<p>im having so trouble finding out how good the engineering programs are at certain schools. Does anyone know what to look for/how to find out? I dont want to know llke the top 5 list, but how good engineering is at a place like Northwestern</p>
<p>northwestern is top 15…lol go look at the engineering part of cc all the rankings are there</p>
<p>The engineering program at Northwestern is superb. They have excellent students, accomplished faculty, lots of opportunities to get practical experience through co-op, internships, research participation. I actually received a recruiting phone call from a faculty member at Northwestern and had an opportunity to ask lots of questions. I was very favorably impressed. I am not sure if they are uniformly excellent in all areas of engineering so be sure to ask about your particular specialty.</p>
<p>According to US News ranking, all of the NU’s nine areas are in the top-25 and overall, the engg school is 14th (the ranking is pretty much based on peer assessment)–behind mit, stanford, caltech, cornell, cmu, and princeton only among privates but ahead of schools like duke, rice, penn, brown, colubmia in terms of both the overall ranking and number of programs in the top-25. So it has pretty good reputation within the academia. Its introductory curriculum is very unique.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=383417[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=383417</a></p>
<p>I’m going to give you some advice that requires work on your part, as opposed to pointing you to a list and letting you believe all the checking and thinking has been done for you. What you want to do is create some standards you want in a program and then to find those that match or exceed them.</p>
<p>The first thing to look for in traditional engineering majors (EE, ChemE, Civil, etc) is ABET accreditation. This is a national board that sets curriculum standards. Newer fields such as bio-engineering may not have ABET set up yet; you’ll have to look into it.</p>
<p>The next thing to consider is the overall quality of the students, esp. those in engineering. Like it or not, if a school admits all comers then the average student just isn’t as good as one that has some selectivity. The class expectations will have to be adjusted accordingly, and employers know this too. A second way of examing this is to ask the career center who recruits on campus and what percentage of the kids not going on to grad school found work thru on-campus recruiting.</p>
<p>Classroom work in engineering is quite different from the work environment. School teaches you the fundamentals & principles, although they also try to have labs and hands-on work where you design things. So internships and coops are important for finding out whether the career is right for you before you spend 4 years in the major; they also put you in front of the line when employers are hiring. Every school “has” an internship program; you’ll need to investigate to find out how many kids actually got positions.</p>
<p>Lastly, you’ll want to look into what advising and support is available, as well as talk to current students (once you’ve narrowed down your list) to find out what the atmosphere among the students is like. Are they helpful to each other and happy with the school? Given the incredible dropout rate in engineering where between 1/2 and 2/3 drop out at almost all schools (see a trade newspaper at <a href=“http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=45200041[/url]”>EE Times - Connecting The Global Electronics Industry; ) you want as supportive an environment as you can find.</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>mikemac provides excellent pointers.</p>
<p>As far as Northwestern’s engg goes,</p>
<ol>
<li><p>all areas have ABET accreditation:
Biomedical Engineering (BS) [1982]
Chemical Engineering (BS) [1947]
Civil Engineering (BS) [1938]
Computer Engineering (BS) [1997]
Electrical Engineering (BS) [1938]
Environmental Engineering (BS) [1976]
Industrial Engineering (BS) [1951]
Manufacturing and Design Engineering (BS) [2000]
Materials Science and Engineering (BS) [1976]
Mechanical Engineering (BS) [1938]</p></li>
<li><p>NU has probably the oldest CO-OP program in the country (since 1939). There are quite a few differences between CO-OP and regular internships and you may want to look up NU’s CO-OP website to learn about them. Last I read, about 25% of the students were CO-OP participants. Unlike some internships, all CO-OP jobs give salary. There’s a CO-OP certificate you can pursue.</p></li>
<li><p>NU engineering is demanding but not undoable for most students. When I was there, there weren’t many dropouts. I was in ChemE and it was one of the harder disciplines there. As far as I knew, no one in my chemE class ended up transferring to another school but two girls did transfer to other engineering majors.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>NU’s unusual first year curriculum is very similar to Olin’s.</p>
<p>how come MIT and caltech arent like number 1</p>
<p>“how come MIT and caltech arent like number 1”</p>
<p>It depends on what specialty of engineering you’re considering. Ranking the top programs in engineering, like everything else is splitting hairs.</p>
<p>“how come MIT and caltech arent like number 1”</p>
<p>For example, Stanford and Berkeley do well in EECS because of their close proximity to Silicon Valley. Texas schools have excellent petroleum engineering programs. Berkeley rates high in civil engineering because of its research in earthquakes and close ties with corporate engineering behemoth Bechtel.</p>
<p>Maryland CP is the 1 school in engineering. I don’t remember where i got that from, but here they talk about it all the time.</p>
<p>What !</p>
<ol>
<li>Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 4.9</li>
<li>Stanford University (CA) 4.7</li>
<li>University of California–Berkeley * 4.7</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 4.6</li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology * 4.5</li>
<li>U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign * 4.5</li>
<li>Cornell University (NY) 4.4</li>
<li>University of Michigan–Ann Arbor * 4.4</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University ¶ 4.2</li>
<li>Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)* 4.2</li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin * 4.2</li>
<li>Princeton University (NJ) 4.1</li>
<li>Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison * 4.0</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University (MD) 3.9</li>
<li>Northwestern University (IL) 3.9</li>
<li>Virginia Tech * 3.9</li>
<li>Pennsylvania State U.–University Park * 3.8</li>
<li>Rice University (TX) 3.8</li>
<li>Texas A&M Univ.–College Station * 3.8</li>
<li>Columbia University (NY) 3.7</li>
<li>Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY) 3.7</li>
<li>Univ. of California–Los Angeles * 3.7</li>
<li>Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities * 3.7</li>
<li>University of Washington * 3</li>
</ol>