[andrzejpw]

Eric: it'll be interesting to compare notes with you, as I visited a few of the colleges you're wondering about. I've applied to mit, cmu, cornell, case western, and penn state honors. To be honest, after looking at my options, penn state, surprisingly, is looking to be a good bet. Why? As an in state student, it's actually cheaper than the regular penn state tuition, and it has a kick ass engineering program. Secondly, we're just talking about undergrad. I plan on going to a grad school, not sure about you.

I visited UIUC over the summer. The visit made me cross it off the list. Why? Cost. Talking to a financial consultant there made me rethink my choices. As a freshmen, I'd be paying about 27k/year. Sure, its a great school, but for close to 30k/year I'm sure I could find a better solution. Oh, did I mention that it's tough as nails to get scholarships as an out of state student (factor for me)?

Same thing with northwestern. The campus is BEAUTIFUL. It feels like a state park. Sure, they have nice research labs, but I doubt as freshmen that we'd be making much use of those. Again, 30+ a year, and there are better engineering programs.

CMU: I have a VERY close relationship with CMU. My family originally came to the US because my dad was doing his Ph D in Materials Science at cmu. Since the age of 2 (when we got here), I was constantly there. Even though my dad has been in industry for the past 7 years, it seems as if I'm still there all the time. I did a summer program there over the summer (CS with Prof Rudich). I've sat in on a few classes there. Although I have to admit that it's a great campus with a good location (Oakland isn't downtown, by the way, it's just a bit more congested/crowded because the Univ of Pittsburgh is there with all the UPMC hospitals), but I just don't think I'd want to go there because of the close proximity to home. I'd be home every weekend mowing my lawn, and "surprise visits" don't sound too cool.

Mmm, nice to see that you're another theater techie

I've pretty much given up hope for dabbling in it in college bc of lack of time. Ah well, such is life.

Edit: my stats for e-penis++
1440 sat (

)
790 Chem
700 Writ
750 Math IIC (skipping math levels sucks)
4.0 GPA, 5.0 weighted
Currently valedictorian (This may change. Damn you AP English)

 

[SunByrne]

Lots of good advice floating around here...

I'd also encourage you to consider Rice. I've spent my entire adult life at universities (I'm a prof), and I've never seen a place that treats its undergratudates better than Rice. Strong Engineering and CS, and despite being a private school, it's probably cheaper than Michigan or UIUC if you're out-of-state. (Definitely cheaper than USC, NWU, Princeton, and Stanford.) You'd be borderline to get in--which is true for many of those schools, too--but I do really think it's worth a look.

 

[Douglas256]

SunByrne,

You are absolutely correct about the REU programs. There are actually two types of REU programs, site REU programs (which is what you wrote those recommendations for) and individual REU funding. Site REU programs usually have 4-8 faculty sponsors who each work with groups of 2-7 students doing research projects in their field. The point of these projects isn't necessarily to do original research, but to give undergradutes a taste of what real research is all about.

Individual REU funding can be had by virtually any professor with an active NSF grant -- just a form or two and they have $10-12k for undergradute research projects (of course, thats only $6-8k after the school takes its cut -- 50% overhead is quite standard these days).

Either way, they are a great way to get a taste for research. If I hadn't been doing research for my advisors since I was a college freshman (3 papers in top journals down and 2-3 papers to go), I'd probably have dropped out from boredom.

 

[Born2bwire]

UIUC does have a great ECE department and they're always touting their digital signal processing group too. Plus they're adding a bio-engineering department I believe which should be interesting. One thing though about grad school, being an undergrad of the school you want to get into can be a big bonus for admission. At UIUC being an undergrad here gets your foot in the door for grad school and if you can maintain a 3.9 GPA (God damn CS225) you automatically get into the Graduate school when you apply (just have to rubber stamp it). I would definitely go for MIT if you are considering out of state. If you're willing to pay out of state tuitions, even though you might find a school that is comparitive to the program at MIT it means a lot to just have the school's name on your diploma.

As to costs, for out of state students, you pay $5K more than instate students. You're actual tuition is about $10K, the figures that andrje quoted include their estimates for room and board, books, and misc. expenses (but are rather high,. But believe me, once you live out of the dorms it's a hell of a lot cheaper. This semester I lived off of a total of $8K and I was able to cover school and living costs (and for now I'm being charged as an instate student but for financial aid they consider me out of state).

 

[jhawk1729]

Definitely look at CMU, we've got great CS and engineering programs, and the drama school is one of the best. There's plenty of ways to do tech without being a drama student as well. Not that you'll necessarily have time for that.

It's not in downtown Pittsburgh as somebody said. The area is mainly residential, though UPitt is down the street and there's a nice park in back. It's got far more of a centralized campus than places like MIT, which are sprawled out over blocks and blocks in the middle of a city. Except for the frats, most of the dorms, and a few specific buildings (robotics institute, some admin stuff, Mellon Institute) everything is on the same block.

If you come here, be prepared to work very hard. You should learn a great deal, and be well prepared for whatever you do afterwards, but it's quite hard. I don't know about CIT (engineering college) but in MCS (college of science) we're heavily encouraged to do research as undergraduates, to get into a professor's lab and learn what it's like to actually be part of the field rather than just learning about it (which is why I spent several hours today sorting flies).

While the male/female ratio may not be so great, UPitt is right down the street, and that's got tens of thousands of people which helps the numbers a bit.

