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Posted on 7/6/12 at 10:45 am to TeLeFaWx
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Damn, you are insecure.
I'm insecure because I don't hide behind arbitrary rankings to reassure myself of my school choice?
Okie dokie.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 11:04 am to graves1
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I'm sorry, but I just don't agree with you.
Let's say you were craving a pie. You go to the pie store and start browsing around. You find the top pie there...I mean this pie is highly ranked by a bunch of magazines, has a larger clientele than all of the other pies, and even looks to be better made. You excitedly purchase it and bite in...and you hate it. Are you still going to go off the reviews that this pie is the best pie or are you going to go with what YOU feel is the case in that it isn't the top pie in your opinion and from your experiences?
This is no different here. Texas A&M is more highly ranked, and most people will agree with you that it is a "better" school, but I have "bitten in" to both pies and they taste the same to me. And this conclusion isn't coming from a brief experience with Aggies. This is coming from literally years of working with them on all sorts of aspects of engineering, teamwork, communication skills, leadership, etc. If I told people I went to A&M and they told people they went to Arkansas, nobody would raise an eyebrow. You act like A&M is leaps and bounds ahead of Arkansas, but the end result in terms of knowledge gained is the same from my personal experience. I truly am sorry that bothers you so much.
Pies are matters of subjective taste. Salaries, job placement, publications, grant money, admission scores and so on can all be quantified and ranked much more objectively. Bad example, next please.
I do not care how many "years" of engineering experience you have. Your personal experience does not determine the quality of education at schools you have never been to. It should also not factor into the decisions of where other people go to school. Maybe you should write a fine report on your vast experience so the rest of us ignorant folks can catch up. To be such a brilliant engineer, you seem to not be able to grasp a simple concept. Knowledge + high intellect > knowledge. This is what this conversation is about.
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I never said that. I just said that they are very similar between A&M and Arkansas (and Georgia Tech up to this point). I haven't been to or worked enough with other schools to come to any conclusion about them. Up to this point, my opinion on teaching engineering classes is pretty straight forward. You show and explain the material, provide examples, and assign homework/projects to hone those skills. I have yet to find some "magical formula" that a higher-ranked school has that makes them teach the material better. One could argue the quality of teachers, but I literally can't tell the difference in teaching quality between petty ol' Arkysaw and a top 5 engineering school in Georgia Tech. And since Georgia Tech is significantly higher-ranked than A&M, and your beloved rankings are OBVIOUSLY valid, then that means that Georgia Tech produces a better education, right? So how does that work seeing how a school that is "better" than A&M and a school that is "worse" than A&M teach the exact same way?
Again, engineering might not be the only subject that people are concerned about. Your personal experience as a TA at Georgia Tech and an undergraduate at Arkansas may not generalize to every school and discipline like you seem to think it does. To answer your question, let's look at this:
US News
GT is ranked #4 and A&M #12. All things being equal I would choose GT. I would rather maximize my chances by going to the highest rank programs, which on average, have better training and job placement. By your criteria, I would be just as well off at University of Detroit - Mercy. Now, if some specialist was at A&M and not at GT, and that is the specialty I wanted, then I would have to weight the decision more carefully. Would you be as happy at GT if it was ranked #109 like Arkansas?
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Never said that, either. Higher ranked schools are going to have higher standards so they are, in turn, going to get more intelligent students. That's obvious. Does that mean that the education they get is better? I don't! I think you are making a ton of assumptions there that cannot be backed up.
Thank you for conceding this point, which I agree is obvious. No, it does not mean the education is better if you want to be general and limit this to undergraduate teaching. Having said that, it does mean that the students are better off to have smarter peers from which to learn, and more distinguished faculty to advise them. This combination, especially at the graduate level, will produce better graduates. I am not making any unreadable assumptions. If you put a mediocre student in a room full of mental handicapped students, they will probably learn less than if they were in a classroom at Harvard. Even if the teacher and materials were the same.
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Well no shite, Sherlock. They are more intelligent to begin with! That shouldn't fall back on the school. They only way one could really test this would be to get students of equal intelligence, have some go to a high-ranked school and have some go to a low-ranked school and be taught the same material. If both students are equally tenacious and are exposed to the same material, then I am confident that there would be very similar results.
