多年前我陪小孩 visit Harvey Mudd 時, 碰到一位白人/越南裔混血的女孩。這位女孩跟我女兒一樣, 都被Mudd 和同一間小藤錄取。同時這位女孩還被O錄了, 最後她選擇了O, 而我小孩選擇了 Mudd。我感覺上她在STEM方麵的動手能力比我小孩強些。
Olin vs. Mudd makes for an interesting comparison.
They both share a somewhat unconventional “liberal arts approach” to a technical education with an emphasis on experiential learning. They are both members of a cluster of small colleges - Babson/Olin/Wellesley and CMC/Mudd/Pomona/Scripts/Pitzer.
Olin could be catagorized as an “Engineering LAC” while Mudd could be characterized as a “STEM LAC”. Mudd’s curriculum is broader and more science focused, while Olin’s is more engineering focused. Olin is smaller and has an enrollment about equal to Mudd’s engineering enrollment. Mudd has more science requirements in its core while Olin has more engineering requirements in its core. Olin also integrates entrepreneurship into the curriculum and is more interdisciplinary in their approach to subjects.
When it come to the realm of computers, Olin is deeper on the computer engineering end of the spectrum, while Mudd is deeper on the computer science end of the spectrum. Neither will be as deep as a research university in either area.
The computer engineering end of the spectrum is more applicable to programming at lower levels of abstraction (i.e closer to the hardware) and in real-time or resource constained environments such as embedded systems. The computer science end of the spectrum is more applicable to programming at higher levels of abstraction (i.e. at the application level) where there is another layer of software between the programmer and the hardware and where resources are plentiful.
The computer science end of the spectrum tends to get into more theory (i.e. math) while the computer engineering end of the spectrum tends to focus more on applications of theory.