This question is really about multiple topics, but since I mainly want to hear from any kind of engineer, I’ll out it here. I’m not a high school senior and it will be more than a year before I graduate, but in the meantime I can’t help but ask questions. A bit of background: as previously mentioned, I still have more than a year to high school graduation, and for college I’m interested in engineering and doing community college for a year or more before going to a four-year school. The community college I’m interested in is a local cc named Sheridan College in northern Wyoming. The University I’m primarily interested in is University of Wyoming and possibly Colorado State University. The aforementioned community college says that their students have better graduation rates when they go to UW than any other community college in Wyoming, and that they have block transfer agreements with UW in many fields including engineering for an easy transfer. So anyway, to my questions.
Question #1: I’m interested in two pathways that would include community college. The first path would be to take just the basic courses for a year or more required by UW for graduation with a bachelors. These would include Calculus, science, and some writing and English courses. The other pathway would be to complete an associate’s degree at the community college in what they just call engineering. They say this degree is designed to give you the basic courses needed for a transfer to a university, so that when you get there you can focus on your engineering speciality (mechanical, petroleum, civil, etc.) without having to take the basic courses. So my question (actually questions) is if I completed an associate’s in engineering would I still need more than two years at a university or would it just take two more years of full time college to achieve my bachelors? And which pathway (that is, complete the associate’s or just take the basic required courses) would be wisest, or are both of these plans not very good ones?
Question #2: How is the University of Wyoming’s engineering program. I’m primarily interested in mechanical engineering.
Question #3: Is UW considered a bad college, and does it’s cheap tuition translate into a not very good school. I’m more interested in if it’s a good school than if its reputation is good, but I’m curious about both.
Question #4: In Math, Science, Geography, and English I usually get A’s or A-'s. In science I sometimes get a B+, and now that I realize I better do pretty well in science if I want to graduate as an engineer, I hope to improve my grade a little. So anyway, with these grades do you think I have a good chance at graduating with a mechanical engineering bachelor?
Sorry of its a long question, but I’ve got quite a few questions about college that are unanswered.
First, I think Wyoming is underappreciated because it’s admission rate is so high and it’s cheap. All publics from small, mostly rural states have high admission rates. It’s cheap because of the oil. Personally, I think it’s widely underrated. Wyo has the first, and to date only, ABET accredited Energy Systems Engineering program. Civil and ME have been around for a long time. It’s a great value. Even with WUE CSU, also a good program in a cooler town, would cost a lot more.
Second, why Sheridan? Why not go straight to Laramie?
I want to go to community college first because I think it would be a better fit for me to go there first and then to a University. But if would be better for me to go straight to UW, then I’ll consider that too.
Is cost a reason for wanting to start at the community college?
You may want to check the first two years of the curriculum for your major at Wyoming and see if Sheridan offers the courses that Wyoming accepts as equivalent to all of the listed courses. If not, then you may have to take “catch up” courses after transfer, which can delay graduation.
I’m a big fan of the CC route IF money is an issue and for majors EXCEPT engineering. In a few cases the CC route for engineering is tightly linked to an affiliated university, even including sharing some teachers. For many though, the teaching and competition won’t give you as strong a foundation for university level work. why do you feel Sheridan is the better fit?
And if you can’t satisfy the foundational engineering curricula at community college, then it’s likely you’ll spend more than four years total trying to get the engineering degree. It’s not unusual for kids who start at STEM universities to spend 5 years getting an engineering degree, but just keep in mind that if you transfer from a CC, you may be classified as a freshman when you enroll at the university.
UWY transfer equivalences are listed at:
https://wyossb.uwyo.edu/bnrprod/bwckytfc.p_display_transfer_catalog
Sheridan appears to be part of the Northern Wyoming Community College District.
The UWY ME curriculum is at http://www.uwyo.edu/mechanical/undergraduate%20students/2014-2015/2014-2015_bsme-curric%20sheet.pdf . You should look up each of the frosh and soph year courses to find their equivalents at Sheridan / NWCCD, and then check Sheridan on how frequently they are offered.
It does look like NWCCD conveniently uses many of the same course numbers as UWY – not that surprising, since UWY is the only four year school in the state of Wyoming and presumably the main transfer target. But make sure that the needed courses are available at Sheridan.