Engineering is hot right now. Everyone wants to get into the profession and every college has courses in the field. The field provides challenging work, creativity and exciting and rewarding careers. Don’t rush ahead into engineering without understanding more about the profession, though.
The simplest way to describe engineering is “solving problems.” To get more in depth: you will use technical and scientific knowledge to make judgments. You will solve problems using your imagination. But what are the best schools for engineering students? We have already covered the country’s top 3 in mechanical engineering schools in our previous article, but what about engineering courses in general?
There are institutes of higher education offering engineering courses at the undergraduate level. These courses will take five or fewer years on average. You will learn more of the application of basic science than the specifics of it. You may pursue a PhD in engineering, narrowing your specialization. You can also focus on a major with a concentration, like electrical, civil or mechanical engineering. These colleges are springing up everywhere because of the popularity of the career tract…
You will have a fundamental understanding of engineering and adequate training if you obtain your bachelors degree. You will be able to get your career started with this degree. With many specialties available, you will also have the opportunity to find and develop expertise in a niche.
There were between one and five million engineers in the USA in 2000. There are now over twenty million working engineers. That’s a lot. Public engineers require a license and the licensure requires passing two exams. The first is taken immediately upon completion of your degree and will help you to become an “Engineer in Training.” The second exam is taken after you’ve been working for a few years. This is when you become a professional engineer.
The top ten engineering schools, in no particular order:
- Cornell University-Ithaca, NY
- University of Texas, Austin, TX
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
- University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
- Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
- University of California, Berkeley, CA
- Stanford University, Stanford, California
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA