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Tulane University to Reduce Engineering School
baldbobbo writes "According to University President Scott Cowen of Tulane University, the School of Engineering will be greatly reduced. I have to wonder, as a student who can graduate in May 2007 (the deadline for those students to still receive a degree in any of the cut majors) with a Computer Science degree, but wants to stay an extra year, should I transfer to another university, graduate on time, or switch majors?"
Why would you want to stay an extra year without a degree? If you want to take non-required classes, just take them after you get the degree.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
You talk to your student advisors? That's what you pay your tuition for. How the hell would a bunch of random people on Slashdot know what you should do in some strange particular circumstances that we couldn't possibly know the details of since we aren't on the staff for your school?
Why would you want to stay for an extra year? Are you waiting for someone?
My opinion is to graduate on time, if you want to continue studying, you can do some post-graduate courses branched out from your major.
And if universities are cutting engineering courses, maybe by 2007 you will be in hot demand!
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
The aggravation of switching schools is far too great. Many of your credits may not transfer and, as experience tells me, the relationships you have built with your professors thus far will work wonders in the senior year and beyond when it comes to those pesky deadlines and loads of work!
The link goes to a page that doesn't discuss engineering. Why do you think they will cut the engineering program???
You don't have to switch majors just because your engineering college is reducing. Do what you are interested in and you will definitely do better in it. Even though everyone says that there are no jobs in computers but this industry is slowly but steadily picking up. Google for example hires 50 people every week (although most of them are PHDs). Do what you like and your interested in.
What does your Credit Report look like?
Remember that your University degree is a certificate confirming that you have the ability to learn.
It is not a pre-vocational traineeship.
How much you get out of it depends on your attitude and application. I don't think it really matters, in the medium to long term, what institution gave you a certificate.
Why say in a program that's going to be cut? The reputation (past and future) of your degree reflect on you. It would be advantageous to matriculate into a program that's going to remain strong for the foreseeable future.
Finally one university that clues in to the problem of oversupply of engineers?
Oh well, what the hell...
It would seem that you're not committed to Computer Science, since you're willing to switch majors. That said, if Tulane is cutting that program, it seems they don't consider it to be an area "where it has attained, or has the potential to achieve, world-class excellence." Assuming you don't have a strong preference as to your major, why not pick something that Tulane does consider world-class?
If you have an engineering bent, I would think that civil engineers are going to be in hot demand there for quite some time. Seriously.
Now Slashdot is an academic advising website?
Who are your professors? You're worried about graduating, they're worried about getting (or keeping) tenured positions. Who will be around to teach your final classes?
This shouldn't be your primary consideration, but it needs to be on the table.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Didn't Katrina shut the university down? Did you transfer somewhere else? I would think there's something to be said for continuity. You should think about transfering.
Furthermore, the article says:
The university will focus its undergraduate, professional and doctoral programs and research in areas where it has attained, or has the potential to achieve, world-class excellence. It will suspend admission to those programs that do not meet these criteria.
i.e. if your program is one of the ones being cut then the university doesn't feel you were getting a very good education to begin with. Again, perhaps a transfer is the right answer.
Finally, I agree with the others about getting the degree then studying more. I delayed my degree by one year and got a masters and bachelors in the same year. Do any employers care? No. They just want to know how many years since your bachelors. That determines where you fall on the salary curve for the rest of your life. If you delay your degree by one year, you'll get paid slightly less every year.
I'd transfer schools. A school that has to cut majors to keep up a budget, is probably cutting things in other areas as well. Probably not the best school to be sending money to.
according to this chart, the only engineering remaining is chemical and biomedical. everything else (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Computer Engineering) gets cut. That's an extremely dramatic cut.
My suggestion is to leave ship. Sure you could stick it out, but with the program being eliminated, there's little incentive for faculty to stay (they'll all be looking for jobs elsewhere), and less incentive for the school to spend money on student support (computers, etc.). End result is that you'll likely have a lot of classes taught by part-time folks who are being recruited at the last minute when every untenured junior faculty doesn't show up for spring semester (because they've also abandoning ship).
I read the article.... Engineering school is not mentioned, is it?
If you want more school, go for a Master's degree. It's only 30 more hours. Why take another year undergrad, when you can get another degree for about the same number of hours?
I recommend you get your degree from MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, etc.
People probably won't remember Tulane after a while, but those schools will still have engineering programs and a good reputation.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
http://admissions.mit.edu/AdmissionsWeb/appmanager /AdmissionsWeb/Main?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageAbou tTransfer#q1
p .pdf
http://web.mit.edu/admissions/pdf/MIT_transfer_ap
You have nothing to lose by applying except a $65.00 application fee.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
~100 faculty laid off from the Medical School downtown. ~50 faculty laid off from the main uptown campus, nearly all from Engineering. Cut programs: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Computer, and Computer Science. Remaining: Biomedical (which was, in fact, our strongest), and Chemical.
Also, previously there were the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering. Now it's going to the the School of Liberal Arts, and the School of Science and Engineering.
Leaves me wondering where exactly I stand, having a recent degree in a program that no longer exists. I'm more worried about the kids who were planning to go back next semester in one of these programs, and only find out today that it doesn't exist!
but the word Engineering does not appear at all on that link. The only thing I can see that might even remotely have anything to do with submitter's comment is
"It will suspend admission to those programs that do not meet these criteria."
