S2 is a CompE going into his senior year at U of MN. He has had internships locally in MN, then Texas, and this year in Palo Alto(Tesla), and has made a lot of friends and contacts with his peers. The top Engineering schools are represented(i.e, Berkeley, Purdue, Michigan, GT, Waterloo, but also Cal Poly, Iowa and places like RPI. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
At U of MN, he finds classes to be a mixed bag as far as how relevant they are to the work place, and that’s being kind. While he is a straight A student, partly out of reflex and habit, he believes that getting straight A’s in Engineering doesn’t do much in preparing you for the workplace. What has really helped him is joining the Formula club(could easily be Solar Car, or Rocket/Satellite Club, or what have you).There he works with other like minded students on producing a new vehicle every year, and bringing it to a competition, usually in Michigan. The experience he gets spending long hours trying to make the damn thing work(it doesn’t always, literal melt downs on the test track happen)more closely approximates what he does on the job, and is where most of his learning takes place. His best teachers are other students, some of whom barely get passing grades because they devote most of their time to club, or side projects.
Guess who else knows it? All of the big(and some small) companies. Recruiters flock to the competition(s), wine and dine the participants, and give them special windows to apply for jobs that normal students don’t get.
In the summer he connects with students and grads from other schools. Their experiences are similar. It’s not so much the school, but what the individual does once he gets to the school. If a student settles for going to class, doesn’t join a club, and doesn’t bust his ass getting a good internship then his career will have a different trajectory than one who goes to class, then spends 15-20 hours/week in a relevant club, and spends good chunks of time applying, and preparing for interviews.
@57special, your comment reflects why Olin College of Engineering takes the approach it does to teaching and learning and why it is a special place to study Engineering.
S2 looked at Olin, as a neighbour had a son who went there and had a positive experience, though that was in the days when the tuition was next to nothing. S2 was scared off by the tiny size of the student body, and limited social opportunities.
S2 was scare off by the tiny size of the student body, and limited social opportunities.
I understand.
Every student has his own priorities and what makes a school a good fit for him. I respect that, so hats off to your son for knowing what’s right for him.
I’d like to take the opportunity to point out some factors which mitigate Olin’s small size:
Olin College is occupies 70 acres which were purchased from Babson College. This land was literally part of the Babson campus until it was purchased by the Olin Foundation in 1997 to create the College of Engineering.
Olin has an enrollment of 400. Babson has an enrollment of 2800. For all practical purposes, Olin is a second college of Babson even though they are legally and administratively separate. But collaboration with Babson was always an important element right from the beginning. They share a design studio, a baseball field, and community spaces. Olin students have access to Babson’s intramural and club teams and to Babson’s athletic facilities. Olin and Babson students share the Trim Dining Hall on the Babson campus. Finally, there is cross registration privileges between the two colleges.
It is not unusual to have engineering schools of 400 students on larger campuses, and because of the nature of an engineering curriculum, engineering students are taking a high percent of their classes with other engineering students. If we think of Olin as an engineering school which is part of a larger institution of 3200 students, I think that it puts it in a different light. It is NOT an isolated school of 400 students off by itself with no other college students with whom to interact. It is literally on the same campus as Babson College. You don’t even cross a street to go between the two institutions. It frankly has a lot more opportunity for social interaction than do students at Cal Tech, which also has fewer than 1000 undergrads but has no other college next door.
What Olin does have going for it in terms of social interaction is a rare 54:46 male:female gender ratio. It is in addition part of a 3 college consortium (BOW) with Babson and Wellesley, the latter being just a bike ride or campus shuttle away, just 3 miles across town. With the option to take electives at two other colleges conveniently close by and with opportunities for participation in clubs and sports at both colleges, there are actually myriad opportunities for social interaction.
I haven’t read through all the posts, but if you haven’t looked at University of Dayton ( ohio) - check out their website. They had 2 types of engineering programs when we visited
