Cornell vs Northwestern vs Duke

[sick flicker]

Even though you can't double major in college of engineering at Cornell (this is true at Duke too), usually there will be a lot of overlap between the classes and like cs students can still take some ece classes at Duke at least.

I also wasn't a big sports person and I only ever went to one game, but there's still a lot of school spirit and positive energy that you can just feel around the campus. and the people are all super collaborative and creative.

I don't think you need to pick a school that you think isn't a good emotional/social fit just because you feel it'll push you. College will already do that, so having a space where you have community, resources, support to fall back on is really important

[lavish hull]

I can answer anything cornell if you do have anything else

To your cons, the interdisciplinary part isnt too massive an issue given your interests, assuming you got into Arts & Sciences? Which i believe i think you said thats where you applied
Cs can be hard but in terms of stem here, its quite collaborative
The social life thing is untrue. You only lack a social life if you close yourself off. Isolated, i guess? Ignoring the many nearby cafes, stores, and restaurants and entirety of ithaca college nearby

[lavish hull]

It is possible to double within CoE at cornell (often done with ECE and CS). Its just not possible to double across colleges as OP said, which wouldnt be necessary to major in CS if theyre in Arts
Also cog sci and cs have more than a handful of class overlap as well

i might agree that cornell CS or cog sci programs give you the option but dont push you to dive in depth, which i think is smth u mentioned

[sick flicker]

ah ok. duke cs is in the arts which is why i was confused

[lavish hull]

Cornell has it in both eng and arts, only thing different is the gen eds and doubling options

[paper pulsar]

I'm pretty sure you can double in Pratt depending. I have friends who doubled in Pratt + CS

[olive abyss]

yeah

you can have 2 engineering majors in pratt too i believe

like ece + meche

[sick flicker]

you can but you'd need to be pratt primary. all the engineering majors and minors are like explicitly marked as only available to pratt students.

but I double majored in bme/neuroscience and tons of pratt people can do like bme/ece/cs, ece/cs, bme/global health, etc.

it's just not bidirectional that trinity students and do pratt degrees

and my understanding is they applied trinity to do CS. but they can definitely transfer to pratt if they do it now or during freshman year

[minor charm]

Why is this? Is Pratt more impacted/selective than Trinity?

[sick flicker]

Idk why they have that restriction for the minors, Duke is more strict about
prerequisite engineering coursework being fulfilled than other universities I guess.

But for the majors, it's probably because engineering takes 3.5-4yrs of full time coursework to graduate and needs to be done in a highly sequential order (missing 1 class will put you a semester behind). So they are also pretty strict that students can't switch into Pratt later than freshman year. If they do switch as a sophomore, it's most commonly into a pseudo-major that's not accredited so they can still graduate on time.

I can't think of a school that lets students do an engineering major if it's not housed in the college they're enrolled in but there could be

[minor charm]

The thing is OP might not want to do a full ECE major in addition to a CS major

There is this: https://duke.app.box.com/v/ECE-ugrad-4yrplan-ECECS-ML-21

[sick flicker]

that's says it's for ece as the primary major

[minor charm]

Which can be compared with the AI track of the CS major: https://cs.duke.edu/undergraduate/degrees/BS/concentrations/ai-ml

[minor charm]

Yes

[sick flicker]

it is true that they can take some ece classes as a cs major which is the first thing i said in my initial response.

*as in there's a lot of overlap. some CS classes are also ECE classes. but they wouldn't be able to take ece classes that are not also in the CS dept. which is fine but a subtle clarification because they were under the assumption that duke didn't restrict across college coursework

[minor charm]

Isn't this true for the other universities as well?

One potential issue is that an ECE course OP would be interested in might require a chain of ECE prerequisites.

E.g. https://undergraduate.bulletins.duke.edu/courses/0284941

OP, if you choose Cornell or NW, I would get a sun lamp to bring with you

[sick flicker]

Across college coursework is typically restricted but at Duke, not if you're a Pratt student. You can majore across colleges as a Pratt student, but not as a Trinity student.

and yes I mean to point out that that because engineering is sequential, the non-cross listed ece coursework would be off limits to trinity students.

[minor charm]

At Cornell and Northwestern on the other hand, the BS in CS are already in the engineering college to begin with.

[sick flicker]

but for OPs case if they don't want to do hardware, but want to do software ece stuff it should be available through the ca dept

[sick flicker]

but then they apparently want to double major in math/econ which gives them the cross-college issue in the opposite direction

[minor charm]

They said minor in econ/math

And I don't think engineering students have trouble enrolling in A&S courses - like at Duke, it's mostly a one way restriction

[sick flicker]

yeah but both of their cons for Cornell and Northwestern were about interdepartmental majoring so I presumed they were considering that. They didn't list it as a Con for duke but i mentioned because they applied as a duke trinity student it's technically still a con.

But I forgot yeah they could just transfer to pratt and it'd no longer be a con

[sick flicker]

Correct, Duke they'd have access to every major/minor at the school as long as they ask be a Pratt student.

that said regardless of what school you go to I don't think there'd be a ton of room to fit that many degrees as it's tough to do the engineering major alone. Its possible though as long as you take extra classes each semester and are super intentional about your course selection. (i.e. I had 4.5 degrees, i know people who triple majored, or double majored and double minored, but it's a lot of work).

[minor charm]

Yeah that's why I'm assuming they'll only do one major (CS) with extra classes across EE, math, and maybe econ

[sick flicker]

Idk if we can assume that based on their pros/cons for each school but hopefully they have more info now and clarity for them to decide what they want to do.

Sorry for the spam OP. but if anything I said was unclear to you, I'm happy to clarify.

[minor charm]

https://undergraduate.bulletins.duke.edu/courses

https://courses.cornell.edu/courses/
https://courses.cornell.edu/programs/#c2092919

https://catalogs.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/courses-az/
https://catalogs.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/programs-az/