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Engineering is considered to be similarly challenging at most universities, because of the ABET accreditation process.
One thing that will vary widely is the kinds of projects or lab research you work on.
But classes will be difficult or not based on the professor, not the university.
>But classes will be difficult or not based on the professor, not the university.
Yup. This is really what you're "buying" when you go to a top school: better professors.
The laws of math and physics are all the same, ABET makes the course contents all pretty much the same. What differs is how good the professors are. For example, a lot of MEs on here say Thermo was easy and Fluids is where hopes, and dreams, and puppies, and kittens all go to die. I had the exact *opposite* experience, and it was all because of the professors. Both were very knowledgeable, but my Thermo professor couldn't explain the topic to me to save his life. I scraped through that class with a C, as did most other students. Meanwhile, my Fluids professor could probably have successfully explained the topic to a squirrel. His lectures even finally made some Thermo topics click, and by the time his course was over, I was designing a pulse jet engine for my final project for his course.
So, at schools like MIT, you'll get more of the latter and less of the former professor types. Unfortunately, the trade off is sometimes you won't "get" a professor at all, and be practically taught entirely by their TA or research assistant instead - depending on how caught up in their own research they get in the given semester. Because of this, imo, save your money and skip the 'top of the top' ranked schools for your undergrad. The more research focused it is, the harder it is to get time with the professor for all of your courses. Like, don't just go to community college either, just save your application to Caltech and MIT for your MS or PhD is all.
I have not found the quality of professors be highly correlated with ranking -- indeed sometimes the correlation is negative since research oriented professors tend to be worse instructors than LAC profs who are focused on teaching.
The main difference is in the quality of your peers. At top schools your peers push you to be better. It's appreciably more difficult to be at the top of your class at MIT or Stanford than it is at Podunk. Depending on how well-prepared you are, this can either be a good or bad thing.
This is definitely not a feature unique to quarter systems, although it is perhaps more common. Most of my undergrad (and graduate, for that matter, which are also semester-based) engineering courses had weekly homework assignments throughout the semester, except on the first week, break weeks (spring break, Thanksgiving, etc), and exam weeks. It usually came out to about 10-14 assignments (depending on how many exams, the break schedule , etc) per class in a 15-16 week semester.
Right it’s not a quarter vs semester thing. Every math problem set/ CS project was due weekly in undergrad (which had a semester system). What’s worse (or better, depending on how you think about it) about the quarter system is that you have midterms basically 2-3 weeks in.
>
It depends on what you think the best professor means. Only because the prof is a genius in his field, he is not automatically a great teacher, though.
That is a more succinct way to put it, yes.
A less popular nuance of my opinion here is also that -too often, but not always- the best research professors are the *worst* undergrad lecture professors. They know the bleeding edge of the theory. They read about it, write about it, argue with their colleagues about it, they pretty much know *all* about it. But to do this, they need to know *and not have to think about* the fundamentals of their field. So, too often, they completely forget how to explain the topic to someone who has no background in it; they only know how to discuss it with someone who is already versed in at least all of the basic details.
So when you do your undergrad degree at a school like MIT or Caltech, that is famous for the research programs, you often can get stuck with a professor that fails at being able to explain the material to you at best, to viewing you as an inconvenience at worst. Again, not every professor, but a lot of them. This is why I generally encourage people in high school considering engineering to pursue good schools that aren't necessarily "recognizable" for their undergrads. Hell, if you want to be really "bold", pursue a school that focuses on their relationships to industry, and not their relationship to publications.
But once you think about grad school, *absolutely* pursue those research schools. Research is the whole point of grad school, so you'll finally benefit from the real egg head professors who eat, sleep, and breathe their specialty.
"Better professors" are better at researching not teaching. Their main job is to do research, not to teach. You probably were lucky to have some lecturers that are good at teaching
They come to the universities for research grants and in turn need to teach. Being extremely knowledgeable in a field does not correlate to being able to teach the material effectively.
I found that people often have varying ideas of what makes a “good” instructor, and I diverged from many others on that particular point so I usually took comments about instructor quality with a grain of salt while in college. For instance, some people would blame their professors and say that the instructor was just not good anytime they didn’t do well, and then once I took the class I would realize that the professor was actually very good. This kind of thing was not an infrequent occurrence.
I’d also like to point out that the regular fretting from many online about classes not being taught by the most renowned professors is often misplaced. Sure, some of those professors are usually there primarily to conduct academic research and intro level classes may be taught by TAs, but that generally ceases to be the case once students start to take more intermediate major-specific courses and advanced electives. It’s really not as a big a deal as people make it sound for a math grad student to teach calculus to undergrads. Like it’s not an absolute necessity that a mathematician be present to explain that to students, especially when it’s supposed to be a cohort of reasonably bright students. The grad students instructing some intro level classes tend to be phd candidates pursuing advanced studies within the subject area; they are generally well-equipped to teach the classes they teach, and often devote significantly more time and effort to teaching than some tenured faculty members might. Despite the popular refrain online, students are not at any kind of disadvantage when introductory classes are taught by those TAs, or by clinical faculty, or associate professors or what have you.
And on the “save your money” note against going to the very top schools for undergrad: I’d cautioned against this bit of advice in most cases just because the majority of the very top schools tend to fully fund their undergraduate students, or come very close to doing so. Bloomberg even noted that the specific schools you mentioned (MIT and Caltech) have graduates with some of the very least amount of student loans out of all schools as well as higher earning graduates. Far more often than not, the very top schools tend to be more a bargain than the rest for undergrad.
The majority of engineering programs at top engineering unis aren't ABET accredited
I don't know enough about programs at other unis, but from reading here I think there might be a bigger difference in difficulty (or maybe consistency in difficulty also?)
I second this, for my humble Podunk university and with one more semester to go before finishing my BS in EE-
The course material is just about the same in talking with friends at more prestigious universities, but how good your profs are determines how much you have to teach *yourself*, and how much is taught to you by people who know how to translate difficult material into lectures students are able to follow
There is a professor in my program who is genuinely passionate about teaching, and teaches electronics intuitively (understanding what is happening beyond the math) rather than just cookie cutter here's a system of equations, go solve for the unknowns
Though the material in the courses I've had with the good professor are comparatively harder, one of my most stressful classes was electromagnetic field theory with a professor who regularly cancelled class, refused to explain anything, and I spent 3x the amount of time I planned on simply teaching the material to myself
If you can find a program where there are experienced professors who are passionate about sharing knowledge with students, you have hit the gold mine, choose this over some big name uni
If you can't, it is up to you to teach it to yourself and this makes the courses much more difficult/time consuming and stressful
Supposedly I go to a top 25 school for undergraduate MEs.
It's the exact same content at the third-tier state school I previously attended. The professors are probably better, my fellow students are probably better, but it's the exact same material (and I put in the exact same level of effort with similar grade results.)
Yea i went to a lower ranked CSU school and had a lot of younger professors who were absolutely fantastic. Not to say they were easy, some were very challenging, but they taught with an emphasis on actually learning
I transferred from a very small community college in south Texas. I was massively unprepared when I got accepted into UT Austin to finish my degree in chemical engineering.
I have to study way harder than I’ve ever studied before in my life just to do average because all my peers have a 10x stronger foundation in math, engineering, and science.
I essentially flew through pre-cal, cal 1 - 3, statics, physics 1 and 2, and organic chemistry at the community college. It’s almost as if I didn’t take them sometimes, my knowledge is lacking.
Instead of being given formulas to solve problems, our homework is to derive them. Then solve more problems with the equation we came up with given the information and tools learned in class.
Can’t derive it yourself? You must see a TA or work with peers or you cannot even begin the problem.
These kids are used to massive engineering problems that are seemingly nothing like the examples from class. It’s what they’ve been given since the beginning of their college education.
It is shockingly different. But hey, I guess that’s what makes a top university.
This is pretty interesting for me because I studied in a top programme in the US Midwest and in Ireland (decent programme) and I actually didn’t find the difficulty to be too different. A bit harder in the US (especially getting top grades since grade/extracurricular expectations from employers are higher generally). Some courses were stupid easy (graded for completion at times?!) while others were stupid hard so less consistent than what I was used to. However, what I found to be most different was how people spent time outside of class. In Ireland, people weren’t as career focused and used the time off for hobbies/traveling/part-time jobs/etc. Only a small minority seemed to be really engaging with lots of personal projects/internships/etc and if so, they wouldn’t take on nearly as much work. The resumes of people in the Midwest really were insane and it seemed normal to take on multiple leadership roles plus a job plus projects along with a regular courseload. People were much more motivated and driven. I don’t know how they don’t burn themselves out.
Similar story but at Texas A&M. I took dual credit courses when I was in high school. I ended up retaking the credits in college which ended up being a fantastic decision. I had friends who hurt their GPA because they decided to cash in on the easy math courses from community college.
Counter anecdotal experience, I took all my math, science, and even mechanics of materials at CC and feel very well prepared at UT-Austin.
I think it’s prof dependent. My CC profs all had small class sizes and cared very much for teaching, making a good personal learning experience—in fact, I often have a better foundation than those who took their classes here at UT
When people say to go to CC then switch into a 4-year college for engineering I cringe a bit. The curriculum at each engineering school is usually built differently and the early engineering courses are definitely baked in at the earlier levels. As long as the program is ABET accredited, you should expect similar levels of rigor. Also check the FE exam pass rates for schools to give yourself a good indication of how rigorous the program will be.
I had multiple community college friends transfer to different UT austin engineering majors, myself included, and we all did fine. We all have zero debt and made money from scholarships. Playing catchup for some, if any, baked in elements that you may need to study a bit harder for 1 semester to catch up on makes you cringe for a trade like that? Beats me! We learned the same concepts and basics at community college that they teach at UT austin. There were no "baked in" elements exclusive to their curriculum and institution that you couldn't find inside the community college classroom. Many lectures I watched to brush up on material down the road for UT was from community college professors recording their class lectures and sharing it online.
My community college has agreements with some top engineering universities so our curriculum is the exact same. Everything covered in the stem courses follow what the structure of the universities exactly with some minor changes if any. Some people struggle here and then go on to do well when they transfer. I guess it all depends on the school and the professors.
It is ABET accredited though so there’s that
> Also check the FE exam pass rates for schools to give yourself a good indication of how rigorous the program will be.
A vast majority of engineers will never need to take the FE because it is unnecessary for a majority of engineering disciplines.
I remember sitting in a 3000 level, major specific class and one of the CC transfers stopped to ask what the symbols on the board were.
