College Stuff

[DonRotolo]

First, consider the size of school and town you are comfortable with. Since you got to NBTHS, you'll probably do better at a larger school in a smaller community than a smaller school or one in a large city. But, if you are introverted, small school might be better, and if you're street smart, a city might be OK too.

Second, consider the distance. Try to keep it in driving distance (5-6 hours, like Maine to Virginia to Ohio from NJ)

Third, consider costs. MIT might be cool, and get you a great first job, but after 10 years where you graduated from (with a bachelor's, at least) has little impact. If money isn't an issue, then ignore this one.

Fourth, find out about the faculty they have teaching undergrads. Nice facilities are, well, nice, but you don't learn from the facilities, you learn from the profs. The best universities have the best staff, facilities kind of follow but not necessarily.

I went to SUNY Stony Brook, a large school on Long Island. Very inexpensive but top quality. I started at a smaller school in PA, but while they had great facilities, their staff was mostly lower quality, and it became obvious to me during the second year, so I left.

NJIT is OK, but it's in Newark. Whatever you do, don't live at home, the most important part of your education is the part about living on your own. Really. Stevens is just OK.

RPI has a great program, it takes 5 years but you get some great internship opportunities. Rochester is a good school, too. But, no matter where you go, there will always be internship opportunities near the school, so that shouldn't be a big factor.

Anne B's comment about practical versus theoretical is important, if you're the hands-on type you'll be very unhappy at a school with a theoretical focus, and since you like building Robots, it sounds like you're a practical type. But, remember you still need the theory. Doubt you'll find a robotics program in many places, but electrical and mechanical are good choices. Electrical with a biomed minor would be wild, so you can built androids...

Oh, and during the next year or two, convince your parents to do some campus visits (even Rutgers), so you get a feel for the atmosphere you can expect. Then, when its for real, you won't be as intimidated.

Good Luck,
Don

(PS: If Robotics is really that interesting, write to some famous robot people and ask them about their education. JPL has some robots up on Mars, and Roomba sells robots too... Visit their web sites to get names, and send a real US Postal letter for a huge impact)

[kio_chan176]

Thanks, I'll consider all of that. ^^

[Ben Lauer]

Here are some links:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/col...ophd_brief.php
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/col...hphd_brief.php
http://www.studentsreview.com/top_en...s_ranking.html
http://education.yahoo.com/college/e..._rank_eng.html

Those are just some random links I pulled from online. Check them out, talk to people, you have plenty of time to decide.

[sciguy125]

Something else you might want to consider is accreditation. I was just reading some stuff about professional engineer licensing and found an interesting statistic:

There are about 320 universities with ABET-accredited engineering programs (29 in California) and about 250 colleges with ABET- accredited four-year programs in engineering technology, plus others offering two-year programs.

Source:
"AN INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING LICENSING IN CALIFORNIA AND OTHER STATES"
by California Society of Professional Engineers
November 5, 2001

(Yes...too lazy to look up proper citation format)

To me, those numbers seem a little low (not that I'm questioning it). Of the schools listed in California (it's a booklet oriented toward CA), several only had 1-3 accredited programs as of 1999. If your career plans call for an ABET accredited program, you might want to check if your schools have them.

[coreyk]

Here's a site that may aid you in finding the college that best suits you: http://www.collegeboard.com/csearch/

It's helpful when narrowing down your selections.