t seen those posts recently.
So yes I was responding to @goldbug who made a comment in jest but maybe it shouldn’t be taken that way…
It’s not insane at all! My son is a current HS senior. This time last year he was sure he wanted to major in Astrophysics; a few months before that it was Astronomy with a minor in History. We built a college list centered on Astrophysics, started doing college tours centered on that, and then some time around June he decided he really wanted to be in Aerospace Engineering. So in June we pivoted to a very specific list of universities with engineering colleges, toured some over the summer, and did loads of virtual sessions hosted by universities’ engineering/aero departments, which gave him lots of insight into the curriculum and mission of the departments.
He never did robotics, and his ECs, though pretty varied, were mostly centered on astronomy/astrophysics from the start of high school. I wouldn’t let not having done robotics dictate if your student wants to pursue engineering or not, but I think it’d be good to do those engineering-specific info sessions colleges host to see if there really is a spark there for him or not.
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I think it’s a non-trivial lifestyle factor for a subset of kids, if not a factor that rises to the level of “does this school have my major?”
Most college food is college food (Bon Appetit!), just the way dorms are dorms – but when food is bad (the way it has apparently been recently at Dickinson) or the dorms are unusually depressing (as they were reputed to be at Brandeis), it’s maybe noteworthy enough to include? (maybe not a key deciding factor but…all other things being equal, etc.)
I’ll also note that a couple of the schools with top-rated dining halls (UMass Amherst, VaTech) are public schools, which is possibly contrary to many assumptions people might make about what you get vs what you pay for. I think people (and I am not immune) can get so focused on the top-ranked/rejective private schools that we forget to enumerate the advantages (beyond price) of some of the more accessible options.
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Hey, it took me 50 years but I finally lost that freshman 15! That is more common than low blood sugar or whatever.
Now back to topic.
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WPI has excellent summer programs. Often kids come out of programs like this with a much better sense of what engineering really is and if it’s for them. (My sister being one of them. She was a firm “no” and became a doctor). And, although they don’t advertise it, I’ve never known a kid who’s gone through the WPI summer program to not be accepted to WPI. I know many shy kids who have blossomed there. Their summer program also has afternoon sessions that are more humanities-based which would be a nice balance for your son.
Also, take a deep breath, this will all turn out. S23 was very much where your son is at this point in his search. We always thought he’d go into some type of history or geography major as he loved it and was pretty good at it, but when he began winning science and math awards (he was an RPI medalist), he figured he should go into engineering. The list we made midway through junior year only contained schools that had ABET engineering plus at least 2 other majors he could transfer into if he decided not to continue with engineering. We were also looking at schools that weren’t pressure cookers and dealing with being a recruitable athlete, so our lists were crazy. By the end of junior year, he decided he didn’t want engineering, or to play his sport, and became very focused on a major that seemed to be a perfect fit for him (Wildlife Biology and Conservation). Our list focus changed at that point (although 2 of his top 3 made both lists because of the “you have to find schools with at least 2 other majors you could switch into” condition), but it all worked out in the end. It’s a process.
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