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Engineering school named one of the best in the world

The rankings took several things into account, including academic quality and selectivity. | Justin Cross/ The Cougar

The University of Houston has one of the best engineering schools in the world, according to CEOWorld Magazine.

The magazine ranked the Cullen College of Engineering the 73rd best place in the world from which to earn an engineering degree. It was also ranked the third best engineering school in Texas behind the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University.

“Texas has a lot of good engineering schools, and UH is one of the top,” said mechanical engineering junior Josh Walden. “I only planned on applying to tier one schools, which UH engineering is, and because of that status, it brings a lot of good credentials to an engineering degree.”

CEOWorld’s 2017 ranking is based off of six factors: academic reputation, admission eligibility, job placement rate, recruiter feedback, specialization and global reputation and influence. The list is the result of a “rigorous analytical exercise, incorporating multiple data sources without relying on university data submissions.”

Additionally, the magazine conducted a detailed survey, collecting information from 188,000 people, including students, industry professionals and recruiters, across the six data points.

Each survey respondent was asked to rate the institutions on a scale from one, or “marginal,” to 100, or “outstanding.” UH’s 83.1 overall score indicates strong marks in each of the categories.

“There are a lot of companies looking for UH engineers,” Walden said. “I believe there were 147 companies represented at the career fair last fall. That’s another one of the criteria of how I valued UH, because they’re so close to all of the industry in Houston.”

Jacob Gallery, who graduated from the Cullen College in May, is now employed as a driveline engineer for Ford Motor Company in Michigan. He credits the engineering program with helping him find success immediately upon graduation, especially Jagannatha Rao, associate professor and associate chair of mechanical engineering.

“Dr. Rao was a very helpful guy when I was there,” Gallery said. “He wasn’t making things easy, but he actually helped us understand what it means to be an engineer. And while he was pretty hard, he did a very good job at teaching us. He’s what everybody calls ‘the gatekeeper.’”

Gallery, who enrolled at UH in 2012, said he felt like the school was getting tougher as the years went by, and the trends prove this to be true.

According to the University’s 2016-2017 institutional research report, the college of engineering had an admission rate of 58.3 percent for fall 2016, down from 68.1 percent in fall 2012.

“I feel like what they taught me has prepared me for a very, very fruitful career in engineering,” Gallery said. “I don’t think that I would’ve been able to be successful at engineering if I didn’t also do extracurricular activities like Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), but I wouldn’t be able to do those extracurricular activities if I wasn’t taught the right things in college.”

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