Engineering Schools
 

Hey all. So my youngest is a junior in HS and is looking to go to college for engineering. He's taking an engineering class this summer at Stanford (virtual of course) to dip his toe into it. He's not sure of any specific discipline yet. He just got a perfect SAT math score, so I am assuming that will help him get into schools.

I know we have some engineers here. Any recommendations? Schools and what to look for in a program. A couple tips I got so far are make sure the school's program includes hands on experience, and make sure they have professors and actually offer the classes they list in their offerings.

I interviewed and hired hundreds of design engineering applicants over the course of my career. No particular school stood out to me as exceptional. That being said I also never interviewed candidates that attended MIT or any of the other top tier schools. I think they all headed to Silicon Valley.

For hardware design I found that those who had relevant work experience usually excelled as designers. Candidates who had never touched a soldering iron or had an interest before college usually struggled more than those who had.

Generally speaking we usually hired new grads with a Masters degree. It’s not that we discriminated against guys with Bachelors degrees, it was just that the few that applied were unable to adequately answer interview technical questions.

One word of advice for your son. If you put something on your resume make sure you understand it. It never ceased to amaze me how many candidates would put things on their resume that they lacked a basic understanding of. It was usually the end of the road for them.

Don

https://engineering.cmu.edu/

Carnegie Mellon all Day

My advice would be to have him link up with some engineers and see if he can shadow them for a day. Get a feel for what he would potentially want to do as an engineer, and pick a school that supports that dream.
I went to a small state school in CA ( Sacramento State for Mechanical). Going in to school I thought I wanted to design parts. My first job was a manufacturing engineer and watching the design guys sitting at their computers 8-10 hours a day while I was in the shop working with my hands made me glad I didn’t go into design.
If he really wants to be in automotive go to a school with strong OEM ties. If he wants to get into aerospace then do the same. O&G then go to a Texas or Oklahoma school.
I’m the engineering director at our facility making gas turbine parts. I have had people from both small state schools and top tier private aerospace engineering schools work for me, top tier school did not mean better at their job.

I was involved in interviews for Engineers at multiple locations before retiring from a large multi national company during my career and while each location had specific schools we recruited from, we also accepted and interviewed applicants from other schools. The particular school didn't have as much of a influence on who we hired as experiences co-oping in between years as well as extra curricular experiences that demonstrated drive and leadership. There were some minimum bars like GPA people needed to clear but allowances were made for extenuating circumstances in those respects as well.

Most states have at least one state school that can provide a solid engineering education with hands on adequate hands on experience in the field of choice, and those provide a good value vs out of state most of the time. I graduated from University of Missouri at Rolla (name changed now) but the state school at Columbia was also a solid school I could have attended. Within Missouri there was also Washington University as an option but that was quite expensive and with school be substantially self funded I chose one of the lesser expensive schools and never suffered from the choice during my career. I wouldn't advise anyone going out of their way to choose an expensive engineering school over a moderately priced one because perceived advantage in the job market. Over the course of a career, that just won't matter, it's performance on the job is what drives success in most places as it should.

Hey Scott hope all is well. Congrats to your son. Is Stanford on his list? Great school and will create intern opportunities out west if that is what he is interested in.

Doug

I went to Rolla also. It was the Missouri School of Mines then University of Missouri- Rolla then Missouri School of Science and Technology. When I went there is was the Missouri School of No Women....

I recruit for GM. We only hire from certain schools and the student has to have at least 3.0 GPA to be hired by GM. We also recruit out of student groups like Formula SAE.

I try to find the young engineers that have a good GPA, has had good summer internships, and was involved in student projects. If they are into cars even better. I have a lot of software engineering that work for me that also do open track days.

Looking back I was an odd student at Rolla. I had a very good GPA, I was the Formula SAE team captain and driver, the president of our SAE chapter and I was building Hot Rods in my spare time. I had my GM job offer at the end of my junior year.

My simple advice for young engineers is nail you GPA. Your freshman year is easy. Knock out a high GPA. Work on getting a good summer internship. (The good GPA helps). Don’t just join a student group - lead it. It is free to step up to be a leader. It is all time management. I did all my homework at the library before I went home or to the shop. I will say going to Engineering school was the hardest thing I did in my life. While my other friends were parting their butt off taking Art History I was working my ass off. Engineering School is hard. Engineering school is designed to change the way you think. I do not solve differential equations at work. I solve problems.

I have had a dream career, but Engineering School set me up for it. I dreamed of working for the Automotive Industry in High School and my guidance counselor told me I could not do it. I called HR at Ford, Chrysler and GM to ask them where do they hire their engineers, they all asked where I lived. They said the best engineering school in Missouri was University of Missouri - Rolla. I got to Rolla and engaged in my classes. With a good GPA I was able to get a summer internship at GM my Sophomore year.
That turned into a Co-op position then got hired in full time. I went back to my guidance counselor and let her know she gave me bad advice and I worked for GM.

I would be happy to talk to your son. Tell your son to follow his dreams. We need more good engineers in this country.

Mark


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I attended a school with a very strong and well known coop program. Four months in class followed by four months working and an 8 month term at the end. Took an extra year but well worth it. A lot of guys focused on getting jobs that paid well or had a good location. I focused on jobs that would give excellent experience but did not pay high wages. The experience I gained was priceless and carried me well through my 35 years of design. Four terms spent in an RF (radio frequency) circuit design lab working with skilled designers and test equipment that was not even available on campus. Another two terms designing analog integrated circuits that gave me an understanding of circuit design that I used throughout my career. You can’t get that sort of learning in a lecture.

Don

My turn:
1. Have him attend a ABET accredited UNIVERSITY.
2. Have him pursue a PE license.
3. Have him coop or at least shadow different fellow engineers, simply to find his passion.

Me:
Jim Gloe
Nuclear Engineer
Bachelor only in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a “minor” in philosophy from Missouri University-Columbia.
Graduate studies at The Ohio State University
PE license= 022971

Okay, I used to interview perspective engineers also..,
There is no thing better than hands on experience.
For example, when interviewees would ask where I got my education..,
I said “plowing corn on my Massey Ferguson diesel”.


Point is, I agree with all the above BUT it is ultimately your son’s decision.
He must find his PASSION.

Frankly, I am proud of your SON simply because we need more engineers.

Period.

Very interesting thread here. My 17 year old son wants to be an engineer also, probably nuclear. He’s good at a lot of things but his two main passions are math and baseball. He’s (we) hoping that his grades and baseball gets him a lot of financial help into college.
Keep the replies coming gents. Good stuff here that makes this community like no other on the net.