Everyone wants to believe they graduated from one of the country's top schools. But since U.S. News & World Report started compiling and publishing its Best Colleges list in 1983, the bubble has burst for many of us. Your school was either on the list, or it wasn't one of the best.
Well, maybe and maybe not. "The ratings tend to trail reality," David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research and a current advisory board member of the University of Michigan's mechanical engineering program, said in a Design News interview. "The past is really the criteria for school ratings."
That seems to be the case in U.S. News & World Report's latest undergraduate engineering program ratings, which were released Tuesday. The 2012 edition names MIT, Stanford, the University of California-Berkeley, and Cal Tech as the top four schools whose highest degree is a doctorate. Among schools whose highest degree is a bachelor's or master's, U.S. News placed Rose-Hulman, Harvey Mudd, the U.S. Military Academy, and Cooper Union in the top four.
All eight of those schools grabbed the same positions last year. "The rankings are pretty stable, whether you're talking about graduate or undergraduate levels," Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S. News, said in a Design News interview.
But those results -- which are based exclusively on peer assessment -- may be more a matter of past reputations than current realities. "I would be amazed if I saw a report where MIT wasn't No. 1," Cole told us. "One of the reasons is that MIT graduates a significant fraction of the engineering faculty across the country."
Cole argues that tradition shouldn't be the only criteria. In the last five to 10 years, engineering curricula have shifted from theory-heavy coursework to a mixture of theory and hands-on experience, he says. In the University of Michigan's mechanical engineering program, for example, students take three team-based design classes and complete a capstone project that requires them to design and build a product while working with industry sponsors.
"It's great to deal with theory, but you've got to get your hands dirty at some point if you're going to be a good engineer," Cole said.
We've written about this trend previously, describing the hands-on design efforts at such schools as Rose-Hulman, Harvey Mudd, and Olin College of Engineering. Students at those schools reportedly feel more engaged and are less likely to wash out of engineering.
Cole says the shift toward hands-on experience will shake up the ratings eventually. As a result, polls such as those by U.S. News could see some unfamiliar faces near the top one day. "Some of the people who vote on this may not appreciate this trend, because it's different than the world they were calibrated by. But it's a very positive sign in general. We'll see this get reflected in the ratings in a few years."
U.S. News Top 10 (engineering schools where highest degree is a doctorate)
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. University of California-Berkeley
4. California Institute of Technology
5. Georgia Institute of Technology
6. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
8. Carnegie Mellon University
9. Cornell University
9. Purdue University-West Lafayette
U.S. News Top 10 (engineering schools where highest degree is bachelor's or master's)
1. Rose-Hulman Institute
1. Harvey Mudd College
3. U.S. Military Academy
4. Cooper Union
5. California Polytechnic State-San Luis Obispo
5. U.S. Air Force Academy
5. U.S. Naval Academy
8. Franklin Olin College of Engineering
9. Bucknell University
10. Villanova University
I am curious why the rankings don't take into account any of this shift into account. If some schools are moving to more hands on and this is desireable then shouldn't the rankings reflect this. Of course, that would imply that the rankings have some sort of meaning. Nothing against MIT or any of the other fine schools on the list. But quite often the best school is the one that allows the individual to thrive, grow and learn. And for some that might not be the biggest with the best name, but a smaller school with more one on one instruction. Non the less, it does make for good coffee table talk.
You don't really expect U.S. News and World Report to admit that you may be better off getting a job for hands-on knowledge and going to a community college for your first two years of school, do you?
If more people did this, it might exert some downward pressure on tuition for 4-year universities. Then the 4-year universities might not have as much money to advertise in the pages of magazines like U.S. News and World Report.
Interesting study just realized shows what we all knew, that engineering is the toughest major. Also interesting to note that engineering students do way more work than business majors -- their future bosses. Take a look, here.
I don't think anyone could possibly be surprised by the fact that students in engineering and physical sciences study more than business students. This is why there are t-shirts which say "lim(Engineering)GPA-->0 = Business".
I was struck by this passage in the New York Times article: "transfer students [...] were more likely to work off campus and care for dependents, decreasing their sense of connection to the college community."
This describes my college experience pretty well. But as more people get wise to the fact that transferring into a four-year school from a two-year school makes good economic sense as well as academic sense, I think that transfer students will become less of an invisible minority on campus.
Regarding the New York Times story: It's not surprising to me that engineering majors study more than business majors. What is shocking to me, however, is the fact that the hours-per-week numbers are 19 to 14. Undergrad business majors study 14 hours per week? My anecdotal experience with the business majors who I knew in college would indicate that the hours of business study are much lower than that. Also, I seem to recall that engineering professors would tell us we need to study "three hours outside of class for every hour in the classroom."
Re business majors, I could see MBA students having to put in engineering-type hours, especially when doing case studies. OTOH, with undergrads, I agree with you -- it doesn't ring true that their study hours are the same order of magnitude as those of engineering majors. Another interesting point in the study was that engineering seniors have too much course work to hold down after-school jobs.
Well, the business majors may be engaging in some creative accounting practices when they say they study 14 hours a week outside of class.
As far as engineering seniors not being able to balance a full time job with their studies, I don't know whether it's generally true for everyone, but I decided to go from working full-time to working part-time during my last semester as an undergrad. Up until that semester, I was able to balance working full time and studying full time. But I decided that for the last semester, my focus needed to be on school.
It's always interesting to look at the "student happiness" list in The Princeton Review's annual ratings. Engineering schools dominate the bottom (unhappiest) schools. The amazing part of that is that the only schools on the list that can be recognized as engineering institutions are those that specialize in engineering (MIT, Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Illinois Institute of Technology, New Jersey Institute of Technology, etc). In other words, schools like Purdue and the University of Michigan don't count as engineering schools. Nevertheless, the few schools that could be called "engineering schools" all collect at the bottom. There can be only one reason for that: Getting an engineering degree isn't fun. The only fun part is when you graduate and get a load of job offers.
I'm going to make a plug for my alma mater, Cooper Union, which is number four on the second list (engineering schools where highest degree is bachelor's or master's). Sadly, though, Cooper is in the process of considering changing its century old full-scholarship (free tuition) policy. (See "Cooper Union Looks at Charging Tuition." One can't help but wonder if this will effect its future place on such lists. If students have to pay $40k per year to go there, will it still be able to attract the same high-quality student body? I'll have more to say on this in an upcoming blog. If you have any opinions, please send them to me at alex.wolfe@ubm.com
I think some of this is our tendency to keep to certain educational traditions. Engineering curriculum has a certain rigor to it that is simply not for the faint of heart. This may be off topic but it always puzzled me that in order to enter a doctoral program in theology, one must obtain a master of divinity which is a 90 hours program - not for the faint of heart either. Why so many hours? Is that another tradition?
I can see the 14 hours being reasonable for a business major - that's two hours a day and theoretically they have projects to do, case studies ect. I would expect a full time engineering student to be putting in more...I remember burning the candle at both ends many times.
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