You aren't going to change my mind on this. If that is what your goal is here then you are wasting your time.
It does fall back on the school. Texas and A&M both became much better schools after they raised their admission standards to among the most difficult publics in the nation. This brings better students and faculty. If Arkansas had the balls to do this, then high schools and the education systems would be forced to catch up. The problem in Arkansas is education across the board, and this makes its way into the university system. I was well behind my grad cohort in several areas because the lack of required courses of difficulty throughout my Arkansas education. Along with a professor at UA, I have been part of an effort to increase required training in my subject in high school and at the university level. And I am proud to say, after using data from Arkansas and Texas, starting in 2014 some of this will go into effect.
You are wasting your time if you expect me to take your vast engineering personal experience as if it is more relevant than my own or the rankings, which are organized by people with much more information than either one of us have.
None of what I say is to make A&M seem like Harvard. In some areas it is quite mediocre. In others it does well. This goes for most schools. But, across the board and using objective measures, it is a better academic school than Arkansas. I wish it wasn't. I wish we had a first rate university that was a player in numerous fields. There have been huge strides as of late, and I hope they continue.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 11:37 am to Pigimus Prime
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Pies are matters of subjective taste. Salaries, job placement, publications, grant money, admission scores and so on can all be quantified and ranked much more objectively. Bad example, next please.
I do not care how many "years" of engineering experience you have. Your personal experience does not determine the quality of education at schools you have never been to. It should also not factor into the decisions of where other people go to school. Maybe you should write a fine report on your vast experience so the rest of us ignorant folks can catch up. To be such a brilliant engineer, you seem to not be able to grasp a simple concept. Knowledge + high intellect > knowledge. This is what this conversation is about.
For the millionth time I am talking about the education received! Not salaries, job placement, publications, or any of that. THE EDUCATION YOU RECEIVE. I must have said this at least 6 times now. Please learn to read.
My personal experience DOES determine the quality of education! Much more so than some publication saying! Application will always trump observation. Go read up on Bloom's Taxonomy.
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Again, engineering might not be the only subject that people are concerned about. Your personal experience as a TA at Georgia Tech and an undergraduate at Arkansas may not generalize to every school and discipline like you seem to think it does. To answer your question, let's look at this:
US News
GT is ranked #4 and A&M #12. All things being equal I would choose GT. I would rather maximize my chances by going to the highest rank programs, which on average, have better training and job placement. By your criteria, I would be just as well off at University of Detroit - Mercy. Now, if some specialist was at A&M and not at GT, and that is the specialty I wanted, then I would have to weight the decision more carefully. Would you be as happy at GT if it was ranked #109 like Arkansas?
Engineering IS the only subject that I am concerned about. I am going from MY experience. I never generalized or said that my opinion would apply across the board. I never even alluded to that. I simply said in my experiences in engineering application through various mediums (career, research, etc.), I have found A&M grads and Arky grads to be extremely similar in understanding of engineering principles. THAT IS ALL.
Yes, I went to GT because it looks better on paper. Did I think I would get a better education there than if I decided to stay at Arkansas for graduate school? No, I did not make that assumption, and up to this point if I would have assumed that then I would be incorrect. Once again, I am not arguing the "image" of a school, job placement, or any of that. I am strictly speaking in regards to EDUCATION LEARNED. Please get this through your head.
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Thank you for conceding this point, which I agree is obvious. No, it does not mean the education is better if you want to be general and limit this to undergraduate teaching. Having said that, it does mean that the students are better off to have smarter peers from which to learn, and more distinguished faculty to advise them. This combination, especially at the graduate level, will produce better graduates. I am not making any unreadable assumptions. If you put a mediocre student in a room full of mental handicapped students, they will probably learn less than if they were in a classroom at Harvard. Even if the teacher and materials were the same.
You are making an assumption here that I can't agree with. Since when does being distinguished have any correlation to how well you convey thoughts? I've been taught by world-renown professors who were absolutely horrible at teaching.