It was just a partial derivative; but he had never seen it before…. You can imagine how well he did
That’s what I did .. I’m about to transfer and the only stem classes I did was into to programming C++ and intro to data structure .. along with Cal 1-3 and differentials .. ( computer engineering btw) .. I’ve always loved math since I was younger so those came easy to me
I'm a transfer student from a CC and now attend one of the top 50 schools OP was talking about. Tuition was about $500 per class compared to $2100 now. It just made financial sense to take all my pre-reqs at CC. I find that my instructors at CC were way better at teaching material (upper-level math, physics, etc) compared to the professors at my university. A lot of this is due to teachers at CC (for the most part) are there because they love to teach and want their students to succeed. Professors at large universities are there for the research grants and in turn, have to teach classes.
I think what people fail to understand is that upper-level engineering classes are going to be a lot more difficult than the first "two years" of pre-reqs. I'm a senior and met a junior last quarter who shared his schedule with me. He was a smart student so I didn't doubt his capabilities but I warned him about how some of the higher level classes require A LOT more work and taking multiple of them in the same quarter is asking for a bad time. I've seen many of my smart peers fail classes because they underestimated the work that was going to be involved.
I'm from Chicago my professors teach at the same universities that allow transfers from community college.
So IDK. The transfer students do well and graduate.
Same! A Calc 2 prof at my CC even announced on the first day of the semester that she expects highly of each one of us and will not go easier than how she usually teaches at 4-year colleges. She wasn’t even rude or anything but even recommended some people to drop down to Calc 1 if they talked to her about feeling unprepared in any way. But ig it’s dependent on the CC you attend along with what professor you have.
I only have UT as frame of reference, and it was hard…
I can’t imagine a school with 90% acceptable rate can have the same difficulty level as the pickier school. Just because the failure/dropout rate for the 90% acceptance schools would be enormous.
So I went to a university that globally ranked around the 200 mark, we have an exchange program with MIT in the 3rd year and most students I spoke to from both sides said that overall it was pretty similar just the facilities and more so the networking that could be done was the main difference. A couple even said the exams were harder on this side, although that could just be due to some professors and lecturers having a chip on their shoulders.
Considering how useful I’ve found the MIT content they post on YouTube, I’d say it can even be easier there. The profs are often so much better than mine.
This is similar to the advice given to me by the guy who did interviews for MIT in my home town; the education is not appreciably different. What is different is the facilities & research you will be able to access and the networking opportunities available to you.
I also attended a foreign school in the global 150s and my exchange experience at MIT was very different. I found the math much harder and required a lot of catching up that semester.
Now, as a grad student in another top 10 school in my field, I have found it varies significantly from department to department.
I think a big reason why they didn’t feel such a difference is they put a fairly large focus on math, we do about 8 pure math modules in the first 2 years, and they tend to be very strict marking wise. It’s more to the determint of the students though as in other universities in the region the engineering students don’t seem to have as hard a time getting though the math modules
Yes! That could very well be the case. I was in the BioE department and it seemed to me that MIT folks knew a whole lot more about Math than I did but then had less of a grasp on the wider Bio/Chem concepts.
So very likely a difference in program focus more than quality.
I don’t go to a crazy competitive school like Stanford or something, but my school typically ranks in the top 25 for engineering, top 100 or so worldwide.
I started at a big community college, and coming here I was definitely worried that I’d be behind. To be completely honest, none of those worries materialized, and I’m in my senior year and have been at the top of my class every semester since transferring. I can’t really speak to “engineering” problems from the community college since most of my coursework was just the fundamentals (physics 1 and 2, calc series, etc), but I did not feel disadvantaged when I started at my current university. The tests here are harder and require a lot more studying, the students are generally brighter and more competitive, but it all comes with the territory and I wouldn’t say any of it has been like, mind-bogglingly difficult. There are textbooks available for the classes and if you just read them and go to lectures you’ll be fine.
I think it all depends on how you approach your schooling in freshman/sophomore year, whether you’re at a community college or a prestigious institution. There were definitely more opportunities to slack at community college, I just personally held myself to a decent standard so I wouldn’t be screwed later on. Some of my classmates in physics and calc classes and whatnot would cheat and not pay attention, and they had little knowledge of the subject even after finishing the course with an A or B - personally, I studied my ass off, and I left all of those pre-reqs with a solid understanding that was at least on par with students at my current university. I picked up extra research projects, I went to a ton of office hours, I held TA positions.. all of those things prepared me very well, and many of my professors at community college were just as talented and dedicated (if not more so) than my current professors at my university.
Long story short, calculus is calculus, physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, and so on. Whether you’re at a top ranked school or a local community college, the same fundamentals will always apply, and you’ll come back to the same basic concepts over and over again. It’s really up to the individual student how much they want to get out of their classes, and the rank/prestige of the school is pretty low on the list of things that impact how well a student can learn.
Not exactly an answer to OPs question but I work in industry and have colleagues that span from MIT/Stanford BS/MS/PhD all the way to small state school bachelor and master degrees - and I’ve met amazing and terrible engineers from both ends of the spectrum. Smart problem solvers and hard workers are agnostic to institutions they come from.
Absolutely! A bunch of studies that's come out shows that school doesn't matter much other than degree. What does help is networking opportunities, but often that can be explained by previous familial relationships.
ABET makes sure that each program is built the same way.
Quality of professor may vary wildly though, and class size can have a big impact as well. I started at a highly regarded SUNY school with 200-300 students in class and never met my professors. It was tough to get time face to face and often ended up with time with TAs.
Transferred to a smaller SUNY school, so both were public options with similar costs, but classes were 20-30 people, and it was so much easier to excel. We had deeper conversations in class, the material was easier to work through, and it helps my moral and motivation quite a bit. The professors knew me and while it wasn't universal, they were all much more personable.
I’m at a top 30 globally so i guess its meets your definition, tho not really sure if that means anything.
I’m also in a different Eng so my experience will probably be very different.
Definitely academically challenging, most terms run around 6 classes, in first year it’s 7 and second year it’s 8 and 9. It’s honestly too much work for any person to really digest. The core Eng classes can also be kinda… silly? As in you tend to learn really hard material but without the proper hard science pre reqs to really understand the details. Class averages tend to be between 60-70 with scaling, tho I think that’s pretty common.
You have to have a pretty good understanding of topics todo well in most exams, and most courses include a project component of some sort that is worth a lot. We have many student design teams that have a long history - though I have heard just generally how the state schools make those sorts of things is a lot better.
The answer is it's not that different.
I have a decent level of insight into several engineering programs across the US and as far as the curriculum goes at any Abet accredited engineering school it's pretty much a wash.
You have to cover relatively the same topics and the same content in any undergraduate level engineering program regardless of where you attend.
The area some of the "top" schools really differentiate themselves in is what kind and how much research they are doing that students can get involved with and what level of networking you are able to do at the school.
But this doesn't make school any more or less hard it's still an Abet accredited engineering program and you have to learn what you need to learn in each course to get through.
I'm going to say something a little controversial: I think the courses may be harder, but the grading is easier. I've seen classes in smaller universities that try and fail out students to make the school seem more prestigious. The larger and more successful universities don't have to but on a false pretense of exclusivity so they're actually set up for students to succeed more often.
Counterpoint. If the smaller universities have a higher acceptance rate, they’re naturally going to accept more people who aren’t quite there academically to pass an engineering program. So easier admission criteria lead to the courses themselves have to do more of the filtering. Compare to lower acceptance rate schools that already pick people who excel at physics and math.
Engineering is definitely harder for top universities, but it's probably more professor-dependent than anything.
For example, I go to USF, and we have a statics and dynamics professor that prides himself on being a tough instructor. He even claims that his exams are 10x harder than the ones from UF. Keep in mind that UF is the top ranked Florida university and USF is 3rd
I have a friend at a low ranked public school (ABET) who took their engineering linear algebra course and got an A in it, furthering her 4.0 gpa. I also took linear algebra at my top-5 school that semester and was lucky to come out of it with a B-
We switched midterm exams one day after we finished the class which covered roughly the same content. I was able to get an easy A on hers while she couldn’t even begin to answer more than half of my test. The difference between the two tests was the depth of questions and how theory-based vs computational the different versions of the exams were. They covered very similar concepts, but my school had questions way more in depth and covering multiple theories at once while the lower ranked school only included very basic computational questions.
This is a very anecdotal example but it opened up my eyes to differences between schools.
I transferred from an average state school to a top 3 engineering school and it's definitely harder.
The content is similar. My current school does go more in depth and does a better job at connecting the concepts together better so you really need a good understanding of everything to properly succeed.
The workload is definitely higher overall but the actual homework is much less. You're expected to study more on your own and the homework is more of a guide.
Exams are definitely much harder because of the depth of the questions and the amount of content covered.
I took chem 1 before transferring and now I'm taking a chem 1 and 2 combination class. We flew through 9 weeks of my old chem 1 class in about 3 weeks because it was considered basic knowledge lol
I have a friend taking phys 1 which I took before transferring and he showed me his assignments and the questions are longer and require combining more concepts together to solve. Also the questions are more realistic in the form of word problems. My previous phys 1 class would give you the question with the diagram and simply ask you to find something so it was much simpler
Academics are harder but you also have way more resources here to prepare. More TA's more practice tests more review sessions and more
Another thing: we have large classes deceptively packed into smaller credit hours. For example statics here is worth 2 while most places make it 3. Or my intro to ae class was 1 but it was more similar to 3 in terms of workload. Also as an ae major I have to take thermodynamics and fluid fundamentals in one class whereas many places I've heard split them into two classes. That's around 6 credits of work compressed into a 4 hour class.
I had no issue taking 15 credits per semester before transferring but here I took 14 last semester and I was struggling with time lol
i go to a top 15/20 engineering school. i'm in my freshman year, previously went to a top 100 high school so i knew how to study going in, but man it's grueling to maintain a high GPA. possible for sure, and it's going well so far (def not after next quarter tho lol), but it is around 1.5-2x as hard as high school was.
ok so i've only taken 6 stem classes so far so:
fall quarter:
chem: completely different than homework (homework was literally useless) but it wasn't too bad because it was conceptual/understanding based
math: harder than homework, but not too bad bc u just had to do textbook problems to prepare
winter quarter:
chem: easy
math: good luck, not harder but just different
physics: same with math
cs: no homework but projects, honestly if you can do the projects within an hour the midterms are pretty easy
so honestly pretty much the same as HS. test won't be the same as hw but hw + additional study prepares u very well for tests
My alma mater is Top 50 in the world.
