What college did you attend?

[Quick_Nick]

As my senior year of highschool is coming up, I'd like to know about others' college experiences. Specifically, I'd like to know where you went, what you liked or disliked about the specific school, and what your major was.
Personally, I'm interested in STEM majors and highly esteemed universities, but feel free to share even if this doesn't apply to you.

 

[Urwumpe]

Hamburger Hill

 

[Capt_hensley]

KKIA Dahuran SA, Scud Alley, Class of 1990

Devry University, NCM, Class of 2005
I waited too long to return to school, I was bored out of my mind, I tought the instructors how to in the field

Webster University, ITM and MAT, Inwork
This has been OK, but still not really a challenge.

 

[GoForPDI]

This time next year, i'll be attending...

University of Glasgow/Glasgow School of Art - Product Design Engineering

Some of my friends have offers for Oxford.. :blink:

 

[Linguofreak]

University of Texas at Arlington, majored in German, minored in Linguistics.

 

[Krikkit]

I don't know about esteemed but the school were I got my undergrad from is in the top 50 ARWU. If I were to give you advices as far as "prestige" goes, don't waist your money on big named universities. Their research is usually not much better, the curriculum is the same with the same text books and everything, you will be lost in a crowed of people who are all as smart/smarter than you are, and they cost 5 times as much.

Go to a state school in your state where you can get subsidized tuition. Pick the one with the best program for what you are interested in. Try to pick one with a small graduate student body, those usually have more undergraduate research spots open.

About STEM-

Whatever you do make sure you get a good concentration in computers. If you do engineering consider systems engineering. If you do physics consider computational physics. It doesn't matter if you don't want a computer focused job, 9 out of 10 STEM jobs in the US are computer based. But whatever you do don't come out of university without at least two widely used programing languages and a good working knowledge of modeling software like solidworks, autocad, etc. Most engineering schools will only require an introduction to these.

 

[Quick_Nick]

I don't know about esteemed but the school were I got my undergrad from is in the top 50 ARWU. If I were to give you advices as far as "prestige" goes, don't waist your money on big named universities. Their research is usually not much better, the curriculum is the same with the same text books and everything, you will be lost in a crowed of people who are all as smart/smarter than you are, and they cost 5 times as much.

Go to a state school in your state where you can get subsidized tuition. Pick the one with the best program for what you are interested in. Try to pick one with a small graduate student body, those usually have more undergraduate research spots open.

UT Austin has a good aerospace engineering program, but I think going to MIT for computer science or engineering would be well worth the money.

 

[Hielor]

UT Austin has a good aerospace engineering program, but I think going to MIT for computer science or engineering would be well worth the money.

It depends. Are you planning on going on for a master's or higher? If so, don't bother with MIT for your bachelor's, since no one cares where your bachelor's is from if you've got higher degrees.

I ended up picking UT-Austin over MIT largely because of the amount of AP credit I had. At UT, I basically started as a junior the first year, and was out in a relaxed and unstressful three and a half years. Had I gone to MIT instead, I would've started at the bottom and spent four very stressful years getting the exact same degree that wouldn't actually have resulted in me getting any better of a job.

 

[Quick_Nick]

It depends. Are you planning on going on for a master's or higher? If so, don't bother with MIT for your bachelor's, since no one cares where your bachelor's is from if you've got higher degrees.

I ended up picking UT-Austin over MIT largely because of the amount of AP credit I had. At UT, I basically started as a junior the first year, and was out in a relaxed and unstressful three and a half years. Had I gone to MIT instead, I would've started at the bottom and spent four very stressful years getting the exact same degree that wouldn't actually have resulted in me getting any better of a job.

That's probably the most useful advice I've gotten regarding college. I am indeed considering going somewhere (not sure where) for a couple years before going on to MIT if they'll accept me.
So far I'm planning on applying to MIT, Rice, and UT. I believe I have the test scores for the latter two anyhow.

 

[Eli13]

Figured this would be a good place as any to ask this, but what schools do you all think would be best for Aerospace Engineering? I know the US Air Force academy is great for this, and is where ideally i'd like to attend but where else has pretty good programs for this?

 

[Quick_Nick]

Figured this would be a good place as any to ask this, but what schools do you all think would be best for Aerospace Engineering? I know the US Air Force academy is great for this, and is where ideally i'd like to attend but where else has pretty good programs for this?

Embry-Riddle is an aerospace university. An aerospace engineer who now works at my school mentioned Berkeley and even University of Houston. Though she expressed worry about the decline of aerospace.. If private aerospace doesn't pick up, you can take the same classes towards a different degree.