Oh wait, there it is. In the letters to studentds (grad and undergrad) Tulane just got rid of their EECS department.
nice
As a Tulane CS grad -- I think they're faking it. Tulane's CS program at least has always suckled at the teet of Netscape and Yahoo due to former students, like David Filo, being at the helm. This seems like yet another scheme to just pull money -- which honestly, they could use at this point -- out of their corporate sponsors.
Get the hell out of there as soon as you can. If they are cutting the program, the professors will be more worried about finding a new position than actually teaching. There aren't enough openings out there for a whole engineering department that is about to get cut.
Who did what now?
I've got to figure most of the buildings will be turned over to... liberal arts!
If you delay your degree by one year, you'll get paid slightly less every year.
My boss asked me why I come into work 5 minutes late everyday. I told him that I was borned 5 minutes late and I haven't caught up yet.
I have to wonder, as a student who can graduate in May 2007 (the deadline for those students to still receive a degree in any of the cut majors) with a Computer Science degree, but wants to stay an extra year, should I transfer to another university, graduate on time, or switch majors?
I would not reccomend changing majors. CS will be one of the most in demand majors this century. The reason I say that is because the internet is coming everywhere in the world and all the users will need software. As we go along this century, virtual reality environments will become common place for everyone. Currently, this trend is manifesting itself as the gaming industry. This industry will continue to grow as technology replaces most other jobs, gaming and software design will be the best jobs. Healthcare of course will also be good, but CS is the way to go if that's your thing. I know theres a lot of concern right now because the Nasdaq has gone down, but it's just short term. These things are always cyclical. Also, the concern with jobs migrating to India....don't worry about that. I've heard that salaries are rising fast and up to $40,000 per year fully loaded can be demanded by engineers in India. On top of this, the turn over rate is much higher and the quality standards are much lower. If you factor in the other costs of doing business in India, like opening offices, phone calls, etc. it's pretty much a wash when compared to many parts of the United States. There will be a big back-lash shortly. That's my prediction.
No Sigs!
They're stripping it of its oxygen atoms, replacing them with cut-rate hydrogen.
Wow, this must be a fairly recent decision. I received an admission letter for the undergrad EE program less than a month ago. Guess this solves my dilemma over whether to attend Tulane or not post Katrina...
New Orleans Breweries to announce massive job cuts.
I know it isn't a popular choice, but one I wish I had made now a couple years later. I graduated #1 in my major (IST, Information, Science, And Technology) at Penn State University. The number of job offers I received... 0. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I was unsuccessful in landing a decent job for over a year, and had to work at an ISP for barely any money. I now run the network at a decent sized community bank and make around $40k. Not bad, but also not too great for all the work I put in.
I had doubts once the bubble burst, and I wish I had transferred to a Business or Criminal Justice major, which would have had more jobs available and always be in demand. I could have still minored in Computers and done just as well.
The choice is yours, but the more I look back with 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had taken a different route even with over 11 years of computer knowledge and a love for tech.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
How did a Computer Science program find itself into the School of ENGINEERING? And it seems as if Electrical Engineering and CS are the same department? Huh? Heresy, I say, that's what that is :)
A couple of things.
First of all, once you've had your first job, no one really gives a crap where you went to school. They care about what quality of work you did at your last job. They care that you *did* go to school. That's about it.
Second... someone talked about the 'reputation' of your school. No one cares. Tulane is a name-recognition school, and in most parts of the country no one will even know that it no longer has a CS program. They'll either recognize the school name or not. Did you know that UC Irvine has a great CS program? Or DeAnza College? I thought not. No one knows (or really cares mostly).
What you should be worried about is what kind of education you're going to get in the next two years... because that's what's going to determine how you do at those first few jobs.
Talk to your faculty advisors. Talk to the faculty. Find out which of them are staying and which of them are going to jump ship. It's reasonably likely that all the good CS staff will jump ship, since there's no longer going to be a career path at the school for them. No department = no research = no publishing = no career. That's what you should worry about -- losing all the good teachers.
If the teachers are going, you should go. If they're sticking around until you're gonna graduate, stick around with them (assuming you like the place and the program).
Who cares? Seriously.. transfer. Get some diversity.
The University of Idaho abolished the College of Mines and Earth Resources just a few year ago. The few programs left in that college were absorbed elsewhere, metallurgical engineering was redefined as materials science and so forth. It happens. Whether to stick it out or transfer is the big question, and depends on the gory details.
About two year's ago, they had a re-evaluation, this quote from the article exists almost verbatim in the U of I's evaluation.
"The university will focus its undergraduate, professional and doctoral programs and research in areas where it has attained, or has the potential to achieve, world-class excellence. It will suspend admission to those programs that do not meet these criteria."
Sounds like the same consultants did the work. Be that as it may, small schools can't be competitive everywhere anymore, so they are consolidating. Soon they will be more colleges than universities. Whether this is good or bad is open to debate. Small liberal arts colleges continue to be important, maybe boutique schools are the wave of the future.
I think the questions I'd like answered are:
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's not a reduction to rebuild as a smaller institution.