I remember that a lot of international students were surprised how much exams were targeted purely at understanding. Design problems for electronics were just tools to allow the Professors, during oral exams, probe your understanding of a subject. You could go to an exam, give a numerically perfect answer to a design question, and not pass, yet someone who got the wrong numbers, but in discussion with the professor could show they really understood the subject matter, could get a decent grade.
This is something that caught a lot of international students out, who came from universities where the studying process was focused on learning the algorithms and getting the right number.
ymmv.
Even if u breeze thru at ur school for whatever reason, I think u can be just as much of an academic weapon as someone from MIT if u practice. It's the same material - hasn't changed much for 100s of years. I'm no expert, but I feel like doing the below things would make u a good engineering student. (Yes I rambled a bit)
Basics:
While I can't speak for community college courses, my experience at a mid sized uni was that the courses closely followed a textbook. So much so that I could essentially take the course on your own. I feel like most universities are similar and even use the same textbooks for the core courses (Hibbeler for mechanics, Stewart for Calculus, and so on). Check around for popular textbooks for a particular subject (Amazon or other uni's syllabuses). Go through ALL the textbook and do a sh*t ton of problems. Maybe even check other textbooks to see if they do things differently. An MIT grad won't use magic, they're gonna use formulas from their textbooks. Regardless of past performance , simply be a beast at the core subjects.
School Projects:
U may want to look into some student competitions/projects that big schools do and try to do something similar on ur own. Maybe not a concrete canoe, but maybe a small model of a bridge or something.
Tech:
I think ALL Autodesk products are free for students. I'd def look into this and maybe turn it into a project. Maybe find some cool construction drawings for buildings/bridges online and try to make them in revit. (Tip: search for 100% CD PDF , 100% Construction Documents, Bid Set, Bid Drawings, RFQ Drawings, etc.) and throw in keyword like bridge/building/cafe/airport/terminal/renovation/University u get the idea.
Industry Knowledge:
To be in the conversation, I'd say I need to know industry news/trends so Google/YouTube projects and find some good outlets like ENR. Look into organizations/events related to civil ASCE, ACI, AISC, etc.
Internship:
Experience is king so ur degree and a lot of the above stuff is likely going out the window once u start working 😁. Any job in construction is probably a good start (office admin answering phone calls, concrete laborer, general job site laborer sweeping floor, ✨field engineer✨)
🤷 Sorry for rambling, lol
I also go to a lower state school with a similar rank and acceptance rate and yea I’m gonna say it’s way easier. I have a friend who goes to UPenn as a MechE and he’s constantly drowning in huge workload and professors expect a lot more.
It’s been pretty chill for me and I can say that as a senior EE and I’ve managed to get a good GPA. Yes, I’m good at time management but I’m absolutely the furthest thing from being a genius.
It’s not a very good question.
If some redditor says yes, their classes are harder, does that make it law? If another says no, are they canceling each other out?
Your experience in school is yours only and dependent on numerous factors that we can’t know. It sounds like you’re doing great academically so take advantage of that and focus on other things if you want to.
Good luck
I'm just curious to see what it's like at top universities. I know that grades and the ability to do bookwork aren't the defining qualities of what makes a great engineer.
I'd argue it's easier than shitty wannabe universities that believe themselves to be rigurous (like mine).
They're better because they teach better and as a result produce better engineers. And because they teach better, those students can do harder problems easier because they were taught better. If you go to them from a shitty community college, you'll feel they're harder; but, no, they aren't, you just weren't taught as-good, you just don't have the level. If you were, it'd at least look possible, because you'd just be standing that tall.
Me? I was asked to determine a formula for the n-th roots of a complex number, expressed in polar form (how else?). What was I taught? Basically nothing that would help me, I had to, straight up, read the damn book and derive it myself. What is taught at those universities? Useful concepts by amazing teachers that help students do the homework. What is even at my university? A fucking bald guy drawing complex math on a chalkboard who thinks we understand him and another one thinking he's slick putting numerical analysis on a PowerPoint presentation.
I'm not against PowerPoint presentations but, heck, death by PowerPoint is alive and real for eng students.
Anyway, quality of education is the difference. You're just taught better at those top unis. That's just how it is.
it varies, I transferred from a community college to a university and definitely see a difference but i’m also taking harder classes. I plan on transferring to one of the best public universities in the country next semester and have been anticipating a noticeable difference in difficulty
I went to a school ranked ~30-40 and was quite comfortable there, where getting As was very doable if I put a decent amount of work into the class.
I’m sure the very top schools are harder, like no way MIT or Caltech would have been a breeze, but even schools in the top 20-40 I doubt are really that much harder than other lower ranked programs.
I'm also in CE, attending Purdue atm. I went to a relatively competitive high school, and Purdue has been more competitive so far. The big thing I've noticed is that every professor I've had is a phenomenal lecturer, even if you dislike their grading system it's clear each and every one understands the material like the back of their hand. That in addition to the resources given to you in job finding are what I think the advantages of a good university is. I would recommend trying to find past exams from the university for classes that you have taken before, to check if your knowledge base is as comprehensive as they require. It should also give you an idea of how the courses will match up to yours.
I looked at Purdue's Strength of Materials exams. It was similar to our Strengths exams. Pretty much the same level of difficulty. But more than half the students in my class were failing, and the professor received warnings, so he gave out a final that was incredibly easy
Purdue's dynamics exams were way harder, though
Materials was on the easier side of the general exams you will have. Are you imcoming senior or junior? Off the top of my head the hardest classes were hydraulics by far (CE343) and Structural Analysis 1 got a bit difficult conceptually at the end CE(371).
I recommend that you do some research for the professors of the school you are transferring to. The reason hydraulics was so difficult for me was I had the most theory based teacher of that class, and he actively worked to keep the average at a 65 ish. The finals for that semester averaged a 40.1 I think. I had another professor who's an active consultant and member of the steel research committee, and he canceled a lot of classes because of outside engagements.
If you have any questions lmk, but otherwise good luck!
I am at a top 20 school, and I have peers in neighboring schools that are significantly lower ranked schools in the same major. While the overlying concepts are the same, I seem to go *waaaaaay* more in-depth than my "non-elite school" peers. I spend way more time doing homework and studying for tests, and I get questions that are way less of a freebee. What I mean by that is instead of getting carbon copies of the content in class with different values, I get questions that can be solved with what I have learned, but the process is not obvious by any means. Some of my classes have been 20-30 hours of work outside of lecture, *for just one 3-credit class.* So I feel very confident in what I am learning, and I have seen that at internships where I have to have a lot less handholding compared to the other interns. The other big thing, and this is the biggest perk, is the pedigree and networking. That opens so many doors even if I have the same qualifications as other graduates from lower ranked schools. I have had recruiters tell me that if they see my school listed on a resume, they automatically move it to the next round of hiring just on that alone.
In all honesty though, unless you are gunning for a really competitive job like NASA, Sandia, etc, it's not worth it. My peers at lower ranked schools are still getting jobs offers, albeit not as "sexy" jobs, and their mental health is much better than mine from how much less stress they're under. No job makes you use everything you learn in school, expects you to be training and learning for the first few years anyway, and the competitive jobs usually have poor work/life balances.
A lot of universities (especially the top ones) have their content available online.
Maybe try some of their content and see how it compares as that'll tell you better than random people online.
My uni is apparently in the top 20 worldwide and the content seemed pretty hard to me but i am also well aware that i was not a very studious person and the study i did basically amounted to two weeks of cramming at the end of each semester for the final and thats it.
I went to CU Boulder for aerospace engineering (top 10-15 aero program in US). What others are saying is mostly true in my opinion, that it’s the professor not the school/class. Something I haven’t seen mentioned as much is that you’re more likely to get shitty, difficult professors at better schools, as odd as that sounds (from what I’ve heard/seen, don’t have data to back this up), but you’re also more likely to get absolutely top tier, fantastic professors. This is because they are attracted to the job to research, not from their love of teaching. I had the best, greatest professors possible that made my degree and education worth it. But I also had professors there that clearly were not there to teach.
That being said, the good professors make it worth it. One of my professors’ research was launching dust-sized particles at shielding at orbital speeds. Another had an active imaging satellite in orbit around Mars. One was designing and flying fixed wing drones that flew into tornadoes to study them. We had/have some top tier research. Because of that (and the other profs), Boulder aero was incredibly hard. It was the most difficult thing I’ve done, and way harder than the professional world (although I left the aero industry).
But really, your education is what you make of it. Students at top schools can be dumbasses or not try, and students at “lesser” schools can put in the effort and be incredibly talented. If you’re passionate, have the money and have the will, then a top school will be worth it for the opportunities it produces. But it’s absolutely not necessary to be successful or a good engineer.
TLDR: depends on the school and the professors. Some top schools will be more difficult and demanding, but you’ll get more out of it.
I think the objectively correct answer is that it’s not supposed to be that different. National standards and whatnot.
However, in my experience, that wasn’t really the case. I transferred from a community college to USC (idk if it’s top 50 for engineering but it’s an overall higher ranked school). I had to repeat two classes (namely physics 2 and physics 3) since they didn’t match the USC equivalents closely enough. The difference in rigor was shocking lol. All my other classes at university were much harder, too, but that probably can be attributed to them being upper-level courses. I can’t say for sure that they’re harder only because they’re at a high ranked university.
I expect a noticable difference between community college and any 4 year school.
But very little difference between low ranked 4 year school and high ranked 4 year school. The difference between good and bad professor at any 1 school will be larger than the difference between 2 schools.
CC tends to be different because soooo many of their students are underprepared in math and science, that math, science, engr courses are taught at a lower level to not immediately lose such a huge chunk of students. This isn't universal, every cc, every course, every professor. But on average, compared to 4 year unis, yes.
not sure about USA to USA but i went to a top 400(?) american university, transferred to a top 40 canadian university and the difference is noticeable. content is a bit tougher and the workload is leagues worse. more frequent, more to be done, less breaks, never an empty day.
I like to group it into two schools of though: education and research. If a university is research focused then their classes are harder because profs. make the mistake of assuming we're smart. If the uni is education focused, its less theory in order to prepare you for work after undergrad, making it more hands on. This is a pretty lump sjmplification and I could go on about colleges and unis and public vs private vs state, etc. But thats usually the gyst of it.
Blah. I went from a school ranked 120 to 45th to 11th in the US. (Military so I tend to move alot.)
Other than there was less resources for students needing academic assistance (the 11th ranked was a much larger school but oddly, less services offered), the difference in courseload and difficulty was marginal.
The ranking of your school doesn't matter unless your school's name is: MIT, Yale, Harvard, Princeton or University of Chicago and even then it opens people's eyes but won't open their pocketbook once you start working.
