engineering degrees

[Manoel]

Well, it appears things are a bit different in Engineering Schools in Brazil and in the USA. I'll just point out the differences for comparison.

All Engineering courses here last 5 years.
I'm graduating in EE and I'm required to have 244 credits by the end of the tenth semester, which means I have to maintain an average of 24.4 credits/semester. Seems a bit more than in the US.
Considering the last two semesters are basically for an Internship and a Final Project, the first eight semesters are actually a lot more dense than the 24.4 cred/semester - Maximum for me has been 34 credits in one semester.

I don't know in the US, but here we have a somewhat broad formation (after the European, French, more specifically, model - or so I'm told) with economics, law, administration and biology classes. They are really basic classes and with few credits, but it may add up in the long run; I don't think that this huge difference in credits is only due to that, though.

More specific to the School I go to: Again after the French model, the engineering course is very deep in theory, with the practical classes being dedicated to the demonstration of the theory, rather than preparation for work in industry or something like that.
Professors tell us our course is more focused on graduating Development Engineers rather than Application Engineers.
It's a good thing, I guess, but it does leave a big void in our formation that will have to be filled sometime.

The thing in common seems to be the high dropout rate: Of the 50 people (48 men) that entered the EE course with me, four years ago, only 5, including me, are at the correct level - that is, seventh semester. I'd estimate 40% have dropped out and the rest is behind.

To finish, the EE course at my school is the third best in the country (first one, excluding the military schools) and we're usually told it is as good as other courses in the USA or Europe, though a bit behind technology-wise.

The real difference is in the graduate courses, where the US, mainly, excels.

Anyone wants to broaden the discussion to include the graduate level?