Tell me about UA engineering

dixiedelight
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:58:59 +0000

I am a current student finishing up chemical engineering. I looked at going to Auburn and Alabama. Alabama offered me better scholarships and I loved the campus when I toured it. I found Auburn’s to be nice, but I just found Alabama’s to be incredible. I knew that Auburn was more known as an engineering school, but I feel that that has recently changed some and is continuing to change. I think last fall’s entering engineering class was bigger at UA than Auburn. I do not think that rankings all that important in engineering either, even though UA’s are improving. It seems that individual GPA’s and work experience matter a lot more as long as the school is ABET accredited, which UA is.

I have had a great experience. My professors, quality of education, and overall experience have been excellent. I have found that students have an easy time pursuing whatever they want to do and are actually encouraged to do so. It was very easy for me to secure undergraduate research. I’ve heard it is pretty difficult at some schools. The new facilities are amazing. Professors in my department have said that the facilities are so nice and that the school has invested so much money and resources into engineering recently that they have been able to basically hand pick which young professors to hire. They implied that UA has pretty much been able to “outbid” other schools on top professors recently as well. I know that our department has been hiring professors that are incredible.

The dorms, extracurricular activity opportunities, and social scene also led me to UA. There has been so much to do and I have had the time of my life. From mentoring freshman engineering students, joining a fraternity, to attending national championship football games, I have had a four year experience of a lifetime. The Honors Program is incredible. UA is really able to provide a small school feel with the resources of a huge university. I know that many schools probably tout that line, but UA really delivered it (in my experience at least) throughout the whole four years. Really, these aspects of UA are what really made me fall in love with the school. It’s not only a great education, but also a great college experience.

UA does push for Co-Ops. I know that many companies do internships in engineering (I did a summer engineering internship), but it really does seem that most companies prefer or are on the move to entirely doing co-ops. Jrcsmom, the head of the co-op department came and spoke to all of us during my first chemE class. I assumed they did that for every department? I wonder if Civil dropped the ball or something on that one? Anyway, she gave a great presentation and really tried to persuade every student to pursue a co-op. It seems that every one of my classmates that have wanted to get a co-op have been able to do so also. I pursued an internship because of an opportunity that I came across. Many of my classmates also did internships instead of co-ops. They seem harder to get than co-ops because there appears to be less of them offered (I assume that is a national trend). Also, the school probably pushes co-ops because it develops a better employee-university relationship (basically locking UA students into great companies for years). I have been to career fairs at UA and there were many companies wanting to hire engineering interns, but there were even more at the co-op interview day. I’m sorry if I rambled for a bit. To wrap it up, I’ll say that you son could either get an internship or a co-op if he wanted (just obtaining the internship may require more work and persistence because the positions are usually more competitive due to lower openings). I know you said that your son is undecided on which engineering he wants to do. Alabama is a great state for engineering. Mercedes is around 20 minutes from campus (they do co-ops) and hyundai and toyota are in Alabama also. Huntsville (home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and many federal government weapon research and manufacturing centers) is probably one of the best cities for an aerospace engineer to reside in. Being near the gulf coast, there are countless chemical engineering possibilities. It just seems like a great state to be in with a B.S. in engineering. If your son would like to work outside of Alabama after school, I don’t think he would have a problem at all in finding a job anywhere. I know so many people that have gotten jobs outside of AL (in all regions of the county-- California to New York to Alaska). On a side note, I worked with many engineering students from Texas A&M, UT-Austin, Georgia Tech, and UMichigan, and always felt as prepared or more prepared than them in my education. I actually had a Texas A&M student comment about how well we were taught distillation (he saw some notes I had pulled up from one of my classes while we were doing a project).

I really don’t have any negative experiences to talk about that aren’t normal at every university. For example, many students complain about parking… Tell me one major university that has great parking…