If you are looking for a school that will get you ready to start working in the real world in engineering, find some place else. I worked very hard and graduated from Mississippi State University in the spring semester of 1999 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Why did I choose MSU? Well money was the big thing. I was able to get a scholarship there without which I probably could not have attended school. The other reason is that I've heard all my life that MSU is in the top 10 in Engineering schools and about how well their engineering school is. I sure wish I knew how this rating was arrived at.

My largest complaint is the lack of real world experience that the school provides. For example, I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and I have never seen the inside of an engine. The only reason I've seen an engine in a car is because I've raised the hood on my own car.

Everything that we cover is in the books. The problems we receive are homework problems in the book. Everything is covered in the classroom. There are many opportunities when we could have had a lab time to see the things were are learning about in action, but we had to settle with reading about it in the textbook or listen to the professor talk about it. I have a friend of mine who was in M.E. in Texas, and he was telling me about how they have to build an Remote Control Car for one of their classes. I never built anything for my classes. I did type lots of long reports though.

The M.E. dept at MSU seems to believe that MathCAD is the answer to the worlds problems of using computers to make calculations. It is an easy program to use, but is rarely used in the industry for obvious reasons. In a class I took in Finite Element Analysis, we used a program called ALGORE. Another over-rated under powered program. Industry rarely uses this as well. The computers that we used in our labs were severely outdated. I lost track of the number of hours that I lost because they crashed so frequently. But they did have enough money to buy a new truck for the ME Dept. Go figure.

Then there was the lack of classes to take. In Mechanical Engineering, there is a division. People are either interested in the energy side (thermodynamics, heat transfer, etc.) or the mechanical side (mechanisms, materials, etc.). There seems to be a large emphasis in the energy side of ME. That is fine if you want to emphasize on that, but I was not. I did not realize that MSU was so specialized until my junior/senior year when I finally understood what the classes I was going to have to take were really about.

We are required to take two technical elective classes. The classes that are offered are not offered every semester. This is understandable. Some times they are not offered every year. There was one class I was wanting to take that was dropped the semester it was going to be offered, and I had to figure out which of the classes offered that even remotely interested me. It turns out that that semester that there were only 2 technical elective classes to chose from.

The ME Department has a huge emphasis on Uncertainty Analysis. Why is this? Because the Dean of the ME Dept. really likes Uncertainty Analysis and believes that we must take 3 classes in it (the classes are credited as 1 hour classes but the workload is similar to 3 hour classes). There are few Engineering Schools that require so much emphasis on uncertainty analysis. A little bit is good, but this is way too much. There is time wasted here where a student could have had a lab to see some of the things that were discussed during the semester work in real life. Interestingly enough, the majority of the labs I had in my education came during Chemistry, Physics, and my Electrical Engineering classes (don't get me started on the EE Dept.) The only labs I had in ME were in my uncertainty analysis classes where we measured a few things with some crappy equipment.

After I graduated, the ME Dept. started requiring students to have laptops for class. This is not a good idea. Students with limited financial resources (most of us) can not easily afford to buy a laptop. Lap tops usually cost more than the comparable desktops. I really see no need for where students need a laptop in order to understand the topics that are covered. Sure a computer is needed, but there is nothing that a desktop computer at home or even a computer in the computer lab can do for this. I think this was just a lame excuse to keep the department from having to buy new computers for the computer lab. The ME discipline also expects students to learn how to use a computer and the programs that are used on their own. Fortunately I've had a computer in my home since I was a kid so it was difficult for me to use a computer and figure out how to use the software. But there are many useful things that I had picked up on my own that other students simply did not know about. It would be nice if there was a computer class for the students to take so they are proficient computer users by the time they get to the classes that require the use of a computer.

Most of the professors are nice and seem to know their area of study. There are a few that I often wanted to let them know my true feelings about their teaching abilities, but decided otherwise.

Everything that I talked about concerns the ME Dept of the college of engineering. I don't really know much about the other disciplines of Engineering, although I did have a little bit of some of their classes.

I believe that MSU is a good place to go if you are interested in the research field or if you are short on cash. If you are looking at working in the real world or if you are not strapped for money, then go somewhere else.




Recommended: No