Not everything will be, nor should it be, reconstructed to equivalence with pre-Katrina.
If the engineering school cannot make its case for sufficient resources, I'm sorry, but you threw in your lot with a bad choice and you should probably transfer.
According to University President Scott Cowen of Tulane University, the School of Engineering will be greatly reduced. I have to wonder, as a student who can graduate in May 2007 (the deadline for those students to still receive a degree in any of the cut majors) with a Computer Science degree, but wants to stay an extra year, should I transfer to another university, graduate on time, or switch majors?
Don't worry, programming jobs in the US are being reduced faster than the staff at your CS department.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Hey editors, mod me down if you like, but this question doesn't seem to have broad appeal to the slashdot community.
I hope the student in question doesn't get screwed, but does he really need our advice?
This depends heavily on your financial situaiton as well. If you have the money and don't intend to do graduate work, I would transfer. You will lose a lot of credits and maybe take another year to graduate, but you seem like you want to take some other classes anyway. The program may or may not continue to be supported. They may or may not spend the money needed to keep the program up as it dwindles ot non-existence as well. Finishing your degree with 3-year old technoology, books, and educaiton in 2007 would not be the optimal choice. If you don't have the money or intend to do graduate work, stay there and graduate on time. You'll save some dough economically, and you can put it towards graduate school. Employers that are looking for graduate work will be more interested in your final school of graduation. When looking for a graduate program, often not finishing at the same school is a normal and well-accepted choice. I don't think being willing to accept changing majors means you are necessarily not interested in CS, but I would take a few classes in other majors while you are there. Use some of your elective credits to explore your other areas of interested in the next few semesters while your time invested in CS is very little. This will afford you the opportunity to continue what you are doing or to change if you find another area is where you belong.
So what they're saying is that they suck, so they are shutting down a large number of departments, and re-branding themselves as a bargain college for undergrads, so they can get drunk and run around naked at Mardi Gras.
I would say, don't listen to the parent poster. Get your advice from slashdot instead; that means less work for us. Which means, more time to post to slashdot. Where I can give advice to the likes of you....
When that happens, maybe it'd be worth the waste of time - and a high quality education as well, guaranteed with no quotas. Otherwise, MIT is just as bad as applying to an Ivy - all prestige, no real value(given the low standards allowed at an Ivy, you might as well make them open to the red-blooded population as well) if you strip the part of it being from MIT.
If you are in CS, SWAP NOW! I have a CS degree, been out less than 5 years. Everything is outsourced! If you happen to be living in India or China, your prospects are bright. Living in North America? Consider moving to India. Hoping to find work here? McDonalds is hiring. Hoping to find work in CS here? McDonalds is hiring. Instead of saying 'Red-Black trees', 'polynomial complete' and 'recursive algorithm', practice saying 'want fries with that?', 'refill sir?' and 'don't worry, I'll get a mop and clean what she spit up right away!'. Seriously, if you are in CS and don't want to wind up living in a shelter, switch majors right now!
No, I'm a junior. I'm in Air Force ROTC, so I can advance to a 5-year instead of 4-year degree. I'm a native of Jefferson as well (Old Jefferson, not Metairie). I love Tulane and especially New Orleans since it's the only place I've known as home. I don't want to leave it, but it's the smart decision to make. I should have mentioned that I'm trying to get a history degree as well, thus the decision to stay an extra year.
-Bob
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Graduate on time.
... to turn out "thinkers", philosphers, artists... broader education for an unspecific, service-oriented job futures.
Apparently some see that there will be markets for them, since the hard sciences are doing better elsewhere...
One of the Ph.D.s that wrote a well-read recommended book on software engineering is teaching intro philosophy classes; partly because it is his ball of wax, but partly he has to since the drastic drop in SE classes.
I just finished my Tulane Application... all of 5 ours ago. Requested Major: Computer Science. :-x
Not that it matters anyways, I'm probably going to Georgia Tech. But damn, what of the timing!
Ask at the school. Just by way of convention, if you have demonstrated in someway that you have at least 95% of the second bachelors done, they will typically honor the cut progam as if they never cut it for you-and who ever else is impacted. Also ask your student body folks-in a pinch you may also beable to get a minor. In someways this looks as good or better.
First of all, once you've had your first job, no one really gives a crap where you went to school. They care about what quality of work you did at your last job. They care that you *did* go to school. That's about it.
Which makes it all the more critical that your first job be a good one. It sets the tone for the rest of your career. If your first job doesn't impress than you will have work against the tide to get a second job that will impress.
And how do you get a good first job? Well, a good start is to graduate from a good school that is known to be a good school by the people who have the power to give your a good first job. Your chances are not helped if the first thing that comes to the hiring manager's mind when he see's your school's name is "Wasn't that program shut down?".
In good times, a graduating from a known good school may mean a better first job. In hard times, not graduating from a known good school may mean no first job.
As much as we geeks may not want to believe it, perception matters.
Especially for engineering. I used to live no more than ten blocks from campus, and I now live 5 minutes from there, so I and my friends from school have spoken to each other about Tulane w.r.t education for the price---and we would know about expensive education, because we went to an expensive private high school. But that's just my unbased (but very biased) opinion---I actually don't know much about the Engineering department, except that Tulane isn't known much for it.
