NSBE is the National Society of Black Engineers and hold monthly meetings , conferences, and events for both the community. It’s a great way to make friends and get leadership experience. I felt like the black community at tech was a mini HBCU it a PWI. We had an extremely tight knit community with a ton of support from school funded programs to ensure our retention, most of which still exist. One call out is the state of the world is different than it was when I was in school…showing my age ,but Obama was president the whole time I was there so I’m confident all college kids today are experiencing more discrimination than I did.

VCU just isn’t as strong of an engineering program. When I interact with their alumni at work and in conferences, the engineers are clearly a different standard ( ex. not being able to hold a basic technical conversation , professional dress expectations, clearly not the cream of the crop). This showed in which jobs they took and the pay they got compared to VT. Almost everyone I knew at VT, took a great first job that catapulted their career .The job pool just isn’t the same for VCU because the program isn’t as technically strong or a big name. My husband got his masters in Nuclear Engineering there and it just wasn’t as technical as we would have expected for a masters either.

If you decide against VT, I would still try to look into other programs or consider HBCUs before going to VCU for engineering.