LeTourneau University

Date: Jan 30 2009
Major: Mechanical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
This is a look into the past, begining, roots, soul of LeTourneau (College). When I attended 1967-71, this school had a direction, something very unique as it emerged from a "tech school" with staff heavily envolved in industry, very experienced in Engineering and Technical skills. Mechanical, Electrical, and aero Engineering and Technology with a unique twist of spending 3 hours in labs for every hour of class time. One of only two schools in the US that offered a degree in Welding Engineering. The thery was that as an Engineer, not only could you design it, but you could build it and make it work. I will never forget those hours in Machine tool, welding, and Diesel lab. The infastructure was next to nothing but old Army hospital wings. You could basicly build your own dorm doom to suit yourself. The men to women ratio was about 15:1,students were from all over the world and the food was even worse then. We all drove fast cars and parked them outside under our dorm windows and worked on them in our Auto Society Building. Put on Go-Kart design competitions and races on campus streets a couple times a year. There were mandatory Chapel meetings, but often featured R.G.LeTourneau himself. Hardly a day goes by in my life that I don't think about some friend, instructor, course, lab machine, project, or adventure at LeTourneau when I was there. Now I understand that it has become just another liberal arts private school, too bad.