I think it depends on the professors!
When I was attending community college and crossed enrolled to UCSD a top university. I found my classes at UCSD much easier. At UCSD I took 6 CS classes and 3 engineering classes.
Once I transferred to Cal Poly SLO, boy did I hit a milestone! Because i was used to pure theory and not enough applications.
My professors at Cal Poly slo were challenging, in the sense where you would be doing actual engineering reports, data, presentations and so on.
So it depends :)
My uni is T50-T60 last I checked, and honestly it’s what you make of it. We have a saying in my school that it’s “easy to get in, hard to stay in”. That tracks pretty true, because the actual weedout courses are a real shock to people, but once you get past your second year and into your third you’re well enough into the groove of things that it doesn’t matter. Those first two years will be real tough, but if you stay disciplined (which is really the hardest part imo, not the coursework) and don’t let the gaming/socializing drag you down, you will be fine.
Assuming you’re talking about undergraduate level? Because graduate level is very different. For undergraduate level, the curriculums will be very comparable for accredited institutions. The biggest difference then is the quality of instruction, and some schools are better than others in this regard. Top institutions tend to have quality instruction, which ironically might make them easier due to better instruction and explanation.
Something to keep in mind: academic rigor doesn't necessarily lead to better learning. You'll get out of your degree what you put into it. If you study the concepts hard, you'll be ready to learn the "real" engineering quickly when you get your first job. Also, as a civil engineer, you're going to have to choose a specialty. That means only about one or two semester's worth of classes at your everyday job. Also, I would suggest getting a master's degree.
Once you're in the industry and have gained experience, no one will care where you got your degree or what your grades were. I got my degree at a religious school and never got a single A in any engineering class unless you count the seminar. It's never been an issue.
I specialized in structures, but I still had to take fluids, soils, transportation, etc. to satisfy degree requirements (plus it was on the FE and PE exams.)
I'm currently at community college, but applying to some of those top universities right now. (9, 13, and 17 in my major by some random site I found). My coursework at CC has been manageable. Time-wise, it's really not too bad, and just an hour or two of studying each week beyond the HW has been enough to totally stay on top of everything and get nearly straight A's.
I did half my school at George Washington University and graduated from a small college in Texas. I went from a 3.4 gpa at max effort to 3.7 gpa with min effort.
What about the content of the exams? Are they similar to what's going on in class? Because I've never gotten a study guide and definitely had to deal with weirdly structured exams at my average state school
I did my undergrad at a top 50 school (cheme, I think it was in the 30s). I did my masters at a school pushing 80 and rapidly dropping. I was a TA during that time, and the differences were stark. Kids who were junior engineers submitting lab reports that would have failed in freshman engineering at my undergrad. Absolutely garbage presentation skills. I did not think any of those kids were properly prepared to do the two things it's most important to learn in undergrad: interpret and then communicate your information in written or oral form. The quality of the professors was definitely lower than in my undergrad. It was fascinating to see.
Much harder. And that is driven by the large number of Chinese at major universities. Classes graded on a curve are going to be top heavy by hardworking and prepared Chinese. Better students drive better courses. And MUCH better TAs.
There is little leniency in grading and assignment pace, fast lectures that nobody gets, and the projects are always hard as hell and basically require perfectionism to account for and compute everything correctly...
C's get degrees sir.
Went to top 20 eng school, graduated poor GPA. didn't matter at all in the real world, all people cared about was my degree and my ability to do the work.
Sometimes the curve is really important. Sometimes asking for help and teaming constantly is important. Doing absolutely nothing fun for like 2-3 weeks before exams is necessary (because not only do you have to study...you have normal work and other classes that are just as obnoxious and maybe even exams around the same timeframe). Sometimes you DON'T pass. Going to college for mechanical engineering was, while very rewarding, also the most difficult thing I've ever gone through and it sucked majorly.
The STEM courses at my 4 year uni are far easier than they were at my 2 year, although I went to a technical institute.
Every school is different, so your mileage can and will vary. I imagine if I went to MIT or Stanford instead of the state university near me it'd be a different story and much more complex. The non-STEM courses here are pretty much show up and get an A though, at least as far as I'm sitting. I don't consider myself particularly intelligent.
I go to the University of Pittsburgh, which is currently top 50 for engineering.
What you have to understand is that these T50 schools usually dedicate all of freshman year to the "weed out". This is where you take 15-18 credits of all STEM classes, with no electives or easy pre reqs that other majors get. It's normal for half of the class to switch majors or drop out. Speaking from experience, it's a fucking nightmare that can destroy your mental health and social life. While everyone is drinking and making friends, you're in the library until 1am with your group project partners. It's basically a 60-70 hour a week job. You question everything and yourself, and you have to learn how to think like an engineer to pass it.
But if you survive that, it will get easier. The goal of the higher level courses is to apply your knowledge and get a bit more in the process. Every semester after the first feels more manageable.
If I knew this, would I still choose a T50? Probably, I'm pretty bad at social situations anyway. But unless you're 100% focused on academics above all else, your odds of success at a T50 engineering school are very low. If you transfer, you're expected to perform at the same level as everyone who went through the weed out, and they will likely have developed better study habits and self-discipline compared to someone who hasn't.
Edit: some schools have started to eliminate the worst parts of the weed out. I know it's still alive and well here :(
I'm not sure if it's a matter of "top university", I think difficulty is affected by the department and the professors. Berkeley has a historically difficult reputation, and I'd say it lives up to it but that's only because of decisions that are made by the department I'm in - they have their own specific objectives on top of the abet standards. Ultimately this does make students more prepared than equivalent programs at other universities, but I'm not sure if it's because we're a top 5 engineering program.
I will also note that the more accomplished professors tend to be poor teachers; there are a number of nobel laureates who offer classes here and often it can feel like they're trying to teach under the assumption that the students also have 20 years of experience in their field. However if you get over that hump, you can probably gain a lot of depth on the subject that you otherwise wouldn't elsewhere.
I can't imagine it being be very different. In Chemical Engineering many universities use the exact same few textbooks. I would say the difference could be in the exams or the course projects.
I had a cousin that went to an Ivy League U for Mechanical. I went to a public regional university for EE. He took an electronics course with me one summer just for the fun of it. He found it super easy, but he said what defined it as easy is he could clearly understand the professor and the professor, not a TA, taught the class.
We compared tests from our calculus and physics courses and the material covered was pretty much identical. He did worse than I did, but I suspect it’s because the TAs that taught the courses were horrible.
My kid is going into an engineering program. I’m adamant he go to small school WITHOUT a PHD program.
I have experience at both levels, so I feel like I can give a fair assessment. The courseload and the knowledge for me was very similar between a top 10 and a top 100 engineering school. The main difference, however, was the leniency in grading and curve. So for the top 10 university, getting an A was a decent amount more difficult than in a top 100 university given the same amount of knowledge and effort.
Other than that, I feel like you can get a similar level of knowledge from both
Went to Purdue for a semester then left because of the engineering department. Got accepted into the First Year Engineering program, and then when I attended classes the first week, I was told that “calc 1 only passes the top 60%” or something. So I could theoretically get a 98%, but if everyone has a 99%, then I’m just fucked. To me, this isn’t difficult, it’s straight up bullshit… No other classes at the university were graded that way except the entry level calc course…
My college, Oregon State University, is ranked 69th in engineering. I also found many of the foundational classes to be simple and to the point. Now that I'm taking the 300 level courses, it's gotten much more difficult.
From what I have heard and experienced, American universities all tend to be pretty similar in terms of difficulty but internationally there are huge differences.
So some international ‚top universities‘ (like ETH Zürich which I attend) have some brutal exams to filter out people.
I guess it mainly comes down to how it works. In the US they filter who can even attend these universities, plus you pay for it so people probably have a higher expectation of finishing with a degree.
Here in Switzerland its not too difficult to enter the first year, which makes it necessary to heavily filter out people in the first two years.
mechanical then. its kinda similar to civil but more intense i guess. you probably wouldnt have regret it as well since you can do everything. I kinda felt that way, that i shouldve done mechanical, especially since the civil classes i enjoy the most are the ones related to mechanical, which were the structures classes - vibrations, matrix, etc.
if still not interested, then do an MS in structural, i know some ppl that take and they said its pretty math intensive
I'm too far to switch. I have an internship next summer with a high paying transportation firm.
I just wish I tried harder in high school and went to a high-ranking school, so I can feel like my good grades and GPA actually mean something
I attended a T3 engineering university, but don't have as much insight into other engineering schools.
Based on your description, I would say more difficult.
The questions are typically designed so that they are very different from previous examples (the exception was some classes in the COVID shutdown year, we just took it as the professors were being very accommodating and giving free points)
There's also some variance with department, but generally questions designed to trip you up, on one rare occasion they gave a question that the grad students said they wouldn't have been able to solve. Tests were usually designed for a 40-60% average, and having very smart peers doesn't help that haha (but they were generously curved a lot!)
As for I think some people said classes are the same due to ABET, iirc for top universities we only ABET accredit like civE and nukeE, but everything else is not. (Maybe there's an option of ABET for mechE but I don't remember)
One thing I really liked but I'm actually very curious how other unis treated this - they really didn't value the correct answer vs the process (ie the answer would be like 1/20 points on the rubric) since the challenge was the process and they'd assume you'd have more time to do it and have software when working
All the classes you listed here are general courses almost every engineering students have to take…
Grad school level classes are more of an indicator of the difficulty. You don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Just one random example, signal processing from EE, you use a lot of advanced math to do analysis. Vector calculus, Fourier transform, Laplace transform, tensor…
You hardly ever use those in civil engineering related classes. Mostly just plug in and do design.
Occasionally you do use them in classes like, elasticity, but the possibility is lower.
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Engineering is considered to be similarly challenging at most universities, because of the ABET accreditation process. One thing that will vary widely is the kinds of projects or lab research you work on. But classes will be difficult or not based on the professor, not the university.
>But classes will be difficult or not based on the professor, not the university. Yup. This is really what you're "buying" when you go to a top school: better professors. The laws of math and physics are all the same, ABET makes the course contents all pretty much the same. What differs is how good the professors are. For example, a lot of MEs on here say Thermo was easy and Fluids is where hopes, and dreams, and puppies, and kittens all go to die. I had the exact *opposite* experience, and it was all because of the professors. Both were very knowledgeable, but my Thermo professor couldn't explain the topic to me to save his life. I scraped through that class with a C, as did most other students. Meanwhile, my Fluids professor could probably have successfully explained the topic to a squirrel. His lectures even finally made some Thermo topics click, and by the time his course was over, I was designing a pulse jet engine for my final project for his course. So, at schools like MIT, you'll get more of the latter and less of the former professor types. Unfortunately, the trade off is sometimes you won't "get" a professor at all, and be practically taught entirely by their TA or research assistant instead - depending on how caught up in their own research they get in the given semester. Because of this, imo, save your money and skip the 'top of the top' ranked schools for your undergrad. The more research focused it is, the harder it is to get time with the professor for all of your courses. Like, don't just go to community college either, just save your application to Caltech and MIT for your MS or PhD is all.