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It does fall back on the school. Texas and A&M both became much better schools after they raised their admission standards to among the most difficult publics in the nation. This brings better students and faculty. If Arkansas had the balls to do this, then high schools and the education systems would be forced to catch up. The problem in Arkansas is education across the board, and this makes its way into the university system. I was well behind my grad cohort in several areas because the lack of required courses of difficulty throughout my Arkansas education. Along with a professor at UA, I have been part of an effort to increase required training in my subject in high school and at the university level. And I am proud to say, after using data from Arkansas and Texas, starting in 2014 some of this will go into effect.
You are wasting your time if you expect me to take your vast engineering personal experience as if it is more relevant than my own or the rankings, which are organized by people with much more information than either one of us have.
None of what I say is to make A&M seem like Harvard. In some areas it is quite mediocre. In others it does well. This goes for most schools. But, across the board and using objective measures, it is a better academic school than Arkansas. I wish it wasn't. I wish we had a first rate university that was a player in numerous fields. There have been huge strides as of late, and I hope they continue.
I don't expect you take take my experience for anything. I hope you can come up with your own conclusion on the matter. I was simply voicing where I stand on this and defending it with what I believe is sound reasoning. After my experiences up to this point (and I don't even pretend to be an expert on the matter...just going off of what I have learned up to this point), the process of producing a sound and viable engineer with a toolkit of engineering knowledge and the ability to apply it is much more empirical in nature than what I used to think. Not only does one have to have an understanding of the principles, but then need to be able to apply it and also be able to do so in various environments. I feel that all of this falls back on the university and how they prepared their students, and that this is not co-dependent on how many tenured professors they have, the average salary after graduation, or the plethora of other parameters that these ranking systems latch on to. It is rather something that you can't really interpret until being exposed to it for a decent period of time. These ranking systems don't consider that.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 11:53 am to blacknblu
My only child had engineering scholarships offered from Alabama, Auburn and UAB. Even though he grew up an AU fan (his dad is an AU alum and I'm a Bama alum) and he visited both Engineering colleges, he chose The University.
He had four wonderful years in Chemical Engineering at UA and will be entering med school later this month. He also got to be in Tuscaloosa during some of the most exciting football seasons we've had. Two national championships while he was a student was awesome!
I saw that someone posted earlier that Auburn has the best engineering school. I know they're well known for engineering and they do have more engineering choices, but you should never sell The University of Alabama short. Bigger is not always better.
If your child wants a quality education in engineering, please visit UA. Their commitment to excellence and growth is very apparent in their faculty and facilities.
This is not a paid endorsement.
He had four wonderful years in Chemical Engineering at UA and will be entering med school later this month. He also got to be in Tuscaloosa during some of the most exciting football seasons we've had. Two national championships while he was a student was awesome!
I saw that someone posted earlier that Auburn has the best engineering school. I know they're well known for engineering and they do have more engineering choices, but you should never sell The University of Alabama short. Bigger is not always better.
If your child wants a quality education in engineering, please visit UA. Their commitment to excellence and growth is very apparent in their faculty and facilities.
This is not a paid endorsement.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 12:28 pm to CrimsonWhite
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My personal experience DOES determine the quality of education! Much more so than some publication saying!
Well damn, I'll just try to look you up next time I have a question on the matter. You are in the wrong business. You could probably make a good deal of money selling a book called: "Why Education is the Same Everywhere: Tales from bpfergu's Time at Two Schools."
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Application will always trump observation. Go read up on Bloom's Taxonomy.
Don't forget the comprehension, analysis, and synthesis categories. These require more raw intellect and having more of that in one place is always beneficial to those involved.
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Yes, I went to GT because it looks better on paper. Did I think I would get a better education there than if I decided to stay at Arkansas for graduate school? No, I did not make that assumption, and up to this point if I would have assumed that then I would be incorrect. Once again, I am not arguing the "image" of a school, job placement, or any of that. I am strictly speaking in regards to EDUCATION LEARNED. Please get this through your head.
Then why not stay at Arkansas? I did not stay there because the graduate students in my program did not get jobs. They also have no real knowledge of how our discipline works. They do not even offer the same type of courses. The curriculum is stuck in the 1970s. Yet, according to you, I would be just as well off there.
