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My youngest is going to Olin college of engineering next fall and we talk about debt a lot. We had a conversation last night about debt. We are blessed that Oli

by epalmer 10y ago

My youngest is going to Olin college of engineering next fall and we talk about debt a lot. We had a conversation last night about debt. We are blessed that Olin is a needs based school that provides grants (debt free) for families that can't fully afford college. They want their students to have a little debt (skin in the game) but we are talking a little not a lot. We talk about personal finance, net worth, investing, saving for retirement and many related topics. I am an engineer by training and a computer scientist by career. My wife has done a lot of accounting most of her life. Also right now the career prospects in engineering are good. I work at a university so I see the downside often of student debt and bad major choices.

roymurdock 10y ago
Highly recommend that your son/daughter cross register for biz classes (negotiations, basic accounting) at Babson and a liberal arts class or 2 at Wellesley in junior/senior year. The best class I took at Babson was a combination biz/engineering course at Olin called Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship. The lead instructor, Ben Linder, is amazing. Wrote more about the project/experience here if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13312978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13312978 Olin is a great school (can't beat the price), and every student I've worked with and learned from at Olin has been great. So congrats, you should be very proud of your kid! Definitely making a smart choice.
- epalmer 10y ago
  @roymurdock Thanks so much. She is planning on taking a class or two Babson and Wellesley. We are pretty excited about Olin. She is doing a gap year this year as an Americorp Vista FIRST Robotics employee. She was mature already but the gap year has really helped her thinking develop in critical ways. So gap years are recommended when it can be worked out. Edit: added a "Pretty cool" Pretty cool project. Thanks for sharing.
  - erroneousfunk 10y ago
    I graduated from Olin, never took a class at Babson, but would also highly recommend classes at Wellesley. The major downside to Olin is that it's very small and the humanities offerings are very scarce and not comprehensive at all. Olin has a four class humanities requirement for graduation and you're required to have a "theme" to the classes so that you have a sort of "humanities concentration." Some students don't really think about this until senior year, at which point they panic, take a couple more classes, and submit some sort of hand-wavey statement that tries to tie together all the extremely different classes they took. I took Russian 101, 102, 201, and 202 over the course of 2 years at Wellesley and it was fantastic. I would highly recommend that she think about, not just her engineering major, but what topic she wants to pursue in the arts or humanities. If you make a decision in your freshman/sophomore year and pursue a specific set of classes it's an amazing opportunity to pick up a new skill/hobby, or expand on an existing one.

by epalmer 10y ago

roymurdock 10y ago

Highly recommend that your son/daughter cross register for biz classes (negotiations, basic accounting) at Babson and a liberal arts class or 2 at Wellesley in junior/senior year. The best class I took at Babson was a combination biz/engineering course at Olin called Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship. The lead instructor, Ben Linder, is amazing. Wrote more about the project/experience here if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13312978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13312978 Olin is a great school (can't beat the price), and every student I've worked with and learned from at Olin has been great. So congrats, you should be very proud of your kid! Definitely making a smart choice.

epalmer 10y ago
@roymurdock Thanks so much. She is planning on taking a class or two Babson and Wellesley. We are pretty excited about Olin. She is doing a gap year this year as an Americorp Vista FIRST Robotics employee. She was mature already but the gap year has really helped her thinking develop in critical ways. So gap years are recommended when it can be worked out. Edit: added a "Pretty cool" Pretty cool project. Thanks for sharing.
- erroneousfunk 10y ago
  I graduated from Olin, never took a class at Babson, but would also highly recommend classes at Wellesley. The major downside to Olin is that it's very small and the humanities offerings are very scarce and not comprehensive at all. Olin has a four class humanities requirement for graduation and you're required to have a "theme" to the classes so that you have a sort of "humanities concentration." Some students don't really think about this until senior year, at which point they panic, take a couple more classes, and submit some sort of hand-wavey statement that tries to tie together all the extremely different classes they took. I took Russian 101, 102, 201, and 202 over the course of 2 years at Wellesley and it was fantastic. I would highly recommend that she think about, not just her engineering major, but what topic she wants to pursue in the arts or humanities. If you make a decision in your freshman/sophomore year and pursue a specific set of classes it's an amazing opportunity to pick up a new skill/hobby, or expand on an existing one.