Well today I took my first real trip to visit a college I am thinking of attending. The college I visited was WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), an engineering school. It is located in midwestern Massachusetts in the city of Worcester, and is only about an hour and a half away from my house. I'm not sure if I want to go far away for college or not. Most of my family lives out here in New England, so if I went out west I may not see them very often, but at the same time, I don't want to limit myself. Even though I do kind of want to leave Massachusetts, I won't let that desire stop me from attending a good college in the area.

Anyway, onto the college itself. The school is pretty much dedicated to Engineering. Most of the majors they offer deal with engineering. I've been thinking of going into engineering, so I guess that is why I went there today. It is a rather small college. The campus is small, as is the student body, probably because of the school's narrow focus. I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing, but coming from a small high school, I sort of want something bigger than WPI. The small student body does allow for smaller class sizes though (15-20), and I do consider that a good thing.

The school seems to have a rather unique academic system. It has four terms instead of two semesters, and a much larger focus is put on projects and solving problems, because as the tour guide said, that is what engineering is all about. Before you can graduate from WPI, you have to finish four major projects (along with maintaining certain academic levels, obviously): A project in the humanities that shows you are competent in them, a general engineering project, and a project specific to your major. Some of the major-related projects people worked on seemed kind of cool, for example these civil engineers worked on a portable device that could filter dirty water and make it clean. I'm not sure how successful you have to be with the project, but I think you have to at least make a strong effort. The tour guide implied that actual companies that hire engineers actually sometimes become involved in these projects. In fact, he said 90% of graduates from WPI either have a job in engineering right out of college or accepted into a graduate program somewhere. If true, that means that surviving the college experience at WPI could be rewarding.

As far as the humanities project thing goes, the tour guide explained to us that the school wants to make sure you can express your ideas correctly. After all, what good would a great engineer be if he could not express his ideas in writing correctly? The school does have a very light humanities courseload, which I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I do kind of want to become an engineer, and english type classes have always been my least favorite, but I also want to receive a good all-around education. I'm torn.

I guess overall it seems like a good school. If a person wanted for certain to become an engineer, then that school would be perfect for them. The thing is, I'm not 100% sure if that is what I want to do, so going there would in a sense trap me into becoming one, whether I wanted to or not, unless I transferred schools. My overall impression of the school was very good though, and I may apply to it. My SAT scores fall in their higher range for applicants, so I'm pretty sure I could get in. Its just that I'm not sure if I want to. :P I could get into a better school after all. (This is not saying WPI is a bad school, as it is ranked by US News as #71 in the nation.... )

Next week I may go visit Brown University in Rhode Island. That would be a tough school for me to get into, but I can;t lose anything by trying, right?