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Engineering IS the only subject that I am concerned about. I am going from MY experience. I never generalized or said that my opinion would apply across the board. I never even alluded to that. I simply said in my experiences in engineering application through various mediums (career, research, etc.), I have found A&M grads and Arky grads to be extremely similar in understanding of engineering principles. THAT IS ALL.
Yes, I went to GT because it looks better on paper. Did I think I would get a better education there than if I decided to stay at Arkansas for graduate school? No, I did not make that assumption, and up to this point if I would have assumed that then I would be incorrect. Once again, I am not arguing the "image" of a school, job placement, or any of that. I am strictly speaking in regards to EDUCATION LEARNED. Please get this through your head.
My bad, I did not get the memo stating engineering is the only topic that matters in education.
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I don't expect you take take my experience for anything. I hope you can come up with your own conclusion on the matter. I was simply voicing where I stand on this and defending it with what I believe is sound reasoning. After my experiences up to this point (and I don't even pretend to be an expert on the matter...just going off of what I have learned up to this point), the process of producing a sound and viable engineer with a toolkit of engineering knowledge and the ability to apply it is much more empirical in nature than what I used to think. Not only does one have to have an understanding of the principles, but then need to be able to apply it and also be able to do so in various environments. I feel that all of this falls back on the university and how they prepared their students, and that this is not co-dependent on how many tenured professors they have, the average salary after graduation, or the plethora of other parameters that these ranking systems latch on to. It is rather something that you can't really interpret until being exposed to it for a decent period of time. These ranking systems don't consider that.
Good, because I don't. I have come to my own conclusion on the matter, your hope is not required. These things do correlate. If not then why do the most successful people, on average, come from better universities? Spare me the outliers. I never said the rankings are perfect. Mainly I am only arguing they are more reliable than your personal experience.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 12:32 pm to Pigimus Prime
Tons of great schools to choose from, much of the decision would depend on where the kid wanted to work after graduating and the scholarship package that the various schools offered.
If they wanted to stay in state I would suggest they look long and hard at Bama assuming they have the major they were interested in.
If they wanted to stay in state I would suggest they look long and hard at Bama assuming they have the major they were interested in.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 12:44 pm to BennyAndTheInkJets
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I think a student should be judged on themself and solely themself, has nothing to do with the university they went to.
How do you account for differences in difficulty?
Posted on 7/6/12 at 12:50 pm to TulaneUVA
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How do you account for differences in difficulty?
How do you determine what's more difficult?
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:12 pm to Pigimus Prime
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Pigimus Prime
I know I already said this, but you are my favorite Razorback ever. Can I buy you a beer on Northgate any time soon? I'm going to be there all this weekend, and you deserve plenty of free drinks.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:24 pm to TeLeFaWx
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I know I already said this, but you are my favorite Razorback ever. Can I buy you a beer on Northgate any time soon? I'm going to be there all this weekend, and you deserve plenty of free drinks.
I appreciate it, but that's not what I am going for. I am merely speaking what I believe to be true. I have had similar discussions with people from several other SEC and Big 12 schools. Universities are not created equal, nor are the students who attend them. This is of course not to say that quality educations and students don't exist at all (let's say most) schools.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:24 pm to blacknblu
My kids picked their own schools and programs...2 graduated from LSU and 1 from Auburn. Another is playing college football right now, but can't say where. Btw, you cannot beat Auburn and it's campus and the town. And, Auburn has arguably the best ROTC program in the country, although there are many good ones.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:26 pm to LSUandAU
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And, Auburn has arguably the best ROTC program in the country, although there are many good ones.
This isn't my area of expertise, but expect some push back from Aggies on this one...
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:35 pm to Pigimus Prime
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If not then why do the most successful people, on average, come from better universities? Spare me the outliers.
