Colleges/Universities with high academic standards (engineering)

[_MIA_]

Interesting. Maybe it’s a regional thing, what it’s called. The school called it an internship and told them they should expect 12-30 an hour for pay. The ones she applied to paid $15-18. My son took a business internship and was paid as well.

The curriculums I have been part of (Tufts,Duke, OU) and many that I am aware of don’t require it to graduate but that doesn’t mean there are not some that don’t. You can search for Co-op programs and get an extensive list. There are also some which give a Co-op option and also some, like OU, which offer students credit for internships (along with whatever they get paid)

Even though I never really had one (I took a job at Raytheon after I graduated but I knew I wanted to go to graduate school and was applying to graduate schools during my short time there) having an internship is a good idea for a number of reasons and if you can get more than one over your academic career, doing different type of work, that is even better as it can give you a feel for what areas you might (or might not) want work in.

 

[_MIA_]

In terms of Aerospace/ME and sports, the biggest obstacle is going to be the lab classes. These require the student to physically be there and require prep time from the professor/TA (usually the TA) so they typically won’t just set up the lab for only one student. TA are restricted to only work the number of hours per week that they are paid for (usually 20) and this limitation has been increasingly enforced over the last few years as well it should be since some professors are inclined to abuse their TA’s time..

In those majors you typically will have 4-6 classes that have labs associated with them (physics, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics/aerodynamics, robotics, etc) If those are offered over multiple time slots/days and/or semesters then the student athlete’s life will be made much easier from a scheduling perspective. Typically the larger programs are the ones which do offer these options. At OU, which is of moderate size, they are offered multiple times per week but only one semester per academic year. I was ME at Tufts , which is smaller, but I didn’t play ball long enough to run into the lab issue as the only lab I had to take while I was playing was physics and it was during the off-season.

 

[Vertigo]

If she decides that she wouldn’t mind school on the East coast, have her look at the NESCAC conference. Since most have a smaller student body (which likely means a good percentage of athletes) they tend to be supportive of their student athletes. My dd is a bio major and so far has scheduled more classes with labs for the fall vs spring semester. All of her practices have been scheduled for either early morning (6am) or after classes are over for the day (after 4pm). If she can’t make a group lift time it is expected that she does it on her own that day. Coaches are extremely understanding and professors will allow exams to be taken at different times if she just talks to them beforehand.

 

[Orange Socks]

DD's boyfriend graduated in May with a Mech Engineering degree at UTD in December. He first year he went to Cal Poly and realized that school was not a good fit. He landed a job at Baker Hughes and has been working in Lafayette, La working on offshore rigs every other week. Last week he drove to Utah to monitor a mine fire. The equipment broke, now they are sending him to Brazil to work on an off shore rig there.

His goal was to become a Navy pilot. He even has the Goose stache. But for whatever reason (excuse) it didn't happen.

 

[Lemond]

Union College appears to have a few engineers on their roster. George Fox, also. If you’re considering Cal Poly (SLO), UCSB may also be an option, but I think the engineering graduates from Cal Poly are MUCH better prepared for work in the real world.

 

[nikkilugi]

Check out UMBC in Catonsville, MD - D1. It is a STEM Honors College in the University of Maryland system. The softball team had a senior engineering student. It isn't a large campus - probably 10K students overall including grad students.

 

[Vertigo]

Check out UMBC in Catonsville, MD - D1. It is a STEM Honors College in the University of Maryland system. The softball team had a senior engineering student. It isn't a large campus - probably 10K students overall including grad students.

Yes! And I saw that Coppersmith is going to start her PhD in chemistry while playing a 5th year! Coach Kuhlmeyer sounds like a very understanding coach! Seems like a great guy.

 

[DonnyS]

Thanks everyone who has posted up! This is all great information.

I started a spreadsheet with the following headers:

I am out of pocket for a few weeks, but will post it up once I finished filling it out...in case anyone else finds it helpful.

 

[tim_s]

DD1 was at a camp with heather ross from WPI and liked her a lot.......and DD2 follows her on twitter, and I like everything she has to say.......solid program, solid school

 

[malletfinger]

Lafayette College in Easton, PA is another option (they are Lehigh's rival) and is D1 in the Patriot League. They have MechE.
Trinity University near San Antonio has engineering (MechE and others) and is D3 I believe. Lafayette is ~1700 students and Trinity University is ~2500. Both are less stressful to get into than many of the NESCAC schools.

If she likes liberal arts colleges in general and doesn't mind the pre-engineering major + eng grad school path, a lot of LAC options become available.

Edit: Oh, and Bucknell in PA. They have a college of engineering and a student body size of ~3700.