<p>I went through this last year…my son was contemplating the Bucknell/Lafayette engineering vs. the hard-core big uni engineering programs. In the end he chose the big uni. His reasoning was that the big uni offered more variety if he decided he wanted a soft engineering type major or if he wanted to completely switch majors - there was simply more variety to the engineering track at the big uni. It’s a tough decision - my head was with the Buckenll/Lafayette colleges probably because my older two went to small colleges and I also did my undergrad at an LAC, but #3 is thriving and surviving at his big uni in hard core engineering. I think he’s thinking no to the Masters right out of undergrad since there is so much employment opportunity right out of undergrad for engineering majors and he’s thinking he’d rather have his employer fund the masters or at least subsidize it. </p>
<p>One last thought - the big uni advisers told my son that he wouldn’t have time or energy to double major and might not have time to minor in a non-engineering program (for my son it was economics), but the Lafayette/Bucknell genre told him it wouldn’t be difficult…so that is something to consider. I can’t recall which college it was, but one of my son’s tour guides was an engineering/econ double major and while i was trailing at the back end of the tour with the other parents, my son reported that the tour guide told him it wasn’t a “big deal” to double major. </p>