I will mention that several engineering students from Tulane spent this semester up here at Georgia Tech; I don't know who any of them are, but perhaps you can find out if you are so inclined.
* I noticed that you are ROTC (unless that isn't a picture of you on your site), so perhaps they are picking up the tab. Also, if you are studying engineering related to water, Tulane may yet be an appropriate place, as schools in our area tend to have a vested interest in water flow and control structures, as has been all to clearly demonstrated to everyone. But don't quote me on that. Go talk to your advisors.
I have one of those engineering degrees. It's pretty much worthless. Bail on engineering and get a law degree. You can get rich repossessing wheelchairs from the elderly or randomly suing doctors. Hey it's the only growing field left in America. You might as well jump on the gravy train while it is still roaring forward.
I'm Switching to a Marketing degree from a CS Degree. I'll be happier.. I'll program what I want rather sleeping in class and I'll become a corrupt business bastard just like I always wanted
So they're dropping all Engineering courses. And you're Computer Science. Sounds like you've got nothing to worry about.
Slashdot readers just happen to include at least one New Orleans native and Tulane graduate, myself. I'd love to know more, so why don't you shut up?
One thing I can contribute is that Tunlane is dead wrong about their admissions. They say,
"We realize that at post-Katrina Tulane, the size of our incoming first-year classes may be smaller. Rather than lower our admission standards in order to admit more students, we will maintain our academic standards by becoming smaller yet stronger."
But they have actually had MORE applications this year than last. The news acted as advertising and actually increased interest in the school!
What they might be having problems with are servicing the huge debt that Dr. Kelly left them with when he built up their business school and people deciding not to return. They might also have trouble housing people who want to stay, though you can see that most places students lived were not flooded, so the live on campus is also misguided.
What ever the problems are, the school is determined to make them worse and I would not want to study anything technical at Tulane now. It was mostly a party school and few people attended for engineering to begin with. I imagine it would be a great place to teach and you can do what you want with what you have. Well, it used to be that way. Now that they are firing everyone, it will surely suck and it will be hard for a student to get a well rounded technical education.
Reading further, it looks like they are a bunch of jerks you don't want to be around. Try this on for size, which looks like more of the same:
a Board of Tulane task force has been charged with redefining how the Newcomb College and Tulane College names and endowments will be used to support the new structure while also acknowledging those colleges' important historic ties to Tulane University.
So, having spent all of their money, they are going after other people's money. They have been trying this for decades and I hope it does not work now. Newcomb has some excellent programs and is far more open minded than Tulane, some programs of which are more like mindless indoctrination camps than education.
What do they want to keep? What do they want to actually pay for in their search for excellence while they trash the school of medicine and the engineering school? Their business school will continue to churn out clueless asses who will follow all the greedy trends, like outsourcing engineering to India. From their own page, we find some real junk surviving majors:
The Women's studies group actually shared space with the Civil Engineers. The kinds of crap they left on the board beggars description. They thought the new building was built for them at the time and it turns out they were right!
With priorities like that and all the chances to shovel shit "rebuilding" the city being promissed as mandatory exercises, I think it's time to move on or stay gone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I really appreciate the feedback...very nice to hear from active engineerings (thus the reason for posting in the first place). I've tried contacting my advisor, but he's a little busy finding a job, so please cut down on knocking on the mod's. They understand at least. Second, you have to understand that New Orleans has been my home my whole life. The most time I've spent away from it was the time here at Mizzou (and I was forced here because of my parents, not because of its "outstanding" CS program) and Field Training for Air Force ROTC (which just happened to end about 4 days prior to Katrina's wrath upon my house that I stayed in during the storm). The last time I've spent a full week in the city was before July 24th. I was put through the equivalent of officer's boot camp then a hurricane, then spending thanksgiving and over 3 months away from my main computer (I've been using my OLD laptop with Debian since), most of my clothes (been wearing donated rags), my family, and all of my friends (I didn't know anyone in Missouri). Again, thanks for the feedback. It will really help in making a decision about my future. I really want to stay home, but if it means having to make up so much work (especially since I've accumulated a lot of hours in CS, and very little humanities or anything else), I'll have to do a few 20hr semesters just to catch up to a sophomore, much less a junior. (For those who asked, my minor is history...I was going to try to make it a second major, thus the extra year). For the third time, thanks.
-Bob
Yep. The school of business, the cost of which are bankrupting the whole school, will continue to grow. The graduates will continue to have Forbes fueled dreams of sucksess. You know, clueless and greedy morons who chase IP nonsense. They think of themselves as corporate raiders ready to continue a fine tradition of dismantling US industry, offshoring and putting money in their pockets. Most will end up serving coffee, clerking in banks an stuff like that. Some will actually learn the folly of their ways, but most will keep chasing the corporate wet dream and so enable others to do foul things to people who care.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If the university is even making the announcement, they do not take those programs seriously as a core component of their charter. This will impact how your degree is initially recieved, and may impact the quality or opportunities offered to you while you are there.
Transfer to another school soon (is January too soon?). This will minimize the complications of getting a degree granted from another institution - most have minimum credit requirements.
Makes me wonder if this is a sign of times to come, though. Engineering enrollment is way down across the board; if you're looking at a low income and questionable employment oppportunities out the door, why would you do that to yourself when the alternatives are potentially easier.
