<p>I will likely have the option of either attending LSU or a smaller school–University of Louisiana at Lafeyette. Would it be better for me to attempt getting my degree from the large state school, or should I just reap the benefits of attending a smaller, lesser known school and take advantage of the smaller class sizes?</p>
<p>Do companies interview at UL? And if so hows theyr’e job placement rate? If its as good as LSU then there shouldnt be a problem</p>
<p>You need to consider several factors and they depend on what you want out of the degree. Let’s assume that both of the programs are ABET accredited.</p>
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<li><p>Are you interested in a job right after your degree? If so, then the previous poster is absolutely correct. You should find out what the employment rates for the engineers coming out of the two schools is. If this is relatively the same, then you can move on to other criteria. If you plan to go to graduate school for a research degree, then other factors might be relevant (see #3 below).</p></li>
<li><p>Class size. It seems that this is pretty important for you as you mention it in your initial post. As a faculty member in a small Engineering school, I think this is an advantage as you really get to know your professors and there can be less of a barrier in approaching them. There is another factor with small class sizes and that is you might get to know your peers better too and these are the people who will be your first professional network when you graduate. They can help you find jobs and this is a big plus. Of course in a bigger school the number of people in this network is potentially larger.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are interested in a research career and a Ph.D. (I know that you may not have thought about this yet and that is normal), there are advantages to being in a research university. Louisiana Lafayette has Masters programs in Engineering but not Ph.D. LSU has Ph.D. programs in just about every department. You can certainly get a meaningful research experience in a non-research university but you will not have the possibility of working alongside Ph.D. students. This is a factor that needs to be considered but the answer can go either way.</p></li>
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