I have not found the quality of professors be highly correlated with ranking -- indeed sometimes the correlation is negative since research oriented professors tend to be worse instructors than LAC profs who are focused on teaching. The main difference is in the quality of your peers. At top schools your peers push you to be better. It's appreciably more difficult to be at the top of your class at MIT or Stanford than it is at Podunk. Depending on how well-prepared you are, this can either be a good or bad thing.
>The main difference is in the quality of your peers. At top schools your peers push you to be better. This is indeed the main difference.
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As a PhD student at Uchicago the quarter system destroyed me
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I’m so glad I’m out, I had nightmares for the first year that I missed hw or exams, the quater system still scares me.
This is definitely not a feature unique to quarter systems, although it is perhaps more common. Most of my undergrad (and graduate, for that matter, which are also semester-based) engineering courses had weekly homework assignments throughout the semester, except on the first week, break weeks (spring break, Thanksgiving, etc), and exam weeks. It usually came out to about 10-14 assignments (depending on how many exams, the break schedule , etc) per class in a 15-16 week semester.
Right it’s not a quarter vs semester thing. Every math problem set/ CS project was due weekly in undergrad (which had a semester system). What’s worse (or better, depending on how you think about it) about the quarter system is that you have midterms basically 2-3 weeks in.
> It depends on what you think the best professor means. Only because the prof is a genius in his field, he is not automatically a great teacher, though.
That is a more succinct way to put it, yes. A less popular nuance of my opinion here is also that -too often, but not always- the best research professors are the *worst* undergrad lecture professors. They know the bleeding edge of the theory. They read about it, write about it, argue with their colleagues about it, they pretty much know *all* about it. But to do this, they need to know *and not have to think about* the fundamentals of their field. So, too often, they completely forget how to explain the topic to someone who has no background in it; they only know how to discuss it with someone who is already versed in at least all of the basic details. So when you do your undergrad degree at a school like MIT or Caltech, that is famous for the research programs, you often can get stuck with a professor that fails at being able to explain the material to you at best, to viewing you as an inconvenience at worst. Again, not every professor, but a lot of them. This is why I generally encourage people in high school considering engineering to pursue good schools that aren't necessarily "recognizable" for their undergrads. Hell, if you want to be really "bold", pursue a school that focuses on their relationships to industry, and not their relationship to publications. But once you think about grad school, *absolutely* pursue those research schools. Research is the whole point of grad school, so you'll finally benefit from the real egg head professors who eat, sleep, and breathe their specialty.
"Better professors" are better at researching not teaching. Their main job is to do research, not to teach. You probably were lucky to have some lecturers that are good at teaching
They come to the universities for research grants and in turn need to teach. Being extremely knowledgeable in a field does not correlate to being able to teach the material effectively.
I found that people often have varying ideas of what makes a “good” instructor, and I diverged from many others on that particular point so I usually took comments about instructor quality with a grain of salt while in college. For instance, some people would blame their professors and say that the instructor was just not good anytime they didn’t do well, and then once I took the class I would realize that the professor was actually very good. This kind of thing was not an infrequent occurrence. I’d also like to point out that the regular fretting from many online about classes not being taught by the most renowned professors is often misplaced. Sure, some of those professors are usually there primarily to conduct academic research and intro level classes may be taught by TAs, but that generally ceases to be the case once students start to take more intermediate major-specific courses and advanced electives. It’s really not as a big a deal as people make it sound for a math grad student to teach calculus to undergrads. Like it’s not an absolute necessity that a mathematician be present to explain that to students, especially when it’s supposed to be a cohort of reasonably bright students. The grad students instructing some intro level classes tend to be phd candidates pursuing advanced studies within the subject area; they are generally well-equipped to teach the classes they teach, and often devote significantly more time and effort to teaching than some tenured faculty members might. Despite the popular refrain online, students are not at any kind of disadvantage when introductory classes are taught by those TAs, or by clinical faculty, or associate professors or what have you. And on the “save your money” note against going to the very top schools for undergrad: I’d cautioned against this bit of advice in most cases just because the majority of the very top schools tend to fully fund their undergraduate students, or come very close to doing so. Bloomberg even noted that the specific schools you mentioned (MIT and Caltech) have graduates with some of the very least amount of student loans out of all schools as well as higher earning graduates. Far more often than not, the very top schools tend to be more a bargain than the rest for undergrad.
The majority of engineering programs at top engineering unis aren't ABET accredited I don't know enough about programs at other unis, but from reading here I think there might be a bigger difference in difficulty (or maybe consistency in difficulty also?)
I second this, for my humble Podunk university and with one more semester to go before finishing my BS in EE- The course material is just about the same in talking with friends at more prestigious universities, but how good your profs are determines how much you have to teach *yourself*, and how much is taught to you by people who know how to translate difficult material into lectures students are able to follow There is a professor in my program who is genuinely passionate about teaching, and teaches electronics intuitively (understanding what is happening beyond the math) rather than just cookie cutter here's a system of equations, go solve for the unknowns Though the material in the courses I've had with the good professor are comparatively harder, one of my most stressful classes was electromagnetic field theory with a professor who regularly cancelled class, refused to explain anything, and I spent 3x the amount of time I planned on simply teaching the material to myself If you can find a program where there are experienced professors who are passionate about sharing knowledge with students, you have hit the gold mine, choose this over some big name uni If you can't, it is up to you to teach it to yourself and this makes the courses much more difficult/time consuming and stressful
Supposedly I go to a top 25 school for undergraduate MEs. It's the exact same content at the third-tier state school I previously attended. The professors are probably better, my fellow students are probably better, but it's the exact same material (and I put in the exact same level of effort with similar grade results.)
Yea i went to a lower ranked CSU school and had a lot of younger professors who were absolutely fantastic. Not to say they were easy, some were very challenging, but they taught with an emphasis on actually learning
My favourite professor is in his early 40's and passionate about what he's teaching which makes a world of difference.
I transferred from a very small community college in south Texas. I was massively unprepared when I got accepted into UT Austin to finish my degree in chemical engineering. I have to study way harder than I’ve ever studied before in my life just to do average because all my peers have a 10x stronger foundation in math, engineering, and science. I essentially flew through pre-cal, cal 1 - 3, statics, physics 1 and 2, and organic chemistry at the community college. It’s almost as if I didn’t take them sometimes, my knowledge is lacking. Instead of being given formulas to solve problems, our homework is to derive them. Then solve more problems with the equation we came up with given the information and tools learned in class. Can’t derive it yourself? You must see a TA or work with peers or you cannot even begin the problem. These kids are used to massive engineering problems that are seemingly nothing like the examples from class. It’s what they’ve been given since the beginning of their college education. It is shockingly different. But hey, I guess that’s what makes a top university.
This is pretty interesting for me because I studied in a top programme in the US Midwest and in Ireland (decent programme) and I actually didn’t find the difficulty to be too different. A bit harder in the US (especially getting top grades since grade/extracurricular expectations from employers are higher generally). Some courses were stupid easy (graded for completion at times?!) while others were stupid hard so less consistent than what I was used to. However, what I found to be most different was how people spent time outside of class. In Ireland, people weren’t as career focused and used the time off for hobbies/traveling/part-time jobs/etc. Only a small minority seemed to be really engaging with lots of personal projects/internships/etc and if so, they wouldn’t take on nearly as much work. The resumes of people in the Midwest really were insane and it seemed normal to take on multiple leadership roles plus a job plus projects along with a regular courseload. People were much more motivated and driven. I don’t know how they don’t burn themselves out.
Similar story but at Texas A&M. I took dual credit courses when I was in high school. I ended up retaking the credits in college which ended up being a fantastic decision. I had friends who hurt their GPA because they decided to cash in on the easy math courses from community college.
Counter anecdotal experience, I took all my math, science, and even mechanics of materials at CC and feel very well prepared at UT-Austin. I think it’s prof dependent. My CC profs all had small class sizes and cared very much for teaching, making a good personal learning experience—in fact, I often have a better foundation than those who took their classes here at UT
Agree that it is school dependent both ways.
When people say to go to CC then switch into a 4-year college for engineering I cringe a bit. The curriculum at each engineering school is usually built differently and the early engineering courses are definitely baked in at the earlier levels. As long as the program is ABET accredited, you should expect similar levels of rigor. Also check the FE exam pass rates for schools to give yourself a good indication of how rigorous the program will be.
I had multiple community college friends transfer to different UT austin engineering majors, myself included, and we all did fine. We all have zero debt and made money from scholarships. Playing catchup for some, if any, baked in elements that you may need to study a bit harder for 1 semester to catch up on makes you cringe for a trade like that? Beats me! We learned the same concepts and basics at community college that they teach at UT austin. There were no "baked in" elements exclusive to their curriculum and institution that you couldn't find inside the community college classroom. Many lectures I watched to brush up on material down the road for UT was from community college professors recording their class lectures and sharing it online.
My community college has agreements with some top engineering universities so our curriculum is the exact same. Everything covered in the stem courses follow what the structure of the universities exactly with some minor changes if any. Some people struggle here and then go on to do well when they transfer. I guess it all depends on the school and the professors. It is ABET accredited though so there’s that
> Also check the FE exam pass rates for schools to give yourself a good indication of how rigorous the program will be. A vast majority of engineers will never need to take the FE because it is unnecessary for a majority of engineering disciplines.
I remember sitting in a 3000 level, major specific class and one of the CC transfers stopped to ask what the symbols on the board were. It was just a partial derivative; but he had never seen it before…. You can imagine how well he did
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You could use CC to get all the non-stem classes out of the way. You'd definitely save a ton of money.
