I spent the last weekend going though mail, CollegeBoard, and Princeton Review doing searches, comparison charts, and calendaring my August college visits, but I keep coming back to one issue: Tech school v. general school.
Through Facebook, conversation, and this blog, I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of each type. At this point, I’m still iffy on my major, with thoughts of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Mathematics. Hell, I even think about teaching and journalism (new media, tech stuff). Note the term iffy. For all I know, I could attend a technical school, start programming in the dark, and hate it. Then, I’d be in a world of hurt, surrounded by tech-heads. People keep bringing up to me that students at a technical school aren’t exactly ‘intellectuals’. Can anyone combat that claim? It’s not an easy pill to swallow.
This Friday the 10th, I’ll be visiting the University of Connecticut, with tour guide Kyle, member of Exposay. Also, Wednesday the 15th, I’ll be paying RPI a visit. I’ll announce more visiting dates as they’re decided.
Feedback, folks, concerning: Majors, tech v. general, financial aid, anything. I’d really appreciate it.
The tech-heads definitely would not be what you would call “intellectuals.” Yes, they are good at what they do, aside from that… Also, tech schools seem to be inhabited by a higher number of stranglings than regulars colleges, or so I hear.
As for what you want to do, a lot of people either still don’t know freshman or end up changing their major from one thing to something that may be completely different. So, you really have to weigh which majors you’re thinking of you may like over others. If you can, find a school that offers them all, just in case.
I don’t find that claim about tech students hard to believe, if by “intellectual” you mean interested in the pursuit of knowledge, for the sake of knowledge, and across disciplines. Their choice of a specialized school would seem to indicate a narrow focus of interest.
That being said, I don’t think you fit that bill; I think you’d get more out of taking a variety of classes (where all the classes are taken seriously, not where whole departments are the side orders to tech degrees) and meeting a variety of people (like, you know, girls). Somewhere that you could look at a lot of different things and see where they intersect. (I might be projecting a bit here–I just realized this is basically exactly why I chose the kind of school I did.)
The key would be to find general schools with very strong tech programs, since more than a lot of disciplines it’s an area where not all schools are created equal. (If you’re still interested in Amherst I could do a little asking around for you.)
I think a place like MIT has everything you want- especially their impressive media Lab. Being that that’s so hard to get nto, I would try someplace like Drexel. Do a great internet search, and look at what the faculty in media, communications, marketing, etc. are doing. For example, people at Penn and Drexel are studying things like internet contagion, social media networking, and other great new media things- that’ll give you the best idea of where you’ll be happy- but there’s no substitution for walking around campus and talking to the professors.
I’m still working on it, thanks for the feedback thus far! I’ll have a detailed article up later.
I should make a profile page for this college admissions thing on the top navigation.