..don't panic
work for the university. my father was an undeclared advisor for a while at the university in which he was a full prof. he had people come to him with an ACT of 3. yep, this fine institution let people in with the lowest ACT you get get...
it was against university policy to tell people to drop out (and try to get their money back). there was remedial this and remedial that. as long as you had money.
i know why you ask people at random. it's worth talking to persons that have no vested interest in one answer over the other. i have found it amazing that people will not pay attention to that one concept and then follow the advice of a person (or persons) that really doesn't have your best interest at heart.
Disclaimer: I have a BSc. EE
In my experience, the engineering degree puts you above people with CS in the interview process early in your career. The core bits are crossed over, such as algorithms and discrete math. It is likely an engineering grad, especially an EE, will have taken more advanced mathematics courses than a CS grad - or at least, the default path through is much more math intensive.
Maybe I am wrong, but that is my experience. Exceptional people always stand out no matter what their majors, but you need to get to the point where you have that opportunity.
Another key point: It is very easy for a EE with a strong C++ or SQL background to apply for a develoepr job on high level systems. (Communications programming, DBA). It is very difficult for a CS person to apply for hardware engineering, firmware engineering, or control system positions.
..don't panic
This page has more details.
"A total of five programs - Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Exercise and Sports Science - will be eliminated."
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
The degree is supposed to just validate WHATS ALREADY THERE. If you stay an extra year, it says, I DIDN'T ARRIVE WITH ENOUGH ALREADY THERE. If there are more things you want to learn, do it in an MS program, hopefully paid by the employer, maybe a part-time MS program. Honestly, at a school like Tulane, you are not getting a great deal on your educational dollar. Don't make the deal worse by staying an extra year.
Tax freedom day is 31 May 2005.
Tuition freedom day, at least for me (I went to MIT), was when I was 37 years old.
In other words, it took more than a decade after my undergrad education before I broke even on the huge pile of cash I invested in MIT. My engineering education, so far, has not been a financially sound expenditure. List to this : I have never been unemployed, and have always earned an above-average salary for my age and educational attainment. BUT, the amount I have earned 20 years after my undergrad education just barely exceeds the amount I would have right now if I had placed my undergrad tuition in the US stock market.
These days an engineering education is - at best - an admission ticket to a stock-market casino, with the odds heavily stacked against most of the players. At worst, it's a decade of indentured servitude. By staying an extra year, you will undoubtedly hurt yourself financially, down the road.
A university in the city where a catastrophic failure in civil engineering resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand people and destruction of billions of dollars of property - that university is cancelling its civil engineering program?
You're kidding! You can't be serious!
They are keeping NCAA Division 1 football, it seems. Obviously keeping their priorities in order.
that we should pull funds from the endowment at anything other than the legally mandated minimum rate.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
This is a good sign that universities may look mainly to degree plans that attract enough students to be viable. The university does not have an obligation to provide all degree plans. Smaller schools do this all the time. State funded schools may be waking to the fact that a department with 30 undergraduates and 4 graduate students is not worth having.
It is the university's fault because they have been expanding the number of degree plans since the 1940s as well as the number of special chairs, research fellows, etc while neglecting their paying undergraduate students (e.g., by using non-professors, grad students, commercial professionals to teach the 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd year courses).
This is directly linked to money income from each department's student tuition and research grants. Any pretense about 'offering a diverse selection of degree plans' is just fiction.
...at least they're not going to drop out of NCAA D1 athletics. It's always nice to know that even in the face of staff and program cuts, they can still find money for college football. Guess they've identified the core interests of their consistuency.
Since when has CS been part of the engineering school?
Why the fuck wouldn't you stay?
I'd say more, but fuck, if you can't figure it out, godspeed.
Bob, have you given thought to seeing how much of your accumulated hours would xfer to LSU and finish up your BSCS degree there? It's not too far from your home either. A Computer Science degree from LSU is pretty well respected too. Although it's been over 15 years since I visited the campus there, the female-to-male student ratio was awesome and the babes were extraordinarily friendly to me despite being a short, ugly geek from Texas with no money. Too bad the out of state tuition fees at LSU were out of my budget and I had to stay back home living with my parents and finsh my BSCS degree in the UT system where tuition was affordable for me.
I'm a student at Georgia Tech, and after the hurricane a bunch of Tulane students got temporarily relocated here. I guess they'll be staying longer than they thought...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Go next door to Loyola. Dr. Tucci (best damn CS Prof in the world) should still be there.
David Filo, Tulane grad, established the Yahoo! founders endowed chair in Computer Engineering.
The only honorable thing to do would be to give him a refund
They will begin offering classes in underwater basketweaving thanks to a natural laboratory.
In a way, this is good life experience for you, since this can happen out in the working world (and does more often then you think). You need to learn to jump ship when the first signs of major trouble occur. Well, knowing that the department will be gone most definitely is a "sign" of "major trouble". Your degree is something that is seen as a certificate of your worth and accomplishments. Many places will look at the reputation of your university and equate that with a level of knowledge/skill you possess. In 5-10 years from now when someone see's your degree from a place that doesn't even offer any related majors, your percieved worth will be much lower then some other university that still has a very strong engineering college. True, most of this can be easily explained in the interview process, but getting to that interview in the first place will be that much more difficult, since most large corporations have a huge disconnect already in terms of hiring engineering staff, so any small "possible red flag" on your resume and you are simple in the "out pile".
