On Saturday, April 8, we will welcome hundreds of accepted students onto campus with family and friends to look at our College and University. It is an exciting time of year, although I know the decision of choosing a University can be daunting for a student and family.

I know I am biased, but it is hard for me to believe that there is a better value than UMass Lowell for any student interested in Engineering – especially for those from Massachusetts. Our programs are nationally ranked and ABET accredited, with companies all over the globe coveting our graduates (our placement rate was 96% in the College last year). But I believe it is the experiential learning opportunities that truly define a UMass Lowell education. At Lowell, students can be:

• Competitors: Join a team and compete in concrete canoe, steel bridge, chemical car, SAE car, embedded systems, digital design, design-build-fly, solar house, wind energy and more!
• Designers: Hang out in our 8500 ft.² Makerspace and take napkin sketches to computer-aided-designs to prototypes to final products using the latest equipment, including 3D-Printers, Laser Cutters, CNC Lathes and Milling Machines.
• Educators: The best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Our service-learning courses allow students to go into the community and teach STEM subject matter to middle and high school students.       This can be formalized into a teaching certificate through our UTeach program.
• Innovators: Our DifferenceMaker curriculum cover the process of defining a problem, developing a solution, identifying a market, working in a team, and pitching a solution. Compete for real prize money to develop your product or service in our Prototyping Competition each fall and the Idea Challenge each spring.
• Professionals: Take the necessary steps to becoming a practicing engineer by participating in our professional co-op program, internships, or industrial experiences. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary senior design option will allow you to solve a problem posed by an industrial sponsor.
• Researchers: Explore cutting edge technologies in a variety of fields, including clean energy, nanomanufacturing, flexible electronics, composites, structural health monitoring, biomanufacturing, sensors, and smart transportation.

And this is really just a taste of being a RiverHawk. There is always something happening on campus to motivate further learning. It really is no surprise that publications such as Payscale.com, BestColleges.com and Forbes define us as a great value.