Olin admissions decisions come out this week!
We have nicknames (of varying popularity) for the different stages of the admissions process. Students start out as prospies, short for prospective students, which isn't a very Olin specific term. People who come to Candidates' Weekend are candidates, or candies. After that, some candidates become admitted students, also known as mittens. People who choose to come become Oliners.
I've been thinking back to two years ago when I was a mitten, so here's a list of a few factors to consider when making the decision to come (or not) to Olin. Some of these are based on what I took into consideration when making my decision, and some of them are related to what I've observed since coming to Olin.
-- Olin is small.
The campus is small, the student body is small, and the group of faculty is small. This is one of the biggest reasons I came to Olin. I liked the tight community and how well the faculty and students seemed to know each other. I think I would have been able to find a group of close friends anywhere, but I've really valued the connections I've been able to make with my professors.
The small size does have disadvantages, though. It's very easy to get caught in the Olin Bubble and not be as aware of the world outside Olin. The small number of students and faculty also means that course offerings beyond requirements aren't as extensive as they are at lots of other schools. I'd recommend looking at old course catalogs here. We do have the advantage of being near Babson and Wellesley, though. Wellesley's course catalog is here, and this is Babson's.
-- You will be a guinea pig.
My last post was about how Olin is changing the first year curriculum and adding more flexibility to the bio requirement. Many Olin classes are experimental to some extent. This means that we all, through feedback, get to have some part in shaping Olin's curriculum and making it better. Part of Olin's goal is to be a test tube for engineering education everywhere, so making Olin's curriculum better is, in some ways, making engineering education better as a whole. On the other hand, some parts of classes will be train wrecks. There are a lot of things that don't work.
This constant experimentation was something I knew about when I chose Olin, but a lot of my classmates weren't very aware of it. I think this is an important part of Olin, and admitted students should know when making their decisions just how much of their education at Olin would be a first attempt at something new. Olin courses and course offerings aren't stable and predictable. It's exciting, but it shouldn't be a surprise when something doesn't work out.
-- All majors are engineering majors.
Even if you self-design a major, it's still an engineering major: Engineering with (insert concentration here). Everyone takes Design Nature, a circuits class, User Oriented Collaborative Design, Principles of Engineering, and another design class as well as a year of an engineering capstone. In addition to that, within a major there must be at least four engineering courses. As a MechE, I'll take six, but even if I did Engineering with Math, I would have to take four courses designated as ENG. No matter what your major is, at Olin you will get an engineering education.
During my Candidates' Weekend interview, I was asked what I thought about the value of an engineering education even if I chose to not go into engineering. Even if you're sure that you want to work as an engineer, like I was (and no longer am), this is something to consider. By no means will everything you do be engineering, but engineering is a constant current through an Olin education.
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