Rose-Hulman vs. Purdue

EllenF
Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:41:52 +0000

Freshman classes at Purdue are large, but after you select a specific engineering major, your classes will be fairly small - usually 20 or fewer students. Once you select your engineering major, you will find that you have a small school feeling within a large school.

Although Purdue is a research university, most professors leave their doors open and welcome students who want to stop by. Your professors will get to know you and you’ll often have the same professor for more than once course, especially if you choose to further specialize within an engineering discipline. (Larger universities have more courses. This permits students to further specialize if they so desire.) Professors invited students to dine at their homes, hired them to babysit, found them engineering-related work-study jobs, talked with them about post-graduate plans, etc. I can honestly say that most Purdue engineering professors are truly interested in their students. A significant percentage of graduates in my major found jobs through contacts professors had with industry rather than going through the placement office. In fact, I got my job after a professor tracked me down in a grocery store! (I was changing apartments so he had been unable to phone me.)

I don’t mean to say that Purdue is better than Rose-Hulman (my son is looking at both), just to correct some misconceptions.