jlw@ariel.UUCP (04/29/84)
Alas, this is not a recent phenomenon. Twenty years ago while I was selecting a school to take engineering from I selected Princeton for just the reasons mentioned here. Back then Engineers got preference in course selection in the humanities. I was able to take the Civil War and Reconstruction course (Martin Duberman) from the history Dept as well as Modern America from Eric Goldman who had just returned from the LBJ White House Staff. He actually taught some of the Precepts (ie classes rather than lectures) mine in particular. Also Alan Downer's Drama course, `little' Con. Interp. (Constitutional Interpretation), Social Deviation (Nuts and Sluts), and last but not least Nav. Sci. 302 - Navigation (a really fun course for engineers; half the class of 32 were non ROTC). I made my choice of schools after considering several other institutions and decided that only at Princeton does the Engineer get the chance to rub shoulders with non-Engineers in this way. All our Physics courses came from the regular Physics Department as was all the Math., Literature, and the rest of the distribution requirements. No bored second rate lecturers teaching English for Engineers here. My point is: There are very few institutions where the Engineering student can go to get educated; there are many where he may be trained. Joseph L. Wood, III AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel (201) 834-3759 ariel!jlw
chenr@tilt.UUCP (Raymond Chen) (04/30/84)
Here, here. I've heard of these problems also. It seems that more and more engineering departments are having to restrict course enrollments, and some engineering schools are turning into nothing but vocational schools. Happily, since Mr. Wood's undergraduate days, things haven't changed much at Princeton. You can still get a top-notch engineering education while getting a liberal-arts education thrown in, especially if you come in with some AP credit. That's why I chose Princeton. I unfortunately haven't had the guts to take Constitutional Interpretation (it being the second hardest course on campus), but I have taken courses in Political Theory, Law and Society, Shakespeare, etc., and I'm looking forward to European History next semester, all without my advisor giving me strange looks. Math and Physics are still taught by the Math and Physics departments and as a matter of fact, my freshman year, Honors Freshman Physics was taught by Val Fitch, a Nobel-Prize winner in Physics. I've had *one* course in the Politics department where I didn't have the Professor teaching my precept. What is truly phenomonal, though, is the computing resources available to a CS major. For course work, we have a VAX-11/780 and a VAX-11/750, and I believe we are scheduled to get at least one more for next year. They way things are now, disk space is a tight, and now and then, the load average goes above 14, but hopefully that'll get better when we get more machines. As for the upperclassmen doing independent work, it's unusual for the load average to get above 5 !! There's a bit of a problem with a lack of terminals and ports, but given that we have more than 7 research machines, that's understandable. (Again, hopefully that will be taken care of next year.) About the only thing we need to make this place into absolute CS heaven is two more CS professors, some terminals and ports, and another couple of machines for course work. (I know for a fact the the EECS (Electrical Engineering/Computer Science) is looking for up to four more professors to start next year.) Given the demand for qualified, instructor-level talent in the CS field, it's amazing that Princeton has managed to do this well. The CS faculty is small, but good. Hopefully, they'll be able to keep it up, especially given the fact that the number of CS majors in the class below mine is about 33% larger than mine. Anyway, for all the Princeton men out there on the net, Hurrah for Old Nassau !! -- The preceding message was brought to you by -- Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr