Drexel University

Date: Jan 17 2008
Major: Computer Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
Ok, so I've read a ton of the comments here and I recently rolled out of Drexel's engineering program with Degrees for CE and EE.

I can't say I agree with everything the people complaining about the school argue. The central administration can be pretty dense (eg. I received a financial hold for a bill that had yet to be mailed, it was remedied quickly). The primary note to dealing with them is to go see them in person, not completely practical if your a commuter student, but show up unannounced with the papers filled and, the signature will hit the page pretty quick usually.

The other thing to remember is that you have to get to know the profs. You'll probably encounter them several times throughout the course of your stay with the school. I had one teacher that basically taught my entire track selection for Computer Engineering.

Yes, my primary adviser for CE was a waste of time, mostly because he wasn't there, he was skiing for S.Korea in the Olympics. And he wasn't an adviser, he was a prof saddled with administrative duties, not a great mix. But he was brilliant. And as a teacher was pretty handily able to answer questions (in korean)

On a side note, if you show up at Drexel expecting to breeze thru one thing will happen to you. You WILL be crucified. The entrance test is tough enough that some people that have had Calc in HS wound up in remedial pre-cal. And don't expect many of the people you meet freshman and sophomore year to be there pre-junior year (year 3). We had over a 50% attrition in a year, and were at around 380 student (from over 800) by the end of the second year. So yeah, it's no cake walk. Your starting load for freshman is calc, phys and chem 1-3, with 4 and 5 soph year + other work.

Another complaint to address, student life, basically nobody does the greek life thing. Those that do are treated like everyone else, no special status gets conferred on members outside of the houses themselves. This is mostly because nobody else cares, they are too busy studying their asses off. However, you are sitting literally next to downtown philly, which is actually pretty fun if you bother to take the time to explore it.

Housing issues: You could take the obvious route and pickup a dive apartment that will probably get you shot (hey it's an option) but they are expensive. I found it was easier to team up with a bunch of people and rent a larger space (5 people in a 4 bedroom). Rent was cheep, bills were shared, and you could even pay for parking that wasn't too terribly over the top or free parking on the streets (good luck). There's a few issues with this plan thou, mostly with ground rules, smooth those out and you'll be golden.

Co-ops: you need to do really well in school to be able to get a shot at the good co-ops. expect anything for places like unisys, the navy yard or lockheed to have a 3.0 (hard) or 3.5(really really hard) gpa requirement. There's even a few with 4.0 reqs i believe. as for me not being quite that smart I still scored a job at the plasma physics lab in princeton (fascinating) and for the school district of philly (an adventure). Experiences are a mixed bag overall but most people seemed to like them. Peco and Intel were both hailed as good jobs to snag.

Other than co-op jobs, there's very little competition in the school until your senior year and even then only for prize money not grades.

Senior design: This takes up a bulk sum of your senior year class credit time and you will have to work your but off to get it done. but when you can pickup some of the projects that were out there (a roommate of mine built a nano wire sensor grid, it was all pretty slick), you can do some really cool stuff on other peoples grant money (find an adviser with deep pockets and an interest in what your doing).

So final notes. Learn teachers names, make sure they know you. Survive the trial by fire. Other than that, try to have some fun, it cools off a bit when you get to the upper classes, at least till senior design. And no, Drexel did nothing for my lack of ability to use proper grammar.