 

[Eli13]

Well, even as that may be, I'm doing it because I think it should be essential for a pilot to know many of the things in aerospace. Not necessarily to actually become a pilot. Of course, I know military pilots who have majored in mechanical engineering as well. Though I'm not sure what exactly I would want to do, I'd just want to lay out my options and figure out what's best. I'm sure you can understand.

 

[Krikkit]

Well, even as that may be, I'm doing it because I think it should be essential for a pilot to know many of the things in aerospace. Not necessarily to actually become a pilot. Of course, I know military pilots who have majored in mechanical engineering as well. Though I'm not sure what exactly I would want to do, I'd just want to lay out my options and figure out what's best. I'm sure you can understand.

Well the Purdue aerospace program has a track record which speaks for itself.

Also if you want to go the military route the air force academy is not the only way. Most large schools have Air Force ROTC programs which mix into their aerospace program. You could come out an officer, and engineer, and ready for flight school.

 

[insanity]

Oregon State University. I have a B.S. in Political Science. In a year or two I plan on starting my law degree. My best advice is to not ignore state schools, because many of them offer amazing opportunities to study abroad etc... Your education will ultimately be defined not by where you go, but by what you put into it.

 

[Hielor]

That's probably the most useful advice I've gotten regarding college. I am indeed considering going somewhere (not sure where) for a couple years before going on to MIT if they'll accept me.
So far I'm planning on applying to MIT, Rice, and UT. I believe I have the test scores for the latter two anyhow.

FWIW, I applied to and was accepted at both UT and Rice (among a couple others), and ended up going with UT (for computer science). It was, IIRC, the top public university in the nation for computer science. I considered MIT early in my college search, but never applied after deciding that I enjoy slacking off far too much to succeed there.

A big deciding factor for me ended up being price--as a National Merit winner, I was able to get in-state tuition at UT despite being from Colorado, and that allowed me to get through college with no loans--just scholarships and help from my parents.

I loved the CS program there--I was in the CS honors program, which gave me a smaller group of high-performing students to work with consistently and advanced classes, while still having access to all of the benefits of a big school like UT and the town of Austin.

I would have to say that my education was a pretty darn good one--it got me a co-op with United Space Alliance my junior year and an internship that summer (which turned into a job upon graduation) with a rather large and well-known software company. Tons of companies recruit at UT because they know that it's a good school and has a large pool of students to choose from, which gives you more companies to consider when looking for a job out of college.

What Starts Here Changes The World, Hook 'em, etc etc!

 

[Quick_Nick]

It sounds great and I do love Austin.
I see you had one thing over me for sure: though I'm a National Merit Qualifier, UT no longer gives scholarships directly for National Merit Scholars (according to a lady from admissions who was at my school the other day)

 

[Loru]

Warsaw University. Faculty of Chemistry.

As for today I'm spending my time mostly in Heavy Ions Laboratory working on my Master thesis.

 

[Hielor]

It sounds great and I do love Austin.
I see you had one thing over me for sure: though I'm a National Merit Qualifier, UT no longer gives scholarships directly for National Merit Scholars (according to a lady from admissions who was at my school the other day)

Awww, sad. When I went, there were two options (for finalists):
- If you were already in-state, you got $4000 or something a year
- If you were out-of-state, you got in-state tuition instead and an additional like $700 or something per semester.

I landed in the second bucket, which was a savings of something like $10k/year or more. Without that, I probably would've ended up going to Rice and graduating with tens of thousands in student loans, or staying in-state in Colorado at School of Mines.

 

[HarvesteR]

Anhembi Morumbi University, is Sao Paulo, Brazil...

Majored in Game Design

The course is pretty cool, I just would have liked to have had more techically-oriented classes... more emphasis on programming...

In Brazil, college courses have the syllabus preset for you. You don't get to take elective classes (not meaningful ones anyways)...

Also, the course is rather shallow for such a complex field as game design... but that is to be expected I think... a full newbie-to-master game design course would take 10 years

One thing I really did like, though, was that each semester we were given a semester-long project, which accounted for most of your grade for the semester... lots of sleepless nights, but you really do learn by doing, and by necessity.

The worst point though, is that 90% of people to go into this major do so because they are gamers, and think game-making is all about playing games all day... And because the semestral projects are done in 7-man teams, most of those end up graduating having learned pretty much nothing all the while... (and we who do the work, are stuck with a bunch of useless half-wits for teammates)

In any case, going into Game Design was the best thing I've ever done!! I can't see myself doing anything else

Cheers

 

[n122vu]

Vincennes University Jasper Campus, with an Associate of Applied Science in Computer Programming.