<p>tuition cost is not a huge factor if you are a good student, actually most likely top notch private schools will cost less if you can get into them than many public schools. </p>
<p>This discussion of public vs. Private is not as relevant IMO as small school vs. large school or big major vs. small major. I’ve taken engineering classes and have many friends at the best private engineering schools, it differs a lot. (For Example, you will find that Cornell is a lot more like Michigan, than Caltech.) </p>
<p>I went to Michigan and Material Science was a small department, usually about 20 people per class year, Nuclear Engineering, Civil Engineering are all pretty small, as is Atmospheric Sciences and Engineering physics. While Mechanical Engineering usually had 200 people per class year. (I was an ME)But most of my engineering classes were around 30-50 people in each class. And there were plenty of office hours, usually for each class, TA office hours are 30 hours per week, professors are available for office hours 6-8 hours a week. And you can always schedule appointments with profs or TAs, I’ve done this numerous times and they always love you for it, because they love teaching students who love to learn. (this applies for even some of my ‘worst professors’)</p>
<p>You really have to accept that as an engineering student, you have two class formats, lectures and labs. Labs are small(~10 per class), lectures are a little bigger(30-60 people). And that’s pretty much how it is everywhere, how small lectures are depends on how small the department is. </p>
<p>Engineering isn’t like humanities where you sit in a circle and contribute ideas, the learning process is cruel, and usually flows like this:
First you:</p>
<p>1) Read the textbook
2) Go to Lecture to understand concepts and ask questions to clarify big picture concepts
3) Do Homework by yourself or with your peers, you’ll need to go to lots of office hours, very few people JUST GET IT naturally.(A lot of times I make silly mistakes that propagates, and a good TA usually knows where people make mistakes and will look it over for you, AND THEY HAVE ANSWERS for every step!!)
4) Repeat.</p>
<p>And cramming doesn’t work for engineering classes.</p>