Are you talking engineering or overall? Because overall in my opinion (and everyone I've ever heard talk about it) after you get your first job it doesn't make a shite.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:36 pm to Pigimus Prime
A&M, Auburn and Missouri are all top 5-7 ranked nationally in ROTC. Auburn is #1 in the Southeast region. My kid's second choice for Army ROTC, when the scholarships were awarded, was Missouri...even 6-7 years ago. Had Auburn not offered, MO was it.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:38 pm to Pigimus Prime
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I appreciate it, but that's not what I am going for. I am merely speaking what I believe to be true. I have had similar discussions with people from several other SEC and Big 12 schools. Universities are not created equal, nor are the students who attend them. This is of course not to say that quality educations and students don't exist at all (let's say most) schools.
And that is no different than what I am going for. Your evidence of getting a better education is rankings and having a higher average salary upon graduation. Mine is actual application and seeing the end-result of getting a degree from the prospective school in my field. People delve way too far into how good their school looks on paper or on some arbitrary list and not enough into the classroom and what is actually being taught and retained.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:40 pm to BennyAndTheInkJets
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How do you determine what's more difficult?
Not what I asked.
My question is based the FACT that: attending schools with higher admissions standards creates for a more competitive environment (harder to get that A on a curved scale) and a 3.8 gpa at an Ivy is not equal to a 3.8 at ULL.
I know this having attended UVA Tulane and LaTech. All had stark differences in course rigor.
This post was edited on 7/6/12 at 1:54 pm
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:43 pm to TulaneUVA
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I know this having attended UVA Tulane and LaTech. All had stark differences in course rigor.
UVA is one of the best schools anywhere, regardless of discipline...the Harvard of the South, if you will.
Posted on 7/6/12 at 1:55 pm to Pigimus Prime
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Well damn, I'll just try to look you up next time I have a question on the matter. You are in the wrong business. You could probably make a good deal of money selling a book called: "Why Education is the Same Everywhere: Tales from bpfergu's Time at Two Schools."
Not bragging. Just coming to a conclusion given the evidence put in front of me.
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Don't forget the comprehension, analysis, and synthesis categories. These require more raw intellect and having more of that in one place is always beneficial to those involved.
What does "raw intellect" have to do with how well a school teaches you? Stay on topic.
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Then why not stay at Arkansas? I did not stay there because the graduate students in my program did not get jobs. They also have no real knowledge of how our discipline works. They do not even offer the same type of courses. The curriculum is stuck in the 1970s. Yet, according to you, I would be just as well off there.
I just told you why! I understand that people take these lists seriously. Even if I don't believe that the education you receive from Georgia Tech is significantly better than the one you receive from Arkansas, it still looks better in the eyes prospective employers. If 2 schools have equal education but the second one results in better career advancement, I would be silly not to go with the latter, even if I don't necessarily agree that it gives one a significant advantage in terms of actual engineering application.
And by the way, the curriculum at both schools are very similar. Have you even looked at the course listings for both? Every single class I have taken so far is offered at the UofA. Perhaps do your research before coming to false conclusions?
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My bad, I did not get the memo stating engineering is the only topic that matters in education.
Good lord you are dense. I never said it was the only topic that matters! I simply said it is the only one that I am concerned about, and it is the only one that I am talking about. I don't have any experience in other areas, so why would I pretend like I do and make conclusions about it? I try not to make assumptions like certain people...
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Good, because I don't. I have come to my own conclusion on the matter, your hope is not required. These things do correlate. If not then why do the most successful people, on average, come from better universities? Spare me the outliers. I never said the rankings are perfect. Mainly I am only arguing they are more reliable than your personal experience.
Successful people, on average, are more intelligent people. More intelligent people generally go to better universities. This has no connection to how well the university taught them. In general, people who are more intelligent are going to do better than people who aren't more intelligent. If all the smart people went to a lesser college and all of the dumb people went to a top college, I believe all that you would see is the smart people doing well at the lesser college and going on to be successful and the dumb people struggling at the better college. How is that any different than what currently happens?
It's like modifying a Corvette to race against a Civic. The Corvette already has a huge advantage so it is expected that it will come out on top. So you are saying if a modified Corvette beats a modified Civic, that the shop doing the work on the Corvette is better than the shop doing the work on the Civic? Sorry, I can't come to that conclusion.
This post was edited on 7/6/12 at 1:57 pm
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