Is engineering at yale really worth it

monydad
Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:23:37 +0000

Since you’re giving it some weight, another thing you might consider is what the basis is for that 30-40 ranking , and whether it actually pertains to what matters to an undergraduate intending to practice engineering- e.g, the breadth and depth of course offerings in the various areas and sub-specialties of engineering.

Some of the smaller programs get higher rankings by having high-quality research groups, but only in a few select, sparse areas of engineering, hardly comprehensive at all. The ranking reflects the quality of these research groups, publications, etc., and if you are in fact interested in the few areas that these schools happen to have covered that’s great.

But if you have not altogether ruled out interest in one of the major areas of engineering; for example, say civil engineering, just taking one of the huge major areas randomly; and your school has not so much as a single major in any one of the numerous sub-areas of this huge practice area; then for many this might be considered a problem. Even if there are a few strong research groups in a few particular areas which you may or may not become interested in.

Don’t know if this pertains to Yale, but you might want to investigate if you care.