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
This is just systemic of our culture as a whole.
Science is not cool anymore; it doens't pay well and there are tens of thousands of other screaming people willing to take your job for 2% of the pay. Get an MBA instead and off leech that until the trend starts to reverse which may be never because the US is getting owned right now in intl' trade. You may not believe what I say. see if you can find out when the last hr / biz employee got fired. now last engineer?
As others above said, jumping to another school is probably a good move. Your faculty are going to be far too deep into CYA mode to pay attention to the needs of undergrads. That being said, since you're a) already in the South b) used to paying private-school rates c) going to a school with a good reputation and d) close-ish to Houston [subset of the first point], I'd seriously suggest taking a look at Rice. Rice has a very strong program in CS, and is a good school overall from what I've seen and heard. (I'm an alum from UT Austin, but I've known some very sharp people with Rice CS backgrounds.) Houston has a number of virtues for students as well, such as very inexpensive rents and a large job base for when you start looking for internships/first job/etc. As with all advice on the internets, take with a grain of salt, etc. and good luck!
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I think you should transfer ASAP. It's not just your program being cut back, Tulane as a whole is being drastically cut for at least a year due to Katrina. What is it, 250 staff, including 50-60 tenured professors being let go ? Not a good year to attend that school ! Are you already doing the new mandatory community service ?
No, the last stop would be Industrial Engineering.
Or at my alma, Packaging Science. If you can't hack it, pack it.
I remember the entire fraternity sitting up stairs trying to help this one PackSci major figure out how to design a cardboard box. "Dude, I have a cardboard box in my room why don't you look at it?" "Look you have to have equations for this type of thing. They have to be in this book you bought, right?"
None of us could beleive this guy was clueless has top how to design a cardboard box.
Finish your CS at Tulane then GO TO LAW SCHOOL (but not at Tulane unless you're sure you want to stay in Louisana--their legal system is unlike the rest of the US).
Go intern somewhere, take all that insider information, drop out of college, quit interning, find some VC's, and start your own company.
Hey, it's the american way!
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Your school cutting its CS degree program brings the choice of moving or finishing. Changing majors really would have to be brought in from another viewpoint. Are your CS teachers as irritating as mine? If you are really contemplating changing majors it's either because you don't like the subject, you like another subject better, or you don't like your teachers.
If switching schools is truely an option by all means take it. If I had the option, I would have left my school by now.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
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well... you probably gotta go there at least for next semmester. My sister graduated from Tulane and my Brother goes (sort of) there now. He's transfered to Claremont McKenna College for the semmester but they won't let him stay another semmester since it's such a small school. No other colleges are taking any transfer requests from Tulane students until next year so his options are take a semmester off and figure out something to do later OR go back to New Orleans and LIVE ON A CRUISE SHIP for the semmester. That's not as fun as it sounds. His room would be about 5 X 5 and he'd have to take a shuttle to school everyday. How bogus is it that his choice is to live in on a cruise ship for a semmester in a town thats virtually deserted or live at home (WITH ME! (i'm only 15 - 16 in 5 days)) for half a year while all his friends are back at college. Most of the kids that went to Tulane and transferred to new schools are allowed to stay there for next semmester because they're big schools and they don't care any better. I know this doesnt have anything to do with anything, but if my brother lives at home for a semmester he'll do stuff like take our car everywhere (I was supposed to get it when he went back to college) and eat all my hot-pockets. I'M ANGRY - I WANT MY HOT POCKETS FOR ME! NOT FOR HIM.
Probably something HAD to go at Tulane, engineering must have seemed low man on the totem pole, big bucks pgm, less glory than others, less instant alumni $$ lately. Perhaps if the world has $160 oil, overpriced Asian labor, and a superChinese military & yuan, this may later seem short sighted but they do have to react now. And US mgmt today is a now kind of thing, not that "vision thing"...
Tulane has tried to partly streamline between a stressed national private university and a respectable liberal arts college. Let's all wish them good luck, both students and the university.
It seems like the thrashing of engineering programs isn't isolated to areas hit by the hurricanes. Here in Iowa, The University of Iowa has approved an additional "fee" for juniors and seniors in engineering of $500 per student. With an engineering program that's much smaller than Iowa State University's program, this is yet another factor that I think will negatively impact this U of Iowa's engineering student recruiting efforts. The full deal about the fee can be found here.
The university's opinion is that engineering students require a greater amount of staff attention and information technology resources (something for which engineers already paid a $70 annual fee). I feel this is just another slap in the face to another engineering program. Already our nation is falling behind other countries in terms of the number of students graduated annually in the fields of engineering and the hard sciences. Now we're given yet another obstacle, this time financial, which I think will further discourage students from pursuing degrees in engineering. Engineering has some of the most difficult and rigorous coursework of any area of study, and now students at U of Iowa are expected to pay more for the pleasure of having to deal with weekly all-nighters, homework that never quits, and projects with impossible due dates. And as for why the increase is just for juniors and seniors? Simple, smaller class sizes in upper-level studies increases the relative amount spent on teaching each student in the smaller class. I say it's just for those years because once students have committed two years to a university, transferring becomes very difficult and the students have no choice but pay the fee and continue at their present institution.
