Choosing an engineering major
Right now I’m on the campus of RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Which is located in Troy, New York. Not far from Albany which is the state capital, north of New York City about two or three hours. I want to talk to you a little bit about engineering as a major and how that plays out.
This is a technical institute, engineering, also the pure sciences, applied sciences. And when people who are interested in engineering approach me for advice. They usually start off by telling me, “This is the major I want. I want computer engineering, electrical engineering, nuclear engineering,” whatever. Environmental engineering. All different types of engineering and they’re thinking about the program because engineers are very Cartesian. Systematic, you know. They’re thinkers that are no-nonsense, very practical. And they tend to think that engineering is, well, it’s all the same. It’s engineering, teach me the stuff, I want to learn it.
Different environments for an engineering major
But the interesting thing about engineering is you still have a lot of different kinds of choices in terms of the environment. The kinds of institutions that you want to. Where you want to actually learn this engineering stuff. So you could go to great big huge public universities, most of which have an engineering department. Or you could go to a smaller technical institute.
MIT being the most famous, but also RPI, Wooster Polytech, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Stevens Institute. And then many others around the country, those smaller schools, some of which are private, some of which are public. So even the Colorado School of Mines in my home state is a relatively small public technical institute.
Private versus Public
So you have the private versus public, you have small versus large. Then you also have, do you want to go to do your engineering in a place that is like RPI. Almost exclusively engineering and science, where everyone, as one of my students put it, is “from my planet.” They’re all people right out of central casting at The Big Bang Theory. Do you want to go to school with people that are all like you?
Or are you interested in going to school with people who are not like you? Who has varied interests? You have the poets and the psychologists and the people interested in sociology or political science or whatever. So you could pick a school where engineering is one facet of the overall university, like Princeton, like Swarthmore, one of the smallest liberal arts colleges that also have engineering. Lafayette, Union College.
Surround Yourself with a Variety of People
There are ways for you to have that technical background but to have a variety of people at your doorstep. UI sometimes ask my students, “Think about it, who do you want your boyfriend or your girlfriend to b? Do you want it to be someone like you, interested in the same things? Or do you want it to be someone who is totally different in their interests and backgrounds and curiosities?” So that’s another thing to think about.
I think one of the interesting things to think about, too, is how important is it at the beginning when you enter that you have that decision made about which kind of engineering: chemical, industrial, mechanical, electrical. Or do you just want that really solid foundation? Places like Harvey Mudd College, another very small place, everyone studies plain old vanilla foundational engineering.
So all of this is to say that even though engineers tend to focus on “Just give me the program that I want,” there are still a lot of decisions to be made. In terms of what kind of school you want, what kind of environment, what kind of social scene you’re interested in having for you graduate experience. So make sure if you are an engineer and you’re a systematic thinker, please put all of these other things into your rational computer so that you can come with the best engineering program for you.
Having difficulty choosing an engineering major?
Part of our service is to help young people map their college journeys. Some students know exactly what they want to major in, and others are completely undecided. Others are in between: they know they are interested in engineering, but not sure which type of engineering would suit them best.
We help students make these decisions, and then to create an educational plan that revolves around these decisions. If you’re interested in getting some Great College Advice, give us a call.
Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant
