From: lungtt@gus5.ecn.purdue.edu (Terence T. Lung)
Subject: Re: Engineering College
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 06:16:54 GMT

In article <726341101.AA00025@eilc.fidonet> Chad.Armstrong@f52.n357.z1.fidonet.org (Chad Armstrong) writes:
>  I'm going to be entering college soon and I'm wondering what everyones
>  opionions of some Colleges out there are as far as engineering goes..
>  I'm thinking about AeroSpace engineering, but I don't know enought to
>  really say.. I'm looking for a good college to go to for an
>  engineering degree..  Oh, and ya, money is a big factor..  Ive heard
>  CalTech is good???
>
>Thanks a bunch..  ANY ideas welcome!
>
>Chad

Here's my $0.02 overdose of ideas:

(1)Let's first break you into reality in case you're not there yet,
because this is important.  Keep your 
eyes out on what engineers do for a living.  Keep yourself updated
on what direction you want to head towards, what it is exactly
that you want to be doing, and who is willing to pay for this skill
that you're developing [if you want a job].  I say these things
because, by and large, engineering graduates do not do engineering
either because they're out of luck or because they don't want to
after seeing what it's all about.

(2)Aerospace engineering heh?  Are you sure about this?  MOST people
in aerospace jobs did not come from Aerospace E.  Consider what they
are doing and double check to see if you like what it is that they do
in the aerospace industry:
Civils, MEs, EEs, CSEEs, Aviation Tech, Flight School, Chemistry, Physics,
Chem E, Matls E, Industrial E., Forestry(!! adhesives technology, etc), 
Textiles (manufacturing innovations) and just about anything
else under the sun.  If you're interested in Management or Law or
some nonengineering thing, first get your engineering degree.
Also, think M.S.  For an engineer, you can't lose with one of these.
It's also a grand opportunity to go interdisciplinary like
ME to EE, EE to Medicine, Aero to Biomechanics, ME to Chem E,
ME to Naval Architecture, etc... (get the picture?  the whole
world is yours.)  Personally, I think this is a better way to
go than to double-major (IMO a waste of time).

(3) undergraduate engineering programs (with aerospace loosely in mind)
that get two serious thumbs up by me (but in no particular order):
(a)less expensive
   Berkeley, WA, ASU, UC Davis, CO Boulder, WI, IL, Purdue,
   MI, Texas A&M, NC State, GA Tech, Penn State (expensive?),
   RPI (expensive?), Cornell (cost is dept dependent)
(b)more expensive:  (no flame war intended, but I don't think any
   of these are worth going to for *undergrad* unless you're seriously 
   interested in doing research, for that case:  Cal Tech & MIT) 
   otherwise:  VA, Stanford, Princeton, Rice
(c)very specialized:  Webb Institute (naval architecture),
   Stevens Inst. (plastics), [USAFA, USNA, West Point--these
   produce "engineers" too, for whom I give an especially high regard.]
(d)far away:
   Eindhoven (Holland--Phillips Petroleum!), a number of German
   schools escape my mind at the moment...,  any French Ecole Polytech.

(4)comments on schools
I did my MS at Virginia Tech.  My gut feeling was to bash their
undergraduate program and tell you not to go there.  But on thinking
of my reasons to do so, I became aware that these reasons are cropping
up everywhere especially with budget cuts.  Class environments have
been getting worse and worse everywhere over the last decade or so.
Even my undergraduate Purdue has gotten much worse than what I
remember.  Classes are getting bigger, quick/dirty methods + cheating are 
becoming rampant, dependencies on cribs/files/coofers/etc to get
decent grades is becoming ridiculous, etc.  More and more classes 
from freshmen all the way through senior year are becoming huge
and badly designed (designed for mass production of students...
I'm becoming firmly convinced that there is a significant point
of diminishing returns in learning a given subject for a given effort).
Even if you're good, you'll be wasting a lot of time.  The more 
classes you can AP/test out of the better.

(5)comments on costs
Out-of-state tuition for public schools may not be so cheap but can
be a real bargain.  Tuition could be high, but cost of housing low.
But for other places, tuition could be cheap, but housing costs can
be high (Berkeley).  If you're adventurous, seriously consider
going to Europe.  Tuition's next to nothing if you can do it right.
Their academic ladders are totally different.  But if things roll the
right way, you could conceivably be apprenticed by some European
firm and come back to US highly valuable.  Brush up that French,
German, etc.  Beyond Europe, don't forget Japanese (metallurgy)

(6)Congratulations for getting on the network.  This is a potentially
awesome source of uncensored, unbiased impressions from real
engineers in the field and their colleagues still in school.
Look into various newsgroups for pockets of people in different fields.

(7)Good luck!  Go in fighting and take no prisoners!

-Terence

I have a BSAE from Purdue/Grenoble (France), a MS (Engineering Mechanics) 
from VPI, a few years work experience as a naval architect/mechanical
engineer at the NSWC and lots of contact with places like Beckman, 
NASA-Ames, Pratt/Whitney, Hercules, GE, Atlantic Research Corp, 
Lockheed, Boeing, Allied Signal, Hibbit/Karlsson/Sorensen and lots of others. 
I've decided to take a shot at teaching/research so I'm back in school 
for a PhD.