Talking Engineering Admissions on the College and Career Clarity Podcast
I was thrilled to be invited back to speak on the College & Career Clarity podcast hosted by Lisa Marker-Robbins of Flourish Coaching. The podcast caters to parents of college-bound students, educators, and anyone interested in helping students navigate their path toward a successful college and career. Lisa curates conversations with guests that help overwhelmed families decide about college, major, and future career choices. In February 2023, I spoke with her about computer science admissions. On July 18, 2023, we had a conversation where I shared my insights about engineering majors and admissions from a career as a computer science professor, engineering dean, and IEC specializing in STEM.
The podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in engineering admissions, particularly parents whose children are interested in pursuing engineering as a major in college. Lisa and I discussed the pros and cons of universities versus colleges (and how each might work better for your student), how to review your student’s college list (recognizing what is different and understanding what options your student will have at each school), using experiences and extracurricular activities to understand what careers and majors fit, and college and major flexibility for different engineering degrees. The podcast is available on the Flourish Site or your favorite platform.
Podcast Highlights
Why do college admissions leaders look to me for expertise in engineering?
I’m an engineer myself and currently serve as the Dean of Academic Advising and Undergraduate Studies for the School of Engineering at Tufts University. In this role, I guide approximately 1400 students majoring in engineering and oversee the sixteen undergraduate degree programs offered by the six departments in the School: Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Before joining Tufts, I spent over two decades serving as a dean and a professor of computer science at Wellesley College, where I collaborated with colleagues at MIT and Olin College of Engineering to support students pursuing engineering. With experience in dual-degree STEM programs and having pioneered multiple such programs between Wellesley, MIT, and Olin, I specialize in mentoring young students preparing for careers in STEM program admissions, including those interested in engineering and CS.
My leadership roles in higher education give me a unique appreciation for how institutional priorities are reflected in admissions decisions – in this case, how the in-demand field of engineering manifests in a student’s chances of admission. Through my decades supporting college students, I know what students may expect on their college campus and what they should consider to identify good-fit schools.
How crucial is it that a student knows exactly which engineering field they want to study, such as civil engineering vs. chemical or materials engineering?
It is not crucial. I work with students who have clear direction based on good information and good insights about themselves and the experiences that they’ve had, students who just know they like math and science and wonder if they might want to study engineering, and students in between those two extremes. There are a range of schools that may be a good match for any of those types of students, including universities and colleges.
What is the difference between a university and a college?
When I begin working closely with the student, this question is one of the first things I start with. It is such an important point to understand - so much so that I’ve written a full piece on the topic. In the US, we say you’re going to college, yet we mean either college or university. Even the name of the institution is sometimes misleading. For example, Boston College is a university. The fundamental difference between a college and a university is the type of students that they educate. Colleges educate undergraduate students. Universities educate students both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Universities may have a medical school, a veterinary school, a dental school, a school of diplomacy or law, a business school, and so on, all of which award advanced degrees. So colleges educate students straight out of high school. Universities do as well, but also educate those who already have an undergraduate degree. This leads to some fundamental differences in the undergraduate experience. If you go to a college, you can expect that everything is focused on the undergraduate experience. Whereas at a university, and there are pluses and minuses to this, there are multiple constituencies that they’re catering to, and they work to satisfy the needs of not just undergraduates but graduate students, too. At a university, you might be taught by graduate students. At a college, you’ll be taught by faculty because there are no graduate students. Colleges are usually smaller and have one campus, school, set of requirements, and degree. They may have a smaller number of majors and a smaller number of faculty than universities. Universities often have more of everything: campuses, faculty, programs, flavors of a given academic area (such as more ways to study biology), degrees, schools, and sets of requirements. The trade-off is that with more, sometimes you get less of an undergraduate high-touch focus than you would have at a college. So there are some real distinctions between what you could expect at a university at a college.
Are there options for engineering at both colleges and universities?
