Do you know any good undergrad schools for Political Science and Engineering double majors?

February 17, 2009 1:07 PM

Do you know any good undergrad schools for Political Science and Engineering double majors?

hey guys, I need some advice. I'm attending a community college where I'm pursuing an associate degree in mechanical engineering and minor in Political Science. After I graduate with an associate degree, I would like to transfer to a University to finish my bachelor's degree. I would like to double major in Political Science and mechanical engineering. I know that it's difficult to double major in anything when engineering is involved but I think I can handle it. If it comes down to it, I don't mind spending an extra year to finish my degrees.

Can you guys recommend some colleges that I should be looking into that has both my majors? I have 3 more semesters till i finish my associate. My GPA is 3.5 right now but I plan on improving that. Thanks for all your help.

I live in New Jersey and I would love to attend school in California or Florida. I'm sick of this damn eastcoast weather.

posted by shatteredverve to education (18 comments total)

University of California, San Diego I'm a little biased since I went there. Amazing weather. Top notch engineering school. Respected PoliSci Department as well.

I'm pretty sure any of the other UC schools would fit the bill as well.
posted by Arbac at 1:25 PM on February 17

I'll give you the advice my adviser gave me. Don't double major. It takes the same amount of time and energy to get a b.s. and a masters as it does to double major in two very different fields. Get the undergrad in engineering, then follow up with a masters in Poli Sci or public policy or .... whatever depending on what you'd like to do. He went on to tell me that if I'm going for an engineering job all employers care about is my engineering degree and how well I did in that. From my experience he seems to be right.

That being said, from what I know about the UC system almost all the schools there would fit the bill. The University of Texas is good at both. Texas A&M is great in engineering, though I think the poli sci department is questionable. Bonus, Texas does not have east coast weather.
posted by magikker at 1:29 PM on February 17

Stanford is extremely good in both.

But honestly, for polisci, the quality of your undergrad department doesn't matter all that much.
posted by paultopia at 1:31 PM on February 17

MIT too, obviously for engineering, less obviously so for polisci, but, in reality, they have a ridiculously good polisci department.
posted by paultopia at 1:32 PM on February 17

I am biased as well: You do not want to double major in Engineering and anything at a good school. There simply aren't enough hours in a day.
posted by muddgirl at 1:32 PM on February 17

Harvey Mudd College of the Claremont Colleges. Because of the way the system is set up, you'd do your engineering at HMC and your political science classes at its sister school, Claremont McKenna. HMC is the number one Engineering program in the US and CMC is well-known for its International Relations programs, so you ought to be set. Good luck!
posted by aquafortis at 1:42 PM on February 17

All of the above: the quality of your institution of much more importation for graduate work, where you want to be spending your time pursuing the second major anyway (in serial), because you wouldn't be able to handle such an odd (and in my opinion moderately quixotic) double major at a "good" school.

Why are you determined to do such a thing? What is your target career?
posted by kcm at 1:50 PM on February 17

If you want to be an engineer, then the "quality" of your poli-sci department in the ways we could detect from a distance don't matter. What matters is how engaging, interesting, and to a lesser degree up to date they are, which we won't know very well.

If you don't want to be an engineer or enter a few cognate fields (ie, patent law, other engineering-related law), then you don't want an engineering BS.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:51 PM on February 17

It isn't California or Florida, but the University of Michigan has strong programs in each.
posted by dpx.mfx at 1:54 PM on February 17

Sorry about my previous response - I didn't finish your question.

I would agree with aquafortis that HMC has an excellent engineering program, and CMC has an excellent poli-sci program. However, I know from experience that it's difficult to convince HMC to let you take more than three-four years to graduate, especially if you are planning to take a double major. This may not be a problem if a lot of the core curriculum transfers.
posted by muddgirl at 2:27 PM on February 17

Another shortcut is CLEP-testing out of as many basic required classes as you can. I earned the maximum amount of credit, and it freed up the better part of a year. Anyone who wants to save time and money should look into it!
posted by aquafortis at 2:36 PM on February 17

University of Maryland has a grad program in Engineering and Public Policy. Also, double majoring with engineering and anything else may kill you.
posted by electroboy at 3:05 PM on February 17

Carnegie Melon also has a very good program in Engineering and Public Policy that seems to fit what you're looking for. Though it's in Pittsburgh, so you don't get your sun and beaches.

What are the EPP programs at the undergraduate level?

The most popular is the double major degree program which lets you get a joint degree between EPP and any of the five traditional engineering departments (Chemical, Civil, Electrical and Computer, Mechanical, and Materials Science), or with Computer Science (SCS). For example, if you choose ECE, your degree would read “BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy.” About 10% of all the engineering students at Carnegie Mellon do a double major degree with EPP.

posted by PercussivePaul at 3:51 PM on February 17

It's another biased-'cause-I-went-there suggestion, but Caltech worked out great for me (in this regard, at least). I double-majored in engineering and history, and since so many kids are heavily focused on math/science, I found the humanities and social science division worked well around people double majoring there. In hindsight, I found the workload to be pretty manageable and finished both majors in four years. This may vary with the poli-sci major though, since I suspect there's a lot more quantitative work involved with that than with my history major. Another caveat: you may have to make up some courses if you're transferring, although that depends on the individual. There was a guy one year who transferred in as a junior after his freshman year at another school.

As far as I can tell though, the political science and economics departments are very well-regarded. There's great research opportunities in both engineering and political science, depending on your interests. Oh, and it's in California!
posted by universal_qlc at 4:46 PM on February 17

Also a Mudder (wow, three of us here). Engineering is top notch (I hope you like the pain). You have access to Pomona and CMC for the Poli-Sci side. The claremont colleges have a long tradition of allowing inter-school class-taking. Talking around there will get you set up nicely to do something you want.
posted by milqman at 5:28 PM on February 17

MIT has a really good political science department and a really good Science Technology and Society program. MIT students are also eligible to cross register for courses at Harvard. It goes without saying that there mechanical engineering department is also good and I think they have a less intense (by MIT standards) version of the major for people intending to cross register. That said, I don't think they accept very many transfer students so you'd better be serious about bringing up your GPA.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 9:11 PM on February 17

What do you mean by good? Good to get a job? Good to go onto grad school? Good because the instructors are nice?

At any big university, you're going to have large classes and a lot of interaction with graduate students. In Engineering in particular, English may not be their strong suit. YMMV.
posted by k8t at 10:33 PM on February 17

Thanks for all your answers. I'm contemplating your advices on not double majoring. I can just minor in poli sci and keep engineering as my major.
posted by shatteredverve at 10:14 PM on February 18