Easy-entry engineering bachelor's?

March 14, 2005 2:19 PM

I have decided on a much-needed career change, and find that the list of schools willing to take on a prospective second-bachelor's engineering candidate is quite short. Anyone know of good EE or CE programs on the west coast which are more open to second-bac students?

I'm looking mostly at the UCs and CSUs, but I get the feeling that there are smaller schools out there that don't have 3,000+ students competing for the same degree. If anyone has experience getting a second degree in engineering (my first, by the way, is in visual art) that would be great, otherwise I'd just like to hear about lesser-known schools.

posted by plexiwatt to education (6 comments total)

You might take a look here (disclaimer: alumnus) -- small school, nice campus, and close relationships with many local technology companies such as Cisco, Agilent, etc. who have donated a lot of equipment resulting in some very well-equipped labs.
posted by harmfulray at 2:53 PM on March 14, 2005

Not strictly speaking on the west coast, but check into Montana State University. Very liberal acceptance policy, outstanding CE and EE programs with high placement rates, and out of state tuition that is comparable or better to most surrounding states.
posted by Wulfgar! at 3:11 PM on March 14, 2005

UCSC (disclaimer: also an alumnus) has good EE and CE programs. While I don't know how receptive they are to 2nd bachelor's, they are very receptive to older transferring students.

Santa Cruz is a fantastic place to live... if you can afford it. If money is scarce, you might want to look at something else.
posted by wezelboy at 5:00 PM on March 14, 2005

Doing a second bachelor's degree is going to require a lot of general education classes that have nothing to do with your new field of study.

Have you considered just making up your EE/CE deficiencies as an unclassified grad and then getting a masters? (caveat: at some schools this may not be an option if the classes you need are "majors only")
posted by zanni at 7:12 PM on March 14, 2005

What about Oregon schools? OSU has one of the better EE programs on the west coast (And IBM, HP, and Intel ... just to name a few ... have locations very near the campus. For a reason.

Portland State University, (Disclaimer: I'm an alum, SBA 2004) in the middle of downtown Portland, Oregon, would also be a good place to look. Their EE program will be moving into a new building in a few years, and there's a LOT of high tech companies and chip fabs in the Portland area. PSU is populated mostly by adults getting 2nd degrees or working their way through school, and it's more than likely that most of the classes you need to take are also offered at night due to the nature of the school.
posted by SpecialK at 7:19 PM on March 14, 2005

Zanni: Not necessarily. At least at PSU, who's used to processing that kind of thing, transcripts from his previous degree will waive almost everything except the particular school's gen ed requirements.
posted by SpecialK at 7:20 PM on March 14, 2005