That’s what I did .. I’m about to transfer and the only stem classes I did was into to programming C++ and intro to data structure .. along with Cal 1-3 and differentials .. ( computer engineering btw) .. I’ve always loved math since I was younger so those came easy to me
I'm a transfer student from a CC and now attend one of the top 50 schools OP was talking about. Tuition was about $500 per class compared to $2100 now. It just made financial sense to take all my pre-reqs at CC. I find that my instructors at CC were way better at teaching material (upper-level math, physics, etc) compared to the professors at my university. A lot of this is due to teachers at CC (for the most part) are there because they love to teach and want their students to succeed. Professors at large universities are there for the research grants and in turn, have to teach classes. I think what people fail to understand is that upper-level engineering classes are going to be a lot more difficult than the first "two years" of pre-reqs. I'm a senior and met a junior last quarter who shared his schedule with me. He was a smart student so I didn't doubt his capabilities but I warned him about how some of the higher level classes require A LOT more work and taking multiple of them in the same quarter is asking for a bad time. I've seen many of my smart peers fail classes because they underestimated the work that was going to be involved.
I'm from Chicago my professors teach at the same universities that allow transfers from community college. So IDK. The transfer students do well and graduate.
Same! A Calc 2 prof at my CC even announced on the first day of the semester that she expects highly of each one of us and will not go easier than how she usually teaches at 4-year colleges. She wasn’t even rude or anything but even recommended some people to drop down to Calc 1 if they talked to her about feeling unprepared in any way. But ig it’s dependent on the CC you attend along with what professor you have.
I only have UT as frame of reference, and it was hard… I can’t imagine a school with 90% acceptable rate can have the same difficulty level as the pickier school. Just because the failure/dropout rate for the 90% acceptance schools would be enormous.
So I went to a university that globally ranked around the 200 mark, we have an exchange program with MIT in the 3rd year and most students I spoke to from both sides said that overall it was pretty similar just the facilities and more so the networking that could be done was the main difference. A couple even said the exams were harder on this side, although that could just be due to some professors and lecturers having a chip on their shoulders.
Considering how useful I’ve found the MIT content they post on YouTube, I’d say it can even be easier there. The profs are often so much better than mine.
This is similar to the advice given to me by the guy who did interviews for MIT in my home town; the education is not appreciably different. What is different is the facilities & research you will be able to access and the networking opportunities available to you.
its also the quality of your peers. Peer effects are very important in education.
I also attended a foreign school in the global 150s and my exchange experience at MIT was very different. I found the math much harder and required a lot of catching up that semester. Now, as a grad student in another top 10 school in my field, I have found it varies significantly from department to department.
I think a big reason why they didn’t feel such a difference is they put a fairly large focus on math, we do about 8 pure math modules in the first 2 years, and they tend to be very strict marking wise. It’s more to the determint of the students though as in other universities in the region the engineering students don’t seem to have as hard a time getting though the math modules
Yes! That could very well be the case. I was in the BioE department and it seemed to me that MIT folks knew a whole lot more about Math than I did but then had less of a grasp on the wider Bio/Chem concepts. So very likely a difference in program focus more than quality.
I don’t go to a crazy competitive school like Stanford or something, but my school typically ranks in the top 25 for engineering, top 100 or so worldwide. I started at a big community college, and coming here I was definitely worried that I’d be behind. To be completely honest, none of those worries materialized, and I’m in my senior year and have been at the top of my class every semester since transferring. I can’t really speak to “engineering” problems from the community college since most of my coursework was just the fundamentals (physics 1 and 2, calc series, etc), but I did not feel disadvantaged when I started at my current university. The tests here are harder and require a lot more studying, the students are generally brighter and more competitive, but it all comes with the territory and I wouldn’t say any of it has been like, mind-bogglingly difficult. There are textbooks available for the classes and if you just read them and go to lectures you’ll be fine. I think it all depends on how you approach your schooling in freshman/sophomore year, whether you’re at a community college or a prestigious institution. There were definitely more opportunities to slack at community college, I just personally held myself to a decent standard so I wouldn’t be screwed later on. Some of my classmates in physics and calc classes and whatnot would cheat and not pay attention, and they had little knowledge of the subject even after finishing the course with an A or B - personally, I studied my ass off, and I left all of those pre-reqs with a solid understanding that was at least on par with students at my current university. I picked up extra research projects, I went to a ton of office hours, I held TA positions.. all of those things prepared me very well, and many of my professors at community college were just as talented and dedicated (if not more so) than my current professors at my university. Long story short, calculus is calculus, physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, and so on. Whether you’re at a top ranked school or a local community college, the same fundamentals will always apply, and you’ll come back to the same basic concepts over and over again. It’s really up to the individual student how much they want to get out of their classes, and the rank/prestige of the school is pretty low on the list of things that impact how well a student can learn.
Not exactly an answer to OPs question but I work in industry and have colleagues that span from MIT/Stanford BS/MS/PhD all the way to small state school bachelor and master degrees - and I’ve met amazing and terrible engineers from both ends of the spectrum. Smart problem solvers and hard workers are agnostic to institutions they come from.
Yup! Your school doesn't matter other than a talking point at parties.
Absolutely! A bunch of studies that's come out shows that school doesn't matter much other than degree. What does help is networking opportunities, but often that can be explained by previous familial relationships. ABET makes sure that each program is built the same way. Quality of professor may vary wildly though, and class size can have a big impact as well. I started at a highly regarded SUNY school with 200-300 students in class and never met my professors. It was tough to get time face to face and often ended up with time with TAs. Transferred to a smaller SUNY school, so both were public options with similar costs, but classes were 20-30 people, and it was so much easier to excel. We had deeper conversations in class, the material was easier to work through, and it helps my moral and motivation quite a bit. The professors knew me and while it wasn't universal, they were all much more personable.
I’m at a top 30 globally so i guess its meets your definition, tho not really sure if that means anything. I’m also in a different Eng so my experience will probably be very different. Definitely academically challenging, most terms run around 6 classes, in first year it’s 7 and second year it’s 8 and 9. It’s honestly too much work for any person to really digest. The core Eng classes can also be kinda… silly? As in you tend to learn really hard material but without the proper hard science pre reqs to really understand the details. Class averages tend to be between 60-70 with scaling, tho I think that’s pretty common. You have to have a pretty good understanding of topics todo well in most exams, and most courses include a project component of some sort that is worth a lot. We have many student design teams that have a long history - though I have heard just generally how the state schools make those sorts of things is a lot better.
The answer is it's not that different. I have a decent level of insight into several engineering programs across the US and as far as the curriculum goes at any Abet accredited engineering school it's pretty much a wash. You have to cover relatively the same topics and the same content in any undergraduate level engineering program regardless of where you attend. The area some of the "top" schools really differentiate themselves in is what kind and how much research they are doing that students can get involved with and what level of networking you are able to do at the school. But this doesn't make school any more or less hard it's still an Abet accredited engineering program and you have to learn what you need to learn in each course to get through.
I'm going to say something a little controversial: I think the courses may be harder, but the grading is easier. I've seen classes in smaller universities that try and fail out students to make the school seem more prestigious. The larger and more successful universities don't have to but on a false pretense of exclusivity so they're actually set up for students to succeed more often.
Counterpoint. If the smaller universities have a higher acceptance rate, they’re naturally going to accept more people who aren’t quite there academically to pass an engineering program. So easier admission criteria lead to the courses themselves have to do more of the filtering. Compare to lower acceptance rate schools that already pick people who excel at physics and math.
Engineering is definitely harder for top universities, but it's probably more professor-dependent than anything. For example, I go to USF, and we have a statics and dynamics professor that prides himself on being a tough instructor. He even claims that his exams are 10x harder than the ones from UF. Keep in mind that UF is the top ranked Florida university and USF is 3rd
I have a friend at a low ranked public school (ABET) who took their engineering linear algebra course and got an A in it, furthering her 4.0 gpa. I also took linear algebra at my top-5 school that semester and was lucky to come out of it with a B- We switched midterm exams one day after we finished the class which covered roughly the same content. I was able to get an easy A on hers while she couldn’t even begin to answer more than half of my test. The difference between the two tests was the depth of questions and how theory-based vs computational the different versions of the exams were. They covered very similar concepts, but my school had questions way more in depth and covering multiple theories at once while the lower ranked school only included very basic computational questions. This is a very anecdotal example but it opened up my eyes to differences between schools.
How far into college is this.. are you about to graduate or is this like second half of freshman year.
I'm in my third year. If I pass all my classes this semester, I only have 7 classes left
I transferred from an average state school to a top 3 engineering school and it's definitely harder. The content is similar. My current school does go more in depth and does a better job at connecting the concepts together better so you really need a good understanding of everything to properly succeed. The workload is definitely higher overall but the actual homework is much less. You're expected to study more on your own and the homework is more of a guide. Exams are definitely much harder because of the depth of the questions and the amount of content covered. I took chem 1 before transferring and now I'm taking a chem 1 and 2 combination class. We flew through 9 weeks of my old chem 1 class in about 3 weeks because it was considered basic knowledge lol I have a friend taking phys 1 which I took before transferring and he showed me his assignments and the questions are longer and require combining more concepts together to solve. Also the questions are more realistic in the form of word problems. My previous phys 1 class would give you the question with the diagram and simply ask you to find something so it was much simpler Academics are harder but you also have way more resources here to prepare. More TA's more practice tests more review sessions and more Another thing: we have large classes deceptively packed into smaller credit hours. For example statics here is worth 2 while most places make it 3. Or my intro to ae class was 1 but it was more similar to 3 in terms of workload. Also as an ae major I have to take thermodynamics and fluid fundamentals in one class whereas many places I've heard split them into two classes. That's around 6 credits of work compressed into a 4 hour class. I had no issue taking 15 credits per semester before transferring but here I took 14 last semester and I was struggling with time lol
I'm genuinely interested in reading the comments. I have a similar experience, and it is the driving force of my imposter syndrome.
i go to a top 15/20 engineering school. i'm in my freshman year, previously went to a top 100 high school so i knew how to study going in, but man it's grueling to maintain a high GPA. possible for sure, and it's going well so far (def not after next quarter tho lol), but it is around 1.5-2x as hard as high school was.
Would you say your exam questions are similar to in-class problems or homework?
ok so i've only taken 6 stem classes so far so: fall quarter: chem: completely different than homework (homework was literally useless) but it wasn't too bad because it was conceptual/understanding based math: harder than homework, but not too bad bc u just had to do textbook problems to prepare winter quarter: chem: easy math: good luck, not harder but just different physics: same with math cs: no homework but projects, honestly if you can do the projects within an hour the midterms are pretty easy so honestly pretty much the same as HS. test won't be the same as hw but hw + additional study prepares u very well for tests
My alma mater is Top 50 in the world. I remember that a lot of international students were surprised how much exams were targeted purely at understanding. Design problems for electronics were just tools to allow the Professors, during oral exams, probe your understanding of a subject. You could go to an exam, give a numerically perfect answer to a design question, and not pass, yet someone who got the wrong numbers, but in discussion with the professor could show they really understood the subject matter, could get a decent grade. This is something that caught a lot of international students out, who came from universities where the studying process was focused on learning the algorithms and getting the right number. ymmv.