Absolutely. Some students know exactly what they want to study, and they know exactly the type of school that is a good fit. But some students are still figuring out if they want to attend a university or college. For this type of student, I love it when the list itself includes both colleges and universities. That is, not every single school on the list may be a perfect match for the student, but as a whole, the list is a good match and includes options for the student. I’m reminded of my oldest daughter. When applying to college, she ultimately chose between Swarthmore College, a small liberal arts college, and Tufts University, a university with a School of Engineering. And this was before I was at Tufts, which is an aside, but I always like to make clear that Tufts was hers first! Tufts is a full-fledged university with a robust engineering school, six engineering departments, and sixteen engineering degrees. Swarthmore has one general engineering degree. I was at Wellesley College at that time and reading for the board of admissions. The then Dean of Admissions asked me how my daughter’s college search was going, and I told her that my daughter was deciding between Swarthmore and Tufts. I’ll always remember her response. She said, “How wonderful and awesome that she has a real choice.” My daughter had been admitted to a few other schools similar to Tufts, and when I mentioned them too, my colleague said, “Same difference.” And she was right. It was great for my daughter to have a genuine choice between an engineering degree at a small liberal arts college vs. a flexible School of Engineering at a university. Tufts does not admit by major, and students can move between the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering fluidly. My daughter was a student who I thought would be a good engineer, as did my husband. But you know what that’s like if mom and dad, both engineers, tell a child they should study engineering! Instead, I helped my daughter to build a college list that allowed her to figure out on her own whether or not engineering was her path. Schools like Swarthmore, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, my alma mater (by and large, there’s an asterisk there for biomedical engineering), and others rose to the top of her list so she would have flexibility and options.
To me, the college search process is as important as the outcome. Students learn if they engage with the process. I always say to my students, “You will get out of this process what you put into it. You have to meet me - I can’t do it all. But if you meet me halfway or even more than halfway, you will learn a ton.” Students learn from the visits, the research, the conversations that they have, the activities they engage with, and the essays that they write. When an engineering student has to write a Why Swarthmore? essay, they really have to think about whether or not a liberal arts college with a general engineering degree is a good match for them versus a school that’s got a very pointy or deep engineering program. They have to sift through those things. And so they learn from that.
Does when a student starts their college search process help them get clear on their engineering interests?
Starting early can only help. But it’s not necessarily a cure because students mature, grow, and move through human developmental stages at different rates. Over the time that we work together, all students become more clear. Some will have yet to figure out precisely what they want to study but will have gained some clarity. Maybe they have determined that they want to study engineering, but they don’t know what type of engineering. In this case, we should look for schools that support exploration and moving between the engineering majors through advising and curricular flexibility.
Which engineering programs are good matches for students who do not know what type of engineering they want to major in?
As mentioned earlier, Tufts University is extremely flexible. Johns Hopkins University, where I did my undergraduate work, generally is, too, except for biomedical engineering (BME). If you do not apply to biomedical engineering as a senior in high school, the door is firmly shut forever. But all the other areas of engineering are flexible. You can start as a physics major and later move into electrical engineering or start as an electrical engineer and switch to mechanical. At the University of Cincinnati, if you’re admitted to engineering, you can change majors easily if you meet the academic requirements. And there are other examples.
Students may be locked into a major at more rigid schools which admit to major. Many schools which admit to major are state universities like the University of Washington (for computer science and computer engineering), some of the schools in the California system, the University of Texas, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Purdue University says a change of major is possible but is very upfront that space is extremely limited for some majors while other areas of engineering are non-competitive and very open. At Ohio State, some engineering majors are admitted by major. Others are pre-majors and have more flexibility. So families must do their homework and ask questions about what is possible.
It can take a lot of work to get at these details. And sometimes things change, too, especially in these highly competitive fields. Before I joined Tufts seven years ago, there was a cap on the number of biomedical engineering majors. This changed because it is against Tufts philosophy that all majors are available to students, with caveats that students be on track with graduation requirements.
If you are unclear on what you want to study, applying to a university that is very rigid and very restricted with little opportunity to change makes no sense. If you’re clear on what you want to study, have dug in and done the work, and have the maturity to make those decisions, then it’s okay to put those schools on your list.
I remember a Tufts student who transferred to Notre Dame. I did not advise him; I just approved his transfer as his Dean. He called me up a week into the fall, asking to return to Tufts because he was surprised that he would have to take two religion classes to earn his engineering degree! Again, families have to do their homework. It’s not just about getting into a school, its social attractions, or other reasons the school may be a fit. These other things will not matter if you can’t study what you want to or if you must take courses and meet requirements that do not align with how you want to spend your time, effort, energy, and tuition dollars. Look closely at the academic offerings. And if one of your needs is flexibility, you want to ensure you have it. If you know what you want to study and have good reasons for knowing what you want to study, and we are all confident about that, the flexibility piece is much less important. At Tufts School of Engineering, 50% of incoming engineers don’t know which engineering field they want to study. So, Tufts is a great school for them, whereas University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Purdue would not be.
