Michigan State University

Date: May 04 2011
Major: Electrical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
I get good grades in ECE classes simply by doing the work and studying for exams. I was expecting an electrical engineering curriculum to be much more challenging. Some classes can be 4.0ed merely with rote memorization of practice exams or homework problems. The department does not particularly encourage a deep sense of understanding. Conversely, there are some very challenging courses throughout. You can quickly and accurately gauge another student's intelligence by asking for his (and I say his because there are maybe 20 males for each female in the program) grade in ECE320. The department is ABET-accredited, and there are some quite excellent professors.

After three years in the program, I'm not quite sure that I'd be ready and/or qualified for a full-time position, and I don't think another year will change that feeling. I somewhat wish I'd had the 'rip-your-hair-out' EE experience one gets at, say, UMich, for its rigor and emphasis on understanding, but I do not regret enrolling in MSU's EE program. The overall atmosphere of the university pretty much mitigates the issues I discussed above.