[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by jajabinx124

Anybody have any info for Purdue, U of Wisconsin- Madison, U of IL- Urbana/Champaign, Iowa State, or Rose Hulman? I know each of these 5 schools are respected for their engineering programs, and I've done my research & visited campuses, but I was wondering whether any CD user had any inside info/experience regarding their engineering programs or just the school in general.

I'm pretty much in the process of applying to these schools at the moment.

Although I am a CS student, I know quite a lot about Purdue's Engineering program from friends in the program. PM me for any more info about their program - I can tell you that the First Year Engineering program is tough (but nothing an FRC alum can't handle).

As far as FIRST is concerned, there is a large number of FRC alums on campus (I've met some from plenty of Indiana teams as well as some from Cali, PNW, MAR, Michigan, and plenty others), and Purdue has a long-running FIRST program that is part class and part service - students in the program attend leadership lectures, etc. for class credit as well as helping mentor local FIRST teams, running competitions, and PR.

Purdue is a great school, especially if you want to attend a large university. Along with the huge engineering program and state-of-the-art equipment and labs, Purdue has over 900 extracurriculars about anything you want to do (I'm in Jazz Band, Pep Band, Game Dev club, and one of the competition Rube Goldberg teams). The food is also good...

I also know U of Illinois is a great engineering school from my visit there a few years ago. It seems to be fairly similar to Purdue in most respects although their liberal arts school is a little bigger and Purdue's science/engineering program is a little bigger.