Comparing LSU and ULL: Deciding My EE Degree Path

[sydneyfranke]

Hello everyone,

My name is Dave. I live in Louisiana and am currently attending a community college in the town that I live in. I am looking to transfer to a larger school in order to work to obtaining my E.E. degree. I cannot afford (not do I really wish) to go into a large amount of debt through out of state tuition fees so I am trying to decide which college within Louisiana will give me the best education and prepare me for the job market. I am hoping that one (or many) of you can assist me in this decision.

My two choices are LSU and ULL (University of LA @ Lafayette). My original choice was LSU simply because it's our state's flagship university and I have family there. I have been reading up on ULL's program and it seems to be very well suited as well. The flow chart for ULL seems to have more EE driven courses throughout the curriculum and is why I feel like I am leaning more towards their program. The links to each school's flow chart are as follows:

LSU: http://www.ece.lsu.edu/wp/?page_id=45
ULL: http://ee.louisiana.edu/advising.shtml

I have been reading the Princeton Review on both colleges. The teacher to student ratio is about the same being 21:1. ULL's tuition is slightly higher (by about $300 per year), but they rate their academics higher at "70" opposed to "68" at LSU. I would assume that LSU has the larger budget being a larger school, but that could be wrong seeing as there are more places for the budget to get spread out.

Also, I guess to add a little more back story, my fiance' is starting her M.S. Nursing program this semester @ NSULA (Northwestern State). ULL also has a MSN program that from what I can tell is pretty good. LSU does not have this program and therefor conflicts with her career plans. We have already discussed me moving to Baton Rouge to continue my studies while she stayed behind to finish up her school, but this discovery of ULL's program has sort of thrown a wrench into the plans.

Any help or insight that you guys (or gals) could give me would be greatly appreciated. I know that going out of state would be, educationally, my best option; but I really can't see myself going $200,000 in debt when I can get a degree for roughly $40,000. Thanks in advance for any help.

-Dave

 

[MATLABdude]

FWIW (For What It's Worth), I glanced at ULL's ECE Faculty/Staff/Technicians List:
http://ee.louisiana.edu/faculty.shtml

...And the ECE Faculty list at LSU:
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/wp/?page_id=603

That's a really small program at ULL. I would personalize be more biased towards the larger program because there'd be more people in it (and thus more undergrad student / project groups, better-equipped labs, and more resources at the library), the faculty are more likely to be researchers who teach (as opposed to teachers who research), and a better diversity of technical electives. Then again, some people would choose a smaller program for some of the exact opposite programs: more intimacy, teachers who incidentally (hopefully) research, and (slightly) cheaper tuition.

A friend of mine is at LSU in ECE doing his Ph.D. in micro/nanotechnology (he says the program / facilities are still "building up" in this particular field), but that and the above generalities are the only things I can provide (so hopefully, someone else can come in with another response). I notice that Natchioches (NSULA) is 3 hours away from Baton Rouge, while Lafayette is only 1 hour from Baton Rouge (at least, according to Google maps). I can't really comment on the distance-relationship thing, but this may be food for thought.

Good luck with your decision!

EDIT: And welcome to PhysicsForums!

 

[sydneyfranke]

Thank you so much. This is the exact kind of insight that I was hoping for. I was beginning to think my question was too specific and no one would take a shot at posting something.

As far as the relationship thing goes, we are actually in Alexandria where NSULA has a campus. So that, combined with online classes, is where she is going to school (and I'm attending LSUA). Regardless of where I go I believe she is just going to finish it out there. By the time I will be ready to transfer she will have about a year left (and what's a year?) so that subject is really not going to effect my decision.

Oh, and thanks for the welcome. I have a feeling that I will be coming to this forum very frequently from now on and look forward to the day when I can start providing answers to the questions that come up.