I'm looking for suggestions. My daughter is in her senior year of high school and wants to major in Mechanical Engineering. She's got a few schools in mind but I was hoping to get some suggestions from you MINI2 Engineers out there. She's seriously considering Cal Poly SLO. She wont get into MIT or CalTech, so we're not even considering them. She likes the look of GA Tech too. She doesn't want to stay at home, so the So Cal (LA/OC area) schools are not on her list.

Let's hear it. Where'd you go? Where do you wish you could have gone? Why?

TIA,

SkateMom

It depends on what kind of "Mechanical" engineer she thinks she wants to be. If she wants to eventually get involved in the building industry then she might consider going to a school that offers "Architectural" engineering with a Mecanical focus. These programs still provide the background courses in physics, thermodynamics, etc. that a traditional mechanical engineering program would, but they then focus the education in on what you really need to know to work in the design industry. Architectural engineering students get a background in electrical, lighting, structrual, plumbing, acoustic and HVAC design, then select one of those to really focus in on.

If that's her interest, then you can do no better than Penn State. They were ranked #1 for that major when I graduated and their graduates are usually pretty highly sought after (we all had jobs well before graduation).

If she's interested in a more traditional Mechanical engineering degree then there are loads of great schools out there but I can't help you there since I didn't go that route.

To put it simply... Mechanical engineering covers a lot more theory, whereas Architectural engineering is more of a practical, application based curriculum.

Good luck!