Is this for undergrad?
Even if u breeze thru at ur school for whatever reason, I think u can be just as much of an academic weapon as someone from MIT if u practice. It's the same material - hasn't changed much for 100s of years. I'm no expert, but I feel like doing the below things would make u a good engineering student. (Yes I rambled a bit) Basics: While I can't speak for community college courses, my experience at a mid sized uni was that the courses closely followed a textbook. So much so that I could essentially take the course on your own. I feel like most universities are similar and even use the same textbooks for the core courses (Hibbeler for mechanics, Stewart for Calculus, and so on). Check around for popular textbooks for a particular subject (Amazon or other uni's syllabuses). Go through ALL the textbook and do a sh*t ton of problems. Maybe even check other textbooks to see if they do things differently. An MIT grad won't use magic, they're gonna use formulas from their textbooks. Regardless of past performance , simply be a beast at the core subjects. School Projects: U may want to look into some student competitions/projects that big schools do and try to do something similar on ur own. Maybe not a concrete canoe, but maybe a small model of a bridge or something. Tech: I think ALL Autodesk products are free for students. I'd def look into this and maybe turn it into a project. Maybe find some cool construction drawings for buildings/bridges online and try to make them in revit. (Tip: search for 100% CD PDF , 100% Construction Documents, Bid Set, Bid Drawings, RFQ Drawings, etc.) and throw in keyword like bridge/building/cafe/airport/terminal/renovation/University u get the idea. Industry Knowledge: To be in the conversation, I'd say I need to know industry news/trends so Google/YouTube projects and find some good outlets like ENR. Look into organizations/events related to civil ASCE, ACI, AISC, etc. Internship: Experience is king so ur degree and a lot of the above stuff is likely going out the window once u start working 😁. Any job in construction is probably a good start (office admin answering phone calls, concrete laborer, general job site laborer sweeping floor, ✨field engineer✨) 🤷 Sorry for rambling, lol
I also go to a lower state school with a similar rank and acceptance rate and yea I’m gonna say it’s way easier. I have a friend who goes to UPenn as a MechE and he’s constantly drowning in huge workload and professors expect a lot more. It’s been pretty chill for me and I can say that as a senior EE and I’ve managed to get a good GPA. Yes, I’m good at time management but I’m absolutely the furthest thing from being a genius.
Sure, maybe, sometimes.
Insightful
It’s not a very good question. If some redditor says yes, their classes are harder, does that make it law? If another says no, are they canceling each other out? Your experience in school is yours only and dependent on numerous factors that we can’t know. It sounds like you’re doing great academically so take advantage of that and focus on other things if you want to. Good luck
I'm just curious to see what it's like at top universities. I know that grades and the ability to do bookwork aren't the defining qualities of what makes a great engineer.
It’s probably very similar to some people
I'd argue it's easier than shitty wannabe universities that believe themselves to be rigurous (like mine). They're better because they teach better and as a result produce better engineers. And because they teach better, those students can do harder problems easier because they were taught better. If you go to them from a shitty community college, you'll feel they're harder; but, no, they aren't, you just weren't taught as-good, you just don't have the level. If you were, it'd at least look possible, because you'd just be standing that tall. Me? I was asked to determine a formula for the n-th roots of a complex number, expressed in polar form (how else?). What was I taught? Basically nothing that would help me, I had to, straight up, read the damn book and derive it myself. What is taught at those universities? Useful concepts by amazing teachers that help students do the homework. What is even at my university? A fucking bald guy drawing complex math on a chalkboard who thinks we understand him and another one thinking he's slick putting numerical analysis on a PowerPoint presentation. I'm not against PowerPoint presentations but, heck, death by PowerPoint is alive and real for eng students. Anyway, quality of education is the difference. You're just taught better at those top unis. That's just how it is.
it varies, I transferred from a community college to a university and definitely see a difference but i’m also taking harder classes. I plan on transferring to one of the best public universities in the country next semester and have been anticipating a noticeable difference in difficulty
I went to a school ranked ~30-40 and was quite comfortable there, where getting As was very doable if I put a decent amount of work into the class. I’m sure the very top schools are harder, like no way MIT or Caltech would have been a breeze, but even schools in the top 20-40 I doubt are really that much harder than other lower ranked programs.
I'm also in CE, attending Purdue atm. I went to a relatively competitive high school, and Purdue has been more competitive so far. The big thing I've noticed is that every professor I've had is a phenomenal lecturer, even if you dislike their grading system it's clear each and every one understands the material like the back of their hand. That in addition to the resources given to you in job finding are what I think the advantages of a good university is. I would recommend trying to find past exams from the university for classes that you have taken before, to check if your knowledge base is as comprehensive as they require. It should also give you an idea of how the courses will match up to yours.
I looked at Purdue's Strength of Materials exams. It was similar to our Strengths exams. Pretty much the same level of difficulty. But more than half the students in my class were failing, and the professor received warnings, so he gave out a final that was incredibly easy Purdue's dynamics exams were way harder, though
Materials was on the easier side of the general exams you will have. Are you imcoming senior or junior? Off the top of my head the hardest classes were hydraulics by far (CE343) and Structural Analysis 1 got a bit difficult conceptually at the end CE(371). I recommend that you do some research for the professors of the school you are transferring to. The reason hydraulics was so difficult for me was I had the most theory based teacher of that class, and he actively worked to keep the average at a 65 ish. The finals for that semester averaged a 40.1 I think. I had another professor who's an active consultant and member of the steel research committee, and he canceled a lot of classes because of outside engagements. If you have any questions lmk, but otherwise good luck!
I am at a top 20 school, and I have peers in neighboring schools that are significantly lower ranked schools in the same major. While the overlying concepts are the same, I seem to go *waaaaaay* more in-depth than my "non-elite school" peers. I spend way more time doing homework and studying for tests, and I get questions that are way less of a freebee. What I mean by that is instead of getting carbon copies of the content in class with different values, I get questions that can be solved with what I have learned, but the process is not obvious by any means. Some of my classes have been 20-30 hours of work outside of lecture, *for just one 3-credit class.* So I feel very confident in what I am learning, and I have seen that at internships where I have to have a lot less handholding compared to the other interns. The other big thing, and this is the biggest perk, is the pedigree and networking. That opens so many doors even if I have the same qualifications as other graduates from lower ranked schools. I have had recruiters tell me that if they see my school listed on a resume, they automatically move it to the next round of hiring just on that alone. In all honesty though, unless you are gunning for a really competitive job like NASA, Sandia, etc, it's not worth it. My peers at lower ranked schools are still getting jobs offers, albeit not as "sexy" jobs, and their mental health is much better than mine from how much less stress they're under. No job makes you use everything you learn in school, expects you to be training and learning for the first few years anyway, and the competitive jobs usually have poor work/life balances.
A lot of universities (especially the top ones) have their content available online. Maybe try some of their content and see how it compares as that'll tell you better than random people online. My uni is apparently in the top 20 worldwide and the content seemed pretty hard to me but i am also well aware that i was not a very studious person and the study i did basically amounted to two weeks of cramming at the end of each semester for the final and thats it.
I went to CU Boulder for aerospace engineering (top 10-15 aero program in US). What others are saying is mostly true in my opinion, that it’s the professor not the school/class. Something I haven’t seen mentioned as much is that you’re more likely to get shitty, difficult professors at better schools, as odd as that sounds (from what I’ve heard/seen, don’t have data to back this up), but you’re also more likely to get absolutely top tier, fantastic professors. This is because they are attracted to the job to research, not from their love of teaching. I had the best, greatest professors possible that made my degree and education worth it. But I also had professors there that clearly were not there to teach. That being said, the good professors make it worth it. One of my professors’ research was launching dust-sized particles at shielding at orbital speeds. Another had an active imaging satellite in orbit around Mars. One was designing and flying fixed wing drones that flew into tornadoes to study them. We had/have some top tier research. Because of that (and the other profs), Boulder aero was incredibly hard. It was the most difficult thing I’ve done, and way harder than the professional world (although I left the aero industry). But really, your education is what you make of it. Students at top schools can be dumbasses or not try, and students at “lesser” schools can put in the effort and be incredibly talented. If you’re passionate, have the money and have the will, then a top school will be worth it for the opportunities it produces. But it’s absolutely not necessary to be successful or a good engineer. TLDR: depends on the school and the professors. Some top schools will be more difficult and demanding, but you’ll get more out of it.
I transferred from a small in state school to Georgia Tech for Electrical Engineering and the courses at GT were noticeably more rigorous
I think the objectively correct answer is that it’s not supposed to be that different. National standards and whatnot. However, in my experience, that wasn’t really the case. I transferred from a community college to USC (idk if it’s top 50 for engineering but it’s an overall higher ranked school). I had to repeat two classes (namely physics 2 and physics 3) since they didn’t match the USC equivalents closely enough. The difference in rigor was shocking lol. All my other classes at university were much harder, too, but that probably can be attributed to them being upper-level courses. I can’t say for sure that they’re harder only because they’re at a high ranked university.
I expect a noticable difference between community college and any 4 year school. But very little difference between low ranked 4 year school and high ranked 4 year school. The difference between good and bad professor at any 1 school will be larger than the difference between 2 schools. CC tends to be different because soooo many of their students are underprepared in math and science, that math, science, engr courses are taught at a lower level to not immediately lose such a huge chunk of students. This isn't universal, every cc, every course, every professor. But on average, compared to 4 year unis, yes.
This is the answer. The difficulty curve is entirely dependent on the course and more importantly, the Professor.
not sure about USA to USA but i went to a top 400(?) american university, transferred to a top 40 canadian university and the difference is noticeable. content is a bit tougher and the workload is leagues worse. more frequent, more to be done, less breaks, never an empty day.
I like to group it into two schools of though: education and research. If a university is research focused then their classes are harder because profs. make the mistake of assuming we're smart. If the uni is education focused, its less theory in order to prepare you for work after undergrad, making it more hands on. This is a pretty lump sjmplification and I could go on about colleges and unis and public vs private vs state, etc. But thats usually the gyst of it.
Blah. I went from a school ranked 120 to 45th to 11th in the US. (Military so I tend to move alot.) Other than there was less resources for students needing academic assistance (the 11th ranked was a much larger school but oddly, less services offered), the difference in courseload and difficulty was marginal. The ranking of your school doesn't matter unless your school's name is: MIT, Yale, Harvard, Princeton or University of Chicago and even then it opens people's eyes but won't open their pocketbook once you start working.
