college + kayaking = scholarship??

[jbdba01]

With Wonderboy making his whirl wind tour of colleges he's looking at I somehow came across this article.

Kinda interesting. Who woulda thunk?

On a related thread...do we have any engineers out there that I can bounce some ideas off. Specifically comparing degrees and schools...

[krash]

What type engineer ?

[Dustin]

Electrical here. Be glad to help out.

[jbdba01]

Kinda a long story. but here goes...

Exeutive details
What type of engineer? One that can talk about the benefits of a UF engineering degree vs. a AU/AL/OK/AZ/Ga Tech degree.

Details
He's (we are) trying to figure college out, but biomed, civil, electrical, mechanical, materials science, chemical engineering...He's bio inclined, but the reality is today he has no clue what he'll end up doing.

I'll throw this out here, and if this goes way off topic we can IM...after all this is a kayak forum not a college guidance forum.

Here's the deal...he's a pretty smart kid (young man)... National Merit Finalist. That has qualified him for a "free ride" (room, board, books, and tuition) at a variety major colleges (Auburn, AL, AZ, OK...). Course you have to maintain that gpa throughout college to keep the "free ride".

Unfortunately UF does their own thing and doesn't recognize National Merit Finalist. They do Bright Future - which only pays a portion of tuition. So there's still a big chunk of $ cover (room, board, books).

At the end of the day the question is :

- do you take the "free" ride and then use the cash and apply it to a master program at say a GA Tech or possibly UF later on

- do you get a more recognizable degree (apparently UF has a better program than AU/AL...) and get a job later and hope that your employer might pay for a masters degree later.

- he's been accepted to GA Tech and possibly MIT (got deferred there) - so does he go into debt for that "more prestigious" degree - which after the first job is no where near as important and you have a sizable student loan

Dustin, I see you replied while I was typing this. I'll IM you.

He knows he'll go engineering - just not which disciple yet.

My advice was to go buy a boat with the college $ and fish all day. Seems the wife isn't on board with that plan though.

Thanks in advance.

[Todd]

The world is going to hell. Take the college $$ and spend it on wine, women and song. He will be better for it in the long run.

[BearsFan]

If he gets into MIT find a way to make that work. Congrats to him for even applying! The rest of the schools listed all fall into a tier well below. I do not believe there is any way a high school senior knows what to do with the rest of their life. If he is dead set on engineering I would recommend the school with the broadest array of engineering options. Good physics and math programs would not hurt either as those are the departments that handle the first 2 years of core coursework. I would go as far to say that they are essential and just as important as the engineering programs offered by the school.

When I was looking at schools as a high school senior I was dead set on becoming an orthopedic surgeon. I had some scholarship opportunities as a 4yr varsity golf team member with a good gpa from a very good school. I also had a great mentor in the field. FSU at the time was working on developing their med school and I would have had a chance to be in it's initial class. It seemed like the best shot I had of getting into a med school. I passed on the scholarships and chose FSU, I luckily qualified for instate tuition which was dirt cheap compared to the other schools I got into. I was living in Illinois where I also attended high school which kept me from getting a full ride via bright futures. If I had gone to a FL high school my gpa would have even gotten me an allowance in addition to tuition, books, room and board.

My first degree ended up being in sociology with a focus on social research and statistical analysis. The heavy math focus for pre-med killed me, mostly of boredom. The math teachers all sucked and none spoke English as a primary language. There were other more interesting courses with better teachers, and more girls.

I later went back for another degree thinking that I wanted to be a structural engineer. After a couple of years of math and basic physics I took "intro to astronomy" as a blow off class to fill up my schedule so that I could get student loans. The course was taught by a rather famous particle physicist, (famous with the world of particle physics) not that I knew that when I signed up. One particular lecture covering the processes going on in the core of the sun had me mesmerized. Her passion for physics was very apparent in that lecture and it spread to me. I was hooked. If anyone ever addresses me as Dr. it will be because I finally finished my PhD in Astrophysics.

Sorry to bore you with the long story, I feel a little background is necessary so I don't sound like more of an internet prick than I already do. It is a huge academic world out there, and there should be some freedom to explore it. Don't worry about grad school and masters programs yet. It is very hard to predict the future. In my experience money for those programs is not hard to find when that time comes. Forget about the "more prestigious degree" argument you make. MIT has the best teachers, period. Best environment for nurturing engineering ideas, period. Best connections for jobs, period. It costs so much because it is worth it. Much like a $1400 fly reel, you are not "just paying for the name", you are paying for performance. If there are any MIT grads in engineering jobs that they dislike and don't pay enough to make those student loans seem insignificant I have not met them.

Best of luck to your boy! It is an exciting time to be sure. Feel free to pm me if either if you have any questions at all. Please keep us updated!
-PK

p.s. maybe just take Todd's advice (-;

p.p.s. UF? Does he have a thing for fat ugly chicks?

[Todd]

My first degree ended up being in sociology with a focus on social research

In other words "How to get laid in college".

Good advice Pete.

[BearsFan]

Some skills are life long.

[countryboy_ucf]

In most real world situations, and in a high demand profession such as engineering, the school you go to will only matter for your first job IMO. After that, employers just want to look at your experience. Unless you have the money to go to burn on school, it's much better to have great grades in a less prestigious school and graduate without debt, than it would be to get decent grades at a better school but be burdened with upon graduation.

[UrbanLegend]

FINALLY I get to be the nerd I went to school to be. I did BS in electrical engineering. I've done research at a few schools for various projects (summer programs). UF has a great program, but they've got a bit to go before being in a league with G Tech. I've got friends that went to MIT for grad school (one teaches there now) and if he decides to go there a job isn't what he'll be looking at after graduation, it'll be grad school. USF has one of the most under rated programs in the southeast. They've come a long way in their research programs and would be a great feeder if he decides to go the grad school route.
As for the major, once you get into industry you'll see that a lot of times the major isn't a big factor...SOMETIMES. A bimed engineer is just a chemical and electrical engineer combined. f he deals with bones and joints then it's mechanical and chemical. I'm working for a gov defense contractor now and help with recruiting for schools we target in the southeast region. IM me if you have any other ?s

[jbdba01]

Thanks to all who replied...all input was greatly appreciated. If anyone wants to add, pls do so. We'll see where he lands.

[Skeeter]

My advice is to concentrate on getting the degree he decides on with out the student loans if possible. JMHO

http://community.stretcher.com/blogs/st ... loans.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[krash]

My son is a Civil Engineer, graduated from lowly UCF but no one has ever said but your degree is from UCF..

He looked and was accepted to several schools, and felt the educational experience would be good at UCF. He did check out the labs before making that decision and felt that newwe equipment was better than one of the top schools he was also accepted to.

Any top school does make a difference in your first job or getting into the military OCS schools.

[Chadryan]

I agree with what a few others have said. If he can get into MIT... go for it. Otherwise, I feel like as long as he is at a major university it really doesn't matter which one it is. I went to UF and lived with 3 engineers (all different types). When I got there I was pursuing a mechanical engineering degree but realized fairly quickly that chemistry and I do not get along even though my dad is a nuclear chemist. Maybe that gene skips a generation.

It is unfortunate that Bright Futures has been cut so much in the last few years. When I graduated from high school in 2001 Bright Futures was giving a full tuition ride plus $500 per semester for books and other assorted junk (if you had a decent GPA and test scores).