So like I said in the title, I would suggest getting out of that sinking ship down in Tulane, but be sure before you move that you are going to be attending a university that respects its engineering program at least as much as its liberal arts and sciences program. If you can't find a place that's better that you can easily transfer into, then you may actually want to stay. Better the devil you know, right?
If you don't like the following, remember that feeling when you vote next time: Stop trying to get an education! Intel, Microsoft, JPMorgan are just a few organizations who are investing billions of dollars in other countires (India) instead of here. That means less for education here which you are now feeling personally. they don't want to pay you what it costs to live and raise a family here. So they are walking out. Are you and the rest of your generation going to stand for it? Your choice. But you do have power. It is called the vote and many people died to ensure you have it. Use it. And use it wisely. Or become extinct. Your choice. The clock is ticking...
They're going to get worse, before anything else, if people on the ground have any credibility at all.
"Abandon the sinking ship that is your school; unless you like the idea of having a degree from an institution that no longer has a CS program. In the new tech world, your reputation can make or break your career."
Oh please.
A 4 year degree is primarily a tool to prove to your potential employers that you have enough brains and gumption to make it through 4 years of something. The idea that you're useful with your B.S. in any field is laughable.
And yes, internships may be helpful, but hardly the make or break to your career. When you graduate from any 4 year institution, you'll take a crap job for 12-18 months, quit and then look for an actual good job. Its the ways its worked for a long time in the technical fields and probably always will.
My advice...If you're 1-2 years away from your degree, you stick it out and finish, because 99.999 % of potential employers either won't care what college you graduated from or won't care that Tulane is shrinking some degree programs.
Anybody who tells you different is being silly and probably has 5 years experience in the field.
And yes, I have 25 years in the field and am now "the boss".
Why stay in a place whose degree will in the future won't be worth a levitating fornication in an oscillating pastry? Transfer into a worthwhile institution like Georgia Tech as soon as you can.
Tulane, I understand, is in New Orleans. That place is probably going to be hit with at least 2 force six hurrycanes next year anyway and you don't want to have to get rescued from a tree by a helicopter or be one of Bush's sacrificial lambs again like all those bodies that nobody is gonna work on because the old FEMA director, before he was stopped from doing so, wanted to push 'em all into a landfill because they were poor and nobody would pay to redeem them.....probably 'cause they were all dead or all black. Get out of there while you still can. It won't be long before the other schools wise to the fact that Tulane's credits 'ain't what they used to be' and start not accepting them. You are going to lose a few anyway, like some local state legally required history courses and some other local courses that some long forgotten administrator thought 'just everybody should have'; but cut your losses and move on!
Tulane's a special case, of course, but I could definitely see some schools deciding to cut back on the science and engineering programs given what's happening. Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle.
:-) I'd propose an alternative fuels project...just watch those engineering dollars flow in after that!! We could fix our entire middle east problem in one shot.
1. Students see all the technical jobs either becoming quite low-paying compared to business/management positions, or they see them moving completely overseas. (Example: When all the tech support reps are over in other countries, how is the entry-level IT guy going to get a career started?
2. Student decides that management is a safer bet, no matter how much they might enjoy tech and engineering.
3. Student enrolls in/switches major to business.
4. Engineering and science enrollment drops.
5. School can't justify spending more money to keep a program that no one wants to pursue.
I don't know what it will take to get people interested in science and technology again. I'm thinking it would have to be some grand project like the Apollo program in the 60s...something everyone could get behind.
Got any project ideas??
cutting the major Division I sports programs, see if only you had done something useful with your life like play football you wouldn't have these problems.
First of all, unless you're either from one of the top engineering schools like MIT or CMU, or one of the degree mill programs, employers really don't care which university you graduated from. They're looking at the fact that you have a degree, maybe your GPA, and mainly checking your skillset against a checklist. Secondly, you graduated a year ago. You have industry experience now. Prospective employers are much more likely to look at your job history than your college history. First of all, it's the more recent experience. Secondly, it's more relevant for them. College proves you can get a degree. Work experience proves you can hold a job.
I actually went through a scare similar to this in my college career. The University of Dayton's Computer Engineering program had not been fully accreditted by ABET in my sophomore year. Theoretically, if our program had not passed muster with the inspectors, I may have had to either scrap two years of study, or switch to a major like *shudder* Electrical Engineering or Computer Science. *sardonic grin* As it is, we passed the ABET examination and I just had to deal with department fine-tuning of the classes which led to many students have to spend an extra year chasing the changing plan of courses for the degree.
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wtf? What kind of half assed program will be left after computer science is cut nevermind the cuts to the medical school? At my old Uni biomedical was almost completely dependent on the CS department. Engineering programs aren't like the arts, that are mostly self-contained. World class engineering requires interdisciplinary cooperation.
Advisors, especially in the engineering disciplines where scheduling is often highly inflexible, suck. They will generally rubber stamp whatever you suggest no matter how bad the idea is.
