I was trying to say I don't like to write I like to play with stuff.

Let someone else write the tech pubs. If you were good at it that is all you would do.

I've written tech pubs before. I think they're interesting. Shoot some over to me. I freelance.
SmileWavy

All that says is that to enter a MS or PhD program in Electrical Engineering, you have to have sufficient undergrad work in EE or physics, or conceivably math or another science field. French lit majors need not apply . . .

Doesn't say you have to have done that undergrad work at a "_.I.T." school. You come with an physics degree, even from a "liberal arts" college - yes, they offer those degrees - and you should qualify.

It doesn't say that you have to have a BS. No matter what your undergraduate program or degree when one enters grad school one might have to take courses to fill gaps. Many programs will have qual exams upon entry that identify areas that might need remediation.

Any program will have prerequisites. And a given school might have sets that are beyond what is covered in a BA major program, though I haven't seen that. Frankly for grad school getting good letters of recommendation is often more important than whether or not you got a BA or BS. And some school prefer to see breadth over narrow specialization. But as they say, there is a butt for every seat...

They proposed calling it MIT - Missouri Institute of Technology, but didn't for the very reasons we're discussing here. There's already an MIT. I don't think there is another "S&T".

As for area of the state- yea, it's a borning drive from STL, but quick, only an hour. The plus side is that the living cost is cheap. I'm looking at buying a house here that would cost me 3 times as much in Massachusetts...

And the lack of women... everyone deals with that differently. Some study more. I just enlist the help of Jim, Jack, and their latino friend Jose all too often. That and blowing money at strip clubs. It's getting noticeably better around here now, with more young women interested in the fields along with the school having more people in non-engineering fields of study. There is a killer MBA program going on here.

Todd, for many students your approach is a wise one. Most high-school grads go to college not knowing what they want to do with their life, only knowing that they want to go to college. However, lets say you want to be an engineer. If you take the BS route, you can easily jump straight into an engineering MS program. If it's at the same college, entry is usually a slam dunk. If you have a BA, there's a number of undergraduate pre-requisites you would have to take simply to qualify for the MS in engineering, and most engineering schools highly prefer a BS in engineering for entry. English majors don't typically take differential equations, statics, etc.

Obviously every person's situation is different, but there are cases where going from a BA to an MS requires a LOT of extra work.

As for MIT, short of getting a scholarship it's difficult to justify the extra expense. There's been a number of studies showing that for the vast majority of jobs, a degree from a prestigious school does not actually give you any edge. For fields where it is an advantage, typically the alumni network is more beneficial than the actual degree. I know for a fact that my company does not start MIT engineering grads with a BS at a higher wage than those from other schools.

Evren & Ruki are both MIT Grads...They met at a dinner held for Freshman Turkish students... He now runs his private equity firm, Ruki heads up her architectural firm.

Matt, I'm not talking about majoring in english and then wanting to go to get an MS in engineering (though I know people who have done similar radical shifts). I'm talking about someone who might get a BA in physics, then go to get an MS in engineering. Odds are they would be fairly well covered wrt necessary prereqs.

And as for the pedigree of the school, it isn't about starting wages, it is about effects down the road. For better or worse, some schools still command more respect in the workplace, either directly or indirectly. Performance of course is still a key element, and that will likely be the predominant factor. But never underestimate the eyebrows that will get raised 20 years after the fact when people see you graduated from Harvard, CalTech, MIT, etc. That isn't to say that one necessarily gets a better education there, but that perception is still out there.

Just curious but why would anybody get a BA in physics and not a BS?

I wish I had finished college.

I have no doubt that there is some truth to that. What is a BS from MIT or Harvard paying out of state tuition? $150k? I'll take my chances.

I got a BA in chemistry instead of a BS. I actually entered college as a music major and changed mid stream.

Some colleges don't offer a BS, so a BA is the only option. In general a BA will provide more breadth of courses outside the major and allow a student to explore other disciplines.

There isn't any difference between in and out of state for private universities (as far as I know). My undergrad was at a lower tier university and wasn't nearly that expensive (of course that was back in the 80's). Grad school is a different story as you are normally paid to go to school.

The value proposition is a very real question and I don't have an answer for that. I'd have a tough time telling my son that it is worth the debt load. I think there are other viable routes to a similar end. But it really depends on the field. What I do firmly believe is that odds are a student today very well might not end up working in the field they are currently studying.

Purdue's a state school, and has a top engineering program.

I think for a while, our Chemistry PhD program was ranked 1st in the country.

Also, strangely enough, Purdue's English department is perennially ranked near the top, too.

Besides the Service Academies, I think more astronauts have come from Purdue than any other school.

Tuition = 3X state school? Getting accepted 50X ?????

MIT is the pinnacle of engineering schools. World reknown. Cal Poly is it's close rival (there are a few others, Stanford, WPI, etc).

There is a reason they have that reputation. Look at the faculty, the number of awards and patents. It's the best of the best. Period. (When it comes to engineering).

If the child is more interested in medicine, then Harvard, is better for example.

This thread has been interesting and informative...so I'll add my two cents worth and bring the thread train to a screeching halt.:cool:

A lot of the worth in any college degree in certain disciplines is regional...the value of a degree in business from the Univ. of Georgia, in terms of networking, contacts, etc. in Atlanta and the Southeast is tremendous, much more so than a degree from, say, Cal.

Change venues and the calculus adjusts.

Besides ROTC, the best value in college is going to a feeder JUCO and getting the 101's and 102's taken care of at minimal expense and then transferring to the Uni of choice.

The best thing that happened in my life was taking a year off between HS and college in search of baseball scholarships. I ended up learning more than I imagined.

FWIW, my Dad went to grad school at MIT...two masters degrees, Nuke and Civ Engineering. He has always said that the value of being there was less the curriculum than the chance to be challenged by his peers.

I took 4 years off trying to make it as a musician. Same outcome - an "education" that prepared me to excel in college and beyond. Funny how hard you can work when you actually appreciate the opportunity...

I can pretty much echo that unless he is sure of what he wants to do, then do not narrow down so much (ie. tech school).

My cousin Jason is a computer whiz and really liked high school drama; he really had a passion for Shakespeare and literature. He was always a sensitive kind of person. He went to CalTech and, though he is doing very well now with a family and working at AT&T, he seems more quiet or reserved, like somehow he didn't quite take the right path to fulfill all his passions. I think college beat him up a bit and he just hasn't totally bounced back to his "high-school self". For better or for worse...

In high school I did well, but I had no clue what I wanted to do in college. I think EVERY subject is interesting in some respect, and it was a real challenge to narrow down my focus. I loved playing with Porsche engines, mechanical things and math/physics and chemistry, but I also really loved English Literature books and poetry (had phenomenal high school English teachers), U.S. History, Economics and Psychology. I picked Berkeley because it was a great school that offered a wide variety of choices, not to mention it was like half the cost of any private university (was considering Brown).

I entered as a UCB Mechanical Engineering student, and I had no clue what I was doing the first year. I should have taken some time off. I got my a$$ handed to me by Math 1B (2nd semester Calculus) and had to retake it. It was the hardest math class I had ever taken, way harder than I thought Calc. was in high school. The subsequent Multi-variable Calc and Differential/Linear Algrebra classes went well enough, but then I started doing Computer Science (there is a BA program here) and that is when I decided I no longer wanted to do hardcore Physics and go through with M.Engineering...at least in undergrad. I found my tech classes compared to my inspiring high school experience one-dimensional. I felt like I was constantly trying to be weeded out of the program, and I had no life aside from Engineering classes (Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer were other fun ones) and the occasional breadth requirement... meanwhile I had friends taking great classes about Music and listening to great lecturers speak, and getting straight A's doing it...

I ended up having to deal with transferring out of the BS ME program to the BA (Letters and Sciences) school, which was a pain in the ass with my less than 3.0 GPA, where I would eventually end up in Cognitive Computational Models and Neuroscience and taking lots of classes in Statistics (Probabilistic Computer Models in Dynamical Systems). Best choice I made yet. It broadened my perspective and I am doing really well nowadays. I have taken some history classes, read some Kafka, taken some phenomenal Neurochemistry classes in the Bio department, a class in the Music department about building touch-screen instruments that are easy to learn on and still hard enough that someone would want to master them. Next semester I am finishing a minor in Industrial Engineering about integrating Entrepreneurship & Technology. Most of these things I could not have done easily if I was locked into a BS program in Engineering...

I took last semester off to work a medical internship in Vietnam, travel through Thailand, read The Economist, work part-time at the library and go part-time to a junior college. I also took a phenomenal class taught by a MSME from Cal in SolidWorks CAD and met a guy at the JC who builds bicycles. I always thought I had to bust through here in 4 years--or else--but that is so not the case. Encourage your kid to at least take a semester off here or there if he even questions the need to re-evaluate what he is doing. I wish someone had encouraged me to take time off; I had to find out the hard way and then felt like a slacker doing it.

Most of my friends continued on with Engineering, some with high-paying jobs and whatnot. But I have plenty of other brilliant friends studying Public Policy, Social Welfare, and Political Science and I never pass up an opportunity to have a conversation or travel with them.

I am not sure how narrow MIT focuses you, but my experience would be, keep your kid's options open unless he REALLY knows what he wants to do. My friends from high school that are still doing Engineering (a girl here at Berk. doing M.E. and a guy doing E.E. at MIT) were talking to me about engineering when we were juniors in H.S. We all have our paths... and in all honesty I may go back one day and do the rest of an Engineering program. I'm just 21 and have little experience out there in the world which is what I feel I need next to decide where to go with myself.

Good luck to you and your son! I am sure he will find his place. :)