The primary reason to choose UMass Dartmouth for education in mechanical engineering is that we provide an excellent undergraduate education. It is often difficult if not impossible to find how good an education a potential undergraduate is going to get at a major research university. School rankings and academic reputation are based to a large degree on the quality of graduate programs. Nobel Prize winning faculty certainly improve a school's reputation, but a typical undergraduate may never get the chance to take a class from those research oriented faculty, let alone receive individual attention.
In Mechanical Engineering at UMass Dartmouth tenured or tenure track faculty teach all of our courses. Our teaching ability is the foremost criterion on which promotion decisions are made and we take our teaching seriously. Our laboratory sections are small (students work in groups of 3 or 4) so that everyone gets a hands-on-experience, and higher level courses can have as few as 10 students per class.
Similarly, all of our lab and computer facilities are primarily dedicated to undergraduate teaching. At many Universities across the country prospective undergraduates are shown lab facilities (graduate research labs) that look great, but no undergraduate has ever used. Prospective undergraduates should always ask how many undergraduates use the facilities they are being shown. At UMass Dartmouth the answer is always all of them.
The subsections on our web page will provide evidence that students in mechanical engineering at UMass Dartmouth receive a great education. They also provide information about the Dartmouth area and the campus. Nonetheless the most compelling reason to choose UMass Dartmouth mechanical engineering is that we care about undergraduate education.
In addition, the College of Engineering offers seven Masters Degree Programs and three Doctoral Degree Programs, including the Ph.D. Program in Engineering and Applied Science.