Their advice is also non-binding on the university (who actually gives you the degree). I had a faculty advisor cost me $3000 after he looked into whether I had to take a class or not. He said no I had already met that requirement. The university said yes I still needed to take it. Guess who won? I didn't find out until my graduation paperwork came back saying I was incomplete. My scholarship was gone and I had to graduate a semester late. I was most unhappy.
I disagree on so many points of what you're saying that I'm not going to even try to take this point by point. I do agree that engineers don't bring in as much money as sports, but I don't think it's due to engineering being a dead-end job or a low-paying one. Firstly, sports bring in money while the students are still in school while engineering generally doesn't. This is important because I wager that a large number of people, once they leave school, don't give a second thought about it outside of proudly proclaiming their "alma mater," keeping in touch with a few friends, and maybe attending the odd reunion. Secondly, there's a different dynamic to things. Team sports tend to build a strong (rabid?) community. You have people returning for Homecoming games and you have former players who want to relive their glory days before they got old and fat. Engineers... quite frankly, most of them tend to have their small circle of friends who they keep in contact with for years after. More importantly, that circle of friends is largely not associated with the campus itself. The friendship matters more than that they happened to attend the same school. Thirdly, and this one is more out on a limb then the rest, I think a lot of engineering students feel that their tuition and other fees was due payment for their degree and don't feel the need to keep pumping money into the school after graduating. They're thinking more intellectually about their college experience than emotionally. But, like I said, that last bit is a bit out on a limb.
As for engineering being a dead-end or low-paying job, I'm not sure where you're getting your statistics. All of the engineers I've kept up with after graduating are doing quite nicely for themselves. They got well-paying jobs after school, often with companies they interned with, and paid off all of their student loans within a year of graduating. I do know there are people who don't succeed, but I wonder how many of those people entered engineering not because they enjoyed it, but because they heard it was high-paying or that engineers are "always in demand." Too, I know some people who initially had trouble after graduating because they approached their engineering classes more from a theoretical standpoint than a practical one. *wry grin* As one of my Circuits professors said, "there's no such thing as an ideal resistor and wires do have resistance, inductance, and capacitance." The one friend I had in engineering who ran into that is now on his doctorate and will probably be a professor, God help him...
As for "there's no such thing as greater experience making you more valuable," I don't know that I could disagree with you more. Greater experience is really the majority of what makes you hireable in the engineering job market. The problem most engineers (or at least those who haven't been co-oping or doing a part-time job on the side) have on graduating is a lack of experience. And once you become an expert on a system, you will always be able to find a job so long as that system continues to exist. Heck, my Granddad still earns a decent sum each year being an expert witness on a particular series of boilers. You also, of course, have to pick up new knowledge so that you can adapt when the system you're expert on retires, particularly if you're determined t
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then you MUST stay to complete your degree, even if you can't finish before the deadline. It'll all work out OK, because they'll fix it all better for you.
Seriously. This university has expressed open hostility toward your chosen program of study. Get out as fast as you can. Anything else gets you what you deserve.
So you like paying big money for a degree? Jeezus man you've got OSU, Miami of Ohio, Univ of Cinci and a host of other schools around (with the exception of Wright State.. wrong university) along with Purdue next door in IN and you went there?
Actually, I'm from Kentucky. And my top choices were actually MIT and CMU. UD was my backup school which my parents had me apply to because they wanted me to apply to at least one Catholic school. *sheepish grin* And I got my applications in late for MIT and CMU. In the end, it worked out. UD is not a top tier school for engineering, particularly in the area of computing, but they do have strong ties with the Air Force, so getting hired upon leaving school was not difficult. And as for cost of schooling, I had all of my school loans paid off within a year of getting out, so I'd say that the job I received upon leaving was up to compensating for the cost of education.
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Almost done with mine in a year and a half... and I'm working full time with a family. Grad school is a cakewalk if you like what your doing. No pesky general electives or bullshit prereqs just classes in the stuff you enjoy doing (and if you don't enjoy doing it you shouldn't be going for it...)
-everphilski-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/12/08/AR2005120801109.html?nav=rss_email/c omponents
Enjoy.
Half the time it was like pulling teeth even before the storm.
...checkmate!
I wonder what will happen of all that equipment that all the engineering and medical programs wont be using. Is it just me or did none of the Liberal and Fine Arts programs get the axe like Engineering and Medical? Anyway, there might be some sweet stuff for sale
Come up to Kansas University in beautiful Lawrence Kansas. We would love to have you. We are going to need a couple of good CE post grads in a year or so. http://www.cresis.ku.edu/flashindex.htm As an aside I have been told you should get your under grad one place masters another and PHD yet another.
We are here to prevent this from happeneing. The teachers, students, and allumni unit at www.SaveTulaneEngineering.org. Show you support by signing the pledge and read about what has been done and will be done. -Anthony Radler Senior Tulane ME/CS Major '06
They shut down and told every college not to accept us Tulane students. They now are kicking us out. Some school still won't accept us. Basically we have been knocked down, given hope by the University, and then kicked while we are still cripple. (and some people laugh at that) Get a full story at www.savetulaneengineering.org
For any students who are being cast aside by Tulane University and The Engineering Department. Check out The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Computing and Engineering. Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Computing Engineering programs they offer. The School is ABET accreditated of course and could be a great option. Good Luck to the students that must deal with yet another issue because of Katrina.