<p>I am not familiar with Lafayette or Rice, but engineering at many LACs only offer one major: Engineering Studies (or something to that effect). This means you basically get a broad overview engineering topics and don’t necessarily major in a engineering field. </p>
<p>Depending on what you end up doing, it would be good to check the ABET accreditation, since a LAC engineering degree may not be accredited. Accreditation is necessary for some fields, Civil Eng. in particular comes to mind. Also, going to a university with a large engineering department such as rice will also offer you more choice in classes and engineering activities such as project teams.</p>