Pitt is one of my top choices for school. I’m wondering how highly ranked or how highly respected their engineering program is. How does it compare to UMD, UF or University of Delaware? Thanks
Pitt is comparable (based on undergraduate program ratings) to the other universities. It may be 1/2 step behind UMD and UF. Some majors are stronger (or only offered) at one school verse another. For example, Pitt and UD don’t offer Aerospace Engineering; UD doesn’t offer Industrial Engineering (while Pitt does); UD offers Environmental Engineering, while Pitt does not…you get the idea.
Pitt does off environmental engineering.
These schools were all on my daughter’s list and I will tell you why she chose Pitt. Pitt’s First Year program is very structured and supportive and includes housing options. They have a staff that supports this program and their freshman retention is high. Pitt has several study abroad options specifically geared to freshman engineers and for later in the curriculum. Pitt’s Honors College is very strong and includes a program designed for engineers (UF really needs to work on their Honors College). Pitt also boasts a very positive percentage of women in engineering majors and a strong chapter of Women in Engineering. The facilities are impressive and the students/faculty we met even more so. The friendly vibe on campus and the really cool city of Pittsburgh sealed the deal. Having visited each of these campuses, I can tell you they are very different in “feel” and I would encourage you to visit before your decision.
One of the biggest bonuses that Pitt offers which I rarely see at other schools is the emphasis of research/industry experience for students. When you are a freshman they begin to stress the importance of summer jobs which are either research related (i.e. with a professor at Pitt or through an REU) or getting a summer internship/co-op. Pitt’s co-op program is extremely well-run. We have connections with loads of great companies that always want to hire our students and rave about the work that they do.
If you don’t want to co-op (it’s not for everyone since your schedule gets out of whack) then Pitt will still help you find summer internship placements or summer research placements. They want to ensure their students are prepared for a career or graduate school by the time they graduate, which a lot of other universities don’t bother with.
My son is currently a freshman Bioengineering major, choosing Pitt over Notre Dame. He said to me one day “If I could’ve designed the perfect college experience, this would be it”. He is very intelligent (received a merit scholarship), very social and athletic (manager of the Pitt’s basketball team). I will tell you that the Freshman Engineering program at Pitt is intense and challenging - they make the students want to be engineers. His advisor assisted him in obtaining a research job for the summer, which is very difficult for many freshman in other programs.
So, a question about co-ops: if they do a co-op during regular semester, students still pay tuition that semester? And does that mean, for merit scholarships, they will end up with at least one semester without a scholarship?
You do not pay tuition during coop terms, in fact you’d earn a salary.
No, you pay a few small fees (my guess is somewhere around $1000, maybe less) to maintain status as a student because the co-op is a 1-credit class for that term. You have the option to pay out of pocket for any other classes you may want to take that term (many of my friends took a night engineering class to get some electives/etc. out of the way while on co-op in the city).
For the term you are on co-op you can request a hold on all of your scholarships. Most scholarships run 8 semesters long. It does not matter which semester you use these for. That is, if you co-op in the spring and then take classes in the summer, you can apply your scholarship towards the summer term.
Thanks @awesomepossum & @amandakayak !
Still on topic for Engineering, what type laptop do most students get - WIndows or Mac?
It’s relatively split but I will always recommend a Windows. There are a variety of programs which students will need to use (Matlab comes to mind) which can only be installed onto a Windows. Of course, you can certainly get a mac and entire partition the harddrive or use the computer lab, but I found it easier to use a windows and not have to worry about that.
The current version of Matlab works on Macs, is Pitt using an older version? My D has been accepted into the Swanson School of Engineering, and is 99% sure she’ll attend, needs a new laptop ASAP, as hers has died. We don’t want to get a Mac if it will cause problems in Engineering.
Not a problem - my jr bioe works on a mac, you can get versions of software for mac or use pc at computer lab
I have visited both UMD and Pitt (one son is in Computer engineering there and one son is still in high school who wants to attend Pitt.) One main difference is the first year program at Pitt. At Pitt, you basically all take a common year, no matter your intended major, with one general engineering class. This can be very good if you are undecided on your major but bad if you would like to start taking classes in your major freshman year. At UMD, computer engineers, for example, already take Java programming and an EE lab their first year. At Pitt, computer engineers wait for their sophomore year before doing any of these classes. Again, I’m not advocating one approach or another, it just depends on your preference.
To be clear, one son is a freshman at UMD in computer engineering. Another son is a high school junior undecided on engineering who wants to attend Pitt. Hence, UMD was a better choice for my first son, while Pitt seems to be a much better choice for my second son. That is why I believe either choice can be good depending on your situation. Good luck.