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Electrical Engineering Colleges in the US

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Backyard Skunkworks

Wed May 14 2008, 05:37AM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

I've gotten to that magical but complex time known as the college search process, and you'll never guess what I want to major in... Electrical Engineering.
What better place to ask for recommendations then a whole forum chauk full of EE nerds?

Are the famous EE places really as good as their reputation indicates (MIT, Caltech, Stanford etc)?
Are there any really good state school out there (Georgia Tech, U-IL, U-MI etc)?
Are small engineering-only places like RPI, RIT and Rose Hulman too one-dimensional and isolated?
How good are the engineering departments at large and famous private schools (Cornell, Northwestern etc)?

Just wondering if anyone has any experiences or comments on this, the USNEWS rankings are only a rough guide.

Dave47

Wed May 14 2008, 05:18PM

Registered Member #84 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 01:06PM
Location: Dallas, TX
Posts: 47

You might have missed the biggest determining factor... How much will any school pay YOU to attend their school. I got scholarships to a small college for my undergrad degree (Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas) and got a full TA in the Physics department at Texas Tech during graduate school. So, I graduated with a Master's in Physics owing $0 in student loans.

Neither of my schools were flashy, but that hasn't seemed to matter. I now get paid really well doing an electrical engineering type job.

David

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Wed May 14 2008, 06:42PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

No matter what you hear about the college, they only give you 50% of what you need to know, the rest is up to you. That is why I have invested in myself, buying books, equipment, searching for answers, and taking on hard problems that get brushed under the carpet.
One of those problems is measuring a Tesla Coil secondary at resonance, which by the way you can't do directly because it changes the measurement, and getting resolution to +- 0.2 pF. I'll let you work on that one, ^^.

Back to the point, Don't think that just because someone has a degree from MIT that they're the best. It's an individual response to the problem at hand and everyone deals with it differently.
I might go to a prestigeous college for a masters or something, but why waste the money for your bachelor's degree. You do know you're talking about ~120 units right? That's a lot of money!

Long Beach State just changed their course overview from a 4 year breakdown to a 5 year plan. Add to that all the GE junk you need, another 2-3 years, and now you have a big fat bill.

I would recommend taking as much as you can at a JC, then go over to whatever university you like.

I also graduated from a college which isn't held on a pedastool, and I'm working for Northrop as an EE in the Space Technology division.

Where you come from and where you end up is really just random process, a prestegious college may improve your odds, but I don't believe you can rely on it for everything.

Dr. Drone

Wed May 14 2008, 06:55PM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
Location:
Posts: 1673

Backyard Skunkworks

Thu May 15 2008, 03:34AM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

So it's not as much the college in the engineer, as it is the engineer in the college. I'm glad to hear that you don't need a degree from the most prestigious school out there to succeed.

Are there any schools that provide a better education overall, or are they all pretty similar?

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Thu May 15 2008, 06:18PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

I was just talking to a fellow co-worker last night about this and he said that the MIT graduates have pretty much the same education as we do. They use a similar Calculus book, and Differential Equations, and the requirements are pretty much the same with Physics and Chemistry, and all that other stuff.
So overall you have about the same requirements across the board. Who has the best teachers? no clue. Remember you may not get an instructor at a large college, it may be a graduate student.

Firefox

Thu May 15 2008, 09:43PM

Registered Member #1389 Joined: Thu Mar 13 2008, 12:50AM
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 346

I am now coming to the end of my college search with a couple acceptance and rejection letters in my box. My suggestion is to find colleges that have the majors you want (EE in your case) and then schedule a visit. See if you can schedule a sit down session with one or two of the EE professors while you're at it. The first college I visited did this for me, and I found it to be a great experience. Also, look at class size. I would much rather be in a class of less than 25 than in a lab with 60 other people. You also need to consider access to lab time among other things, so really, if you are a junior (I'm assuming you are) my biggest advice is to try to see the big picture at the colleges you are considering, and see how well you will fit into the environment. Visiting the campus, and talking with an admissions counselor (and if you are persistent/lucky, some profs and students) is one of the best ways of gathering information on a college.

Oh, one other thing. RPI is an excellent school, however (speaking from some limited experience), don't expect much help for that $50,000 a year bill. I had three friends and my brother apply, two of them with 4.0+ QPAs and 2000+ SAT scores (the other two had 3.7 and 3.9 with 1800+ SATs), along with two to five AP classes (over two years), and a handful of activities outside of school, and they barely got $30,000 in grants/scholarships between the four of them.

Backyard Skunkworks

Thu May 15 2008, 11:37PM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

Hazzmatt,
MIT has some of there classes as online videos now, I took a look at a few and I can see what your saying, however you slice and dice it the Thevenin voltage laws are still the Thevenin voltage laws.

Firefox,
In fact when I did my first college visit, to Northwestern a few weeks ago, thatâ€™s exactly what I did, met with an EE professor, assistant engineering dean and admissions officer. Seemed great, they are ranked 13th for EE now and the 34k a year isn't as horrible as some places now. Interesting to hear that RPI is that stingy, a teacher of mine went there back in the old days for EE and recommends it. I don't know what my SATs are yet, however due to the nice people who violate college board's rules and post thier best guesses at answers, I know it's somewhere around 2,000. I'll be re-taking them a couple more times along with ACTs to get my highest possible score.

Thanks for all this input, I was starting to get all worried that if my SAT wasn't 2,300 and I wasn't an MIT grad in 5 years that I'd spend my career burger flipping

I guess any colleges ranked by USNEWS in the bottom third for EE probably have some serious issues and should be avoided, right?

Capper

Fri May 16 2008, 01:28AM

Registered Member #914 Joined: Fri Jul 20 2007, 06:22PM
Location: South Bend, IN
Posts: 85

I went to Michigan Tech in Houghton, MI. Can't say I'd recommend it - unless you like to play in the snow - it's always snowing - in fact, it's probably snowing there right now. I'm getting cold just thinking about it.

College is an interesting experience, but you'll find that you'll learn more about taking care of your self and interacting with other people more than learning a trade. You'll get out of it what you put into it, no matter where you go. Getting a diploma will certainly get you the bigger bucks in the long run, but the name of the school really isn't that important.

As an engineering supervisor, I've interviewed dozens of college kids, and the ones that I recommended for hire were the self-motivated ones that showed me what they knew by examples rather than the ones trying to impress me with where they went to school.

In the end, your future employer needs to get a job done, and is looking for proven performance.

Wherever you end up, get involved with as many student engineering projects as you can handle, and a co-op session or two at a real engineering firm may point you in the direction you really want to go.

Good luck.

Scott

HV Enthusiast

Sun May 18 2008, 11:40AM

Registered Member #15 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068

Backyard Skunkworks wrote ...

So it's not as much the college in the engineer, as it is the engineer in the college. I'm glad to hear that you don't need a degree from the most prestigious school out there to succeed.

Are there any schools that provide a better education overall, or are they all pretty similar?

I agree. In fact, both grades and school choice only really help you land that "first" job out of college. A few years down the road, no one really gives a rats asss what school or what grades you got in that school. Its all about experience.

I'm presently in a lead position where i have many engineers working for me here at Lockheed. And in reality, the best engineers not the ones who come from prestigous colleges, but rather the ones who work at home tinkering on their cars, electronics projects, etc...

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