Purdue vs Embry Riddle Daytona beach- Aerospace Engineering decision dilemma

turbo93
Thu, 29 Oct 2015 00:45:18 +0000

Let me put it to you this way. Thirty odd years ago I came to the USA to study in Lafayette, LA. NOT West Lafayette, IN. When I mentioned Lafayette, some of my relatives (in the middle of nowhere in Europe) immediately asked “Zee are goinz to Purduez Unizersityz?” to which I responded “no, Univerzity of Zouthweztern Louiziana” :). I eventually attended Purdue as well and graduated from there also. Overseas there are some schools that have this big appeal / name recognition. Embry Riddle is one, I wanted to study Aero initially and was familiar with it. But the name recognition of places like Purdue, OSU, UIUC, Michigan… It’s an international thing more than anything else.

I know a couple Purdue Aero kids that after having CFD hammered into their heads for years ended up taking software jobs writing CFD software :). But I’m not sugarcoating it - Purdue is a serious institution and they really demand a lot from their students. Student life is good and access to overseas travel is good (Chicago), but be prepared for a lot of studious kids :). Dorms are average, housing is not bad in the grand scheme of things, weather ain’t the best, but you’re in one of the top schools in the planet for Aero, so…

To understand what top ranked means. There is a heavy emphasis on basic math/sciences to build a core knowledge. They don’t teach off-the-wall topics and such, but its a LOT of work. Lots of homeworks, projects, etc. I attended Purdue for Industrial Engineering (graduate) and had a lot of college experience beforehand, and thought that the quality of education was phenomenal (we had lots of well known faculty in IE). And projects were not difficult, just lots of them. What I saw was interesting compared to other schools. The good students are good everywhere. But the ho-hum students in some schools were, well, ho-hum. The ho-hum students at Purdue were still VERY good. I thought homework was a bit too much till I saw the rankings :).