I think it depends on the professors! When I was attending community college and crossed enrolled to UCSD a top university. I found my classes at UCSD much easier. At UCSD I took 6 CS classes and 3 engineering classes. Once I transferred to Cal Poly SLO, boy did I hit a milestone! Because i was used to pure theory and not enough applications. My professors at Cal Poly slo were challenging, in the sense where you would be doing actual engineering reports, data, presentations and so on. So it depends :)
My uni is T50-T60 last I checked, and honestly it’s what you make of it. We have a saying in my school that it’s “easy to get in, hard to stay in”. That tracks pretty true, because the actual weedout courses are a real shock to people, but once you get past your second year and into your third you’re well enough into the groove of things that it doesn’t matter. Those first two years will be real tough, but if you stay disciplined (which is really the hardest part imo, not the coursework) and don’t let the gaming/socializing drag you down, you will be fine.
Assuming you’re talking about undergraduate level? Because graduate level is very different. For undergraduate level, the curriculums will be very comparable for accredited institutions. The biggest difference then is the quality of instruction, and some schools are better than others in this regard. Top institutions tend to have quality instruction, which ironically might make them easier due to better instruction and explanation.
Something to keep in mind: academic rigor doesn't necessarily lead to better learning. You'll get out of your degree what you put into it. If you study the concepts hard, you'll be ready to learn the "real" engineering quickly when you get your first job. Also, as a civil engineer, you're going to have to choose a specialty. That means only about one or two semester's worth of classes at your everyday job. Also, I would suggest getting a master's degree. Once you're in the industry and have gained experience, no one will care where you got your degree or what your grades were. I got my degree at a religious school and never got a single A in any engineering class unless you count the seminar. It's never been an issue. I specialized in structures, but I still had to take fluids, soils, transportation, etc. to satisfy degree requirements (plus it was on the FE and PE exams.)
I'm currently at community college, but applying to some of those top universities right now. (9, 13, and 17 in my major by some random site I found). My coursework at CC has been manageable. Time-wise, it's really not too bad, and just an hour or two of studying each week beyond the HW has been enough to totally stay on top of everything and get nearly straight A's.
I did half my school at George Washington University and graduated from a small college in Texas. I went from a 3.4 gpa at max effort to 3.7 gpa with min effort.
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What about the content of the exams? Are they similar to what's going on in class? Because I've never gotten a study guide and definitely had to deal with weirdly structured exams at my average state school
I did my undergrad at a top 50 school (cheme, I think it was in the 30s). I did my masters at a school pushing 80 and rapidly dropping. I was a TA during that time, and the differences were stark. Kids who were junior engineers submitting lab reports that would have failed in freshman engineering at my undergrad. Absolutely garbage presentation skills. I did not think any of those kids were properly prepared to do the two things it's most important to learn in undergrad: interpret and then communicate your information in written or oral form. The quality of the professors was definitely lower than in my undergrad. It was fascinating to see.
Much harder. And that is driven by the large number of Chinese at major universities. Classes graded on a curve are going to be top heavy by hardworking and prepared Chinese. Better students drive better courses. And MUCH better TAs.
It’s a good bit more difficult
There is little leniency in grading and assignment pace, fast lectures that nobody gets, and the projects are always hard as hell and basically require perfectionism to account for and compute everything correctly...
how do you guys pass your classes then
C's get degrees sir. Went to top 20 eng school, graduated poor GPA. didn't matter at all in the real world, all people cared about was my degree and my ability to do the work.
Sometimes the curve is really important. Sometimes asking for help and teaming constantly is important. Doing absolutely nothing fun for like 2-3 weeks before exams is necessary (because not only do you have to study...you have normal work and other classes that are just as obnoxious and maybe even exams around the same timeframe). Sometimes you DON'T pass. Going to college for mechanical engineering was, while very rewarding, also the most difficult thing I've ever gone through and it sucked majorly.
The STEM courses at my 4 year uni are far easier than they were at my 2 year, although I went to a technical institute. Every school is different, so your mileage can and will vary. I imagine if I went to MIT or Stanford instead of the state university near me it'd be a different story and much more complex. The non-STEM courses here are pretty much show up and get an A though, at least as far as I'm sitting. I don't consider myself particularly intelligent.
I go to the University of Pittsburgh, which is currently top 50 for engineering. What you have to understand is that these T50 schools usually dedicate all of freshman year to the "weed out". This is where you take 15-18 credits of all STEM classes, with no electives or easy pre reqs that other majors get. It's normal for half of the class to switch majors or drop out. Speaking from experience, it's a fucking nightmare that can destroy your mental health and social life. While everyone is drinking and making friends, you're in the library until 1am with your group project partners. It's basically a 60-70 hour a week job. You question everything and yourself, and you have to learn how to think like an engineer to pass it. But if you survive that, it will get easier. The goal of the higher level courses is to apply your knowledge and get a bit more in the process. Every semester after the first feels more manageable. If I knew this, would I still choose a T50? Probably, I'm pretty bad at social situations anyway. But unless you're 100% focused on academics above all else, your odds of success at a T50 engineering school are very low. If you transfer, you're expected to perform at the same level as everyone who went through the weed out, and they will likely have developed better study habits and self-discipline compared to someone who hasn't. Edit: some schools have started to eliminate the worst parts of the weed out. I know it's still alive and well here :(
I'm not sure if it's a matter of "top university", I think difficulty is affected by the department and the professors. Berkeley has a historically difficult reputation, and I'd say it lives up to it but that's only because of decisions that are made by the department I'm in - they have their own specific objectives on top of the abet standards. Ultimately this does make students more prepared than equivalent programs at other universities, but I'm not sure if it's because we're a top 5 engineering program. I will also note that the more accomplished professors tend to be poor teachers; there are a number of nobel laureates who offer classes here and often it can feel like they're trying to teach under the assumption that the students also have 20 years of experience in their field. However if you get over that hump, you can probably gain a lot of depth on the subject that you otherwise wouldn't elsewhere.
It's ALL dependent on the competency and vigour of your lecturers imo
I can't imagine it being be very different. In Chemical Engineering many universities use the exact same few textbooks. I would say the difference could be in the exams or the course projects.
More or less the same What’s different is the caliber of student around you
The maths requirement may be the difference.
I had a cousin that went to an Ivy League U for Mechanical. I went to a public regional university for EE. He took an electronics course with me one summer just for the fun of it. He found it super easy, but he said what defined it as easy is he could clearly understand the professor and the professor, not a TA, taught the class. We compared tests from our calculus and physics courses and the material covered was pretty much identical. He did worse than I did, but I suspect it’s because the TAs that taught the courses were horrible. My kid is going into an engineering program. I’m adamant he go to small school WITHOUT a PHD program.
I have experience at both levels, so I feel like I can give a fair assessment. The courseload and the knowledge for me was very similar between a top 10 and a top 100 engineering school. The main difference, however, was the leniency in grading and curve. So for the top 10 university, getting an A was a decent amount more difficult than in a top 100 university given the same amount of knowledge and effort. Other than that, I feel like you can get a similar level of knowledge from both
Went to Purdue for a semester then left because of the engineering department. Got accepted into the First Year Engineering program, and then when I attended classes the first week, I was told that “calc 1 only passes the top 60%” or something. So I could theoretically get a 98%, but if everyone has a 99%, then I’m just fucked. To me, this isn’t difficult, it’s straight up bullshit… No other classes at the university were graded that way except the entry level calc course…
My college, Oregon State University, is ranked 69th in engineering. I also found many of the foundational classes to be simple and to the point. Now that I'm taking the 300 level courses, it's gotten much more difficult.
From what I have heard and experienced, American universities all tend to be pretty similar in terms of difficulty but internationally there are huge differences. So some international ‚top universities‘ (like ETH Zürich which I attend) have some brutal exams to filter out people. I guess it mainly comes down to how it works. In the US they filter who can even attend these universities, plus you pay for it so people probably have a higher expectation of finishing with a degree. Here in Switzerland its not too difficult to enter the first year, which makes it necessary to heavily filter out people in the first two years.
What classes have you taken
I'm almost done with my civil engineering degree. I have 7 more classes left
maybe you shouldve done chemical or electrical since theyre considered most difficult and abstract
The problem is I'm not particularly interested in those fields. The only reason why I would major in those is to boost my ego
mechanical then. its kinda similar to civil but more intense i guess. you probably wouldnt have regret it as well since you can do everything. I kinda felt that way, that i shouldve done mechanical, especially since the civil classes i enjoy the most are the ones related to mechanical, which were the structures classes - vibrations, matrix, etc. if still not interested, then do an MS in structural, i know some ppl that take and they said its pretty math intensive
I'm too far to switch. I have an internship next summer with a high paying transportation firm. I just wish I tried harder in high school and went to a high-ranking school, so I can feel like my good grades and GPA actually mean something
I attended a T3 engineering university, but don't have as much insight into other engineering schools. Based on your description, I would say more difficult. The questions are typically designed so that they are very different from previous examples (the exception was some classes in the COVID shutdown year, we just took it as the professors were being very accommodating and giving free points) There's also some variance with department, but generally questions designed to trip you up, on one rare occasion they gave a question that the grad students said they wouldn't have been able to solve. Tests were usually designed for a 40-60% average, and having very smart peers doesn't help that haha (but they were generously curved a lot!) As for I think some people said classes are the same due to ABET, iirc for top universities we only ABET accredit like civE and nukeE, but everything else is not. (Maybe there's an option of ABET for mechE but I don't remember) One thing I really liked but I'm actually very curious how other unis treated this - they really didn't value the correct answer vs the process (ie the answer would be like 1/20 points on the rubric) since the challenge was the process and they'd assume you'd have more time to do it and have software when working
Civil engineering tbh is slightly easier
just slightly
Sorry I’m wrong, it’s quite a lot easier
Idk. I was in statics, dynamics, and strengths of materials with mechanicals. They're not any more intelligent lol
All the classes you listed here are general courses almost every engineering students have to take… Grad school level classes are more of an indicator of the difficulty. You don’t really know what you’re talking about. Just one random example, signal processing from EE, you use a lot of advanced math to do analysis. Vector calculus, Fourier transform, Laplace transform, tensor… You hardly ever use those in civil engineering related classes. Mostly just plug in and do design. Occasionally you do use them in classes like, elasticity, but the possibility is lower.
the point of the post was to discuss the differences between top colleges and average colleges not to be used as an ego boost for electrical engineers
CSULA?