The Big C Word...

[pakman]

I am currently attending Purdue University as a civil engineering major. I went to a private high school and was fairly good in math and the sciences, my parents had pushed that all my life. I also wanted to emulate my father and become and engineer, but not an electrical engineer. Instead, I had really taken a liking to my chemistry teacher who used to work in the field as a Chem E. I was also part of an explorer post at United Oil Products where we worked in actual labs using real equipment. We even got to use a program that simulated an actual oil refinery. But, I was also interested in architecture, buildings, bridges, etc. In my mind there were two choices: chemical engineering or civil engineering.

I started to look at schools that had a strong engineering program. My only criteria was that it had to be within a days drive of Chicago. That meant the Big Ten. I applied to Illinois Institute of Technology, my father's alma ater, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, and Purdue. All schools have very strong engineering programs and I was accepted to all except U of I (that's another story). I liked all the schools and the decision was quite hard. I eventually picked Purdue because it was just the right distance and price. All the schools had similar tuition. IIT is in downtown chicago, near Comiskey Park about 45 minutes away, Iowa is about 4.5 hrs away and Purdue is 2.5-3 depending on traffic.

In all the other schools, I would have started imediately in the Chem E. program, but Purdue is a little different. They figure that since all engineers take the same basic courses the first year or two, they combined them into a program called "Freshman Engineering (FrE)." There are issues with this program, but again, that's another discussion. During FrE I was barely ekking out a C, but it didn't help that i was taking honors. I looked at the course progression and it occured to me that if I am having trouble in freshman chem and can barely stand the labs, how am I going to be able to handle p-chem or o-chem, etc? I then went with my second choice of civil engineering and will focus on structures.

I have held a couple internships with engineering firms and it confirms my belief that structural engineering is what I want to do. These are some of the factors that influenced my decision.