 

[hop ham]

Quote:

Originally posted by eric343 Why? Dude, I've taken this attitude through middle school and up until now at high school. It's gotten me *NOWHERE*. I'm beginning to suspect that rather than taking such a self-defeatist attitude and using my geekiness as an excuse for not actually expending any effort and MEETING women, I should at least TRY. There's some stupid motivational quote appropriate here, but I can't remember who said it... "'tis better to have tried and failied than to have sat on your arse and felt sorry for yourself all day," or something like that.

Eric

yeah, i really didn't think you were going to take that seriously. a little engineering humor, maybe you'll get it once you in it

listen to some of these people. ugrad is not that important. stay in state if possible. get good grades and, co-op, and research.

 

[Zanth]

eric, be careful about taking all this "save money, rape your bank account on grad school" stuff.

The thing is....MOST students die after 4 years. They simply have had enough! With an engineering degree it will be all the more difficult to keep going. My MSc prof told me the difference between a person with a PhD and without is not brains but 100% determination. Most of the smartest people in the world head for the big bucks ASAP.

That said, if you KNOW you are gunning for a graduate studies then I suggest you try to save money if possible if money is at all an issue.

Don't overlook MIT though, just because it demands much of your time doens't mean you will not have a life. Also, the typical stigma of MIT != women is a farce. There are plenty of women there and better yet, many women who are driven, want geeky men

and will be able to support you if you decide to go on for a PhD (thank you my dear wife!).

 

[eric343]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zanth eric, be careful about taking all this "save money, rape your bank account on grad school" stuff. The thing is....MOST students die after 4 years. They simply have had enough! With an engineering degree it will be all the more difficult to keep going. My MSc prof told me the difference between a person with a PhD and without is not brains but 100% determination. Most of the smartest people in the world head for the big bucks ASAP. That said, if you KNOW you are gunning for a graduate studies then I suggest you try to save money if possible if money is at all an issue.

Precisely why I've been taking that advice with a grain of salt. I don't know yet what the benefits of a PhD would be in the field of engineering or for that matter anything else (that doesn't REQUIRE a graduate degree, like medicine or law or midieval basket weaving

) as opposed to real-world experience.

Or, I could follow the lead of a friend of mine and spend a few years making $$$ then find a fun academic job and use my spare time to get advanced degrees.

 

[Douglas256]

eric343,

It's true, you don't need a Ph.D. for the vast majority of engineering jobs. A Ph.D. in engineering/pure sciences is only required for jobs at research institutes (such as government labs and some corporate R&D) or teaching at a university. If working very hard for a position at one of the few remaining corporate think-tanks isn't your thing (and you don't want to teach at the university level), then there really isn't any reason to work towards a Ph.D. Also, there really isn't any fiscal advantage to getting a Ph.D. in the pure sciences or engineering -- you do it because you love the subject so much you couldn't imagine not going for it.

 

[princeclassic]

penn st is pretty excellent

i actually just came back from a presentation by recording engineer Mike Sokol. it was all about multi-channel music recordings. fun stuff! (7 tannoy elipse monitors are neat)


i am (err...parents are) paying out of state tuition for penn st. i probably would have been well off at rutgers too. but, i think i made the right decision coming here. great engineering program, town, student body, and the faculty is just too cool.


as for princeton, i live a few minutes from there and the town is really nice. i hang out there pretty often. princeton record exchange is a must.


edit: andrzejpw, it'd be great to have ya here at penn st!

 

[Hajime]

Quote:

Originally posted by eric343 - Northwestern

Hey, Northwestern's five minutes away from me. Feel free to come by and have a root beer.

 

[daycart1]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zanth Don't overlook MIT though, just because it demands much of your time doens't mean you will not have a life. Also, the typical stigma of MIT != women is a farce. There are plenty of women there and better yet, many women who are driven, want geeky men and will be able to support you if you decide to go on for a PhD (thank you my dear wife!).

Another satisfied MIT alum!

 

[jefemeister]

How can you metion engineering, Nortwestern, UIUC, and leave U of Michigan off the list? Especially if you're into automotive. I know a kid that took thermodynamics 3 times and is pulling down $70,000 at Ford (well, actually Visteon) right out of school.

UIUC is good if you want to live in a corn field. I can't say a whole lot bad about Northwestern other than their football team blows.

I grew up in PA but decided to go to school out of state. I originally wanted to do automotive engineering and was looking forward to getting away from everything I knew. My folks could afford it and I loved every second at U of M but it cost about $100,000 more than Penn State would have run. But of course I would have gone to U Penn so who knows. I guess my point is that University of Washington should be in your list as well.

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

UIUC is good if you want to live in a corn field. I can't say a whole lot bad about Northwestern other than their football team blows.

HEY!! I'll have you know that in addition to corn we have SOY and COWS WITH HOLES IN THEIR STOMACHS!

 

[jefemeister]

I just read a few more of the above posts about advanced degrees in engineering. Basically, start with a BSE and then get a job. Having the real world experience and a working-man's frame of mind I think would really help make your advanced degree that much better. Also, you can probably convince your company to pay for your masters later on.

Who knows? maybe after working 5 years or so you decide you want to get a MBA instead of a masters in engineering. With the fast-paced engineering curriculums today you really know very little about engineering as a whole when you first graduate. There's just too much to cram into 4 years. With the new curriculum at UofM (I graduated right before it took effect) you can actually graduate in electrical engineering without ever studying a transistor!

A Phd is all but worthless unless you plan to teach or do government work. I'm sure there are cases otherwise but that is my general impression. Also, with a Phd you tend to price youself out of the market because you demand a much higher salary than someone with just a masters or less.

While I'm ranting, a Professional Engineer title is probably not worth the effort in most cases as well.