Webb Institute (WI) Introduction and Academics

Introduction

Welcome to Webb Institute, one of the most unusual colleges in the world, but also one of the best. Let’s set some things straight from the start:

Webb Institute was founded in 1889 by millionaire William H. Webb, one of the preeminent shipbuilders of the mid-nineteenth century, the era of the clipper ships.
The purpose of the school is to advance the art and science of shipbuilding in the United States by training promising young people for careers in that field; thus, Webb confers only one undergraduate degree: a Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
The Webb program is a full, four-year, intense engineering education.
All students receive a full-tuition scholarship for all four years. (Yes, it’s an almost-free education; the only costs are room, board, and books.)
The Webb campus is a mansion on Long Island Sound.
Only about eighty students attend in total, with a maximum of twenty-six in a class.
All Webb students have two months of practical work experience every winter, for a total of at least eight months experience upon graduation.
All Webb sophomores sail on ships for their winter work term, most overseas to the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.
Webb graduates are highly regarded in the maritime industry and eagerly recruited.
Webb’s placement rate is one hundred percent.
Graduates are regularly accepted into master’s programs at schools with prestigious graduate programs such as MIT and Stanford.
Webb is not a military school; it is a completely private institution, focusing primarily on the needs of the commercial shipbuilding market; therefore, students have no obligations to the school on goverment upon graduation.
The Webb degree is readily transferable to a wide range of other engineering disciplines, not only shipbuilding.
Webb is fully accredited.

To sum up, Webb Institute is one of the best (if not the best) engineering schools in the country, it’s basically free, and it happens to focus on ships. If you have never heard of Webb, don’t worry—many of the students presently attending didn’t know about it either until their senior year in high school, when they received an introductory brochure in the mail! But don’t let Webb’s small size and apparent obscurity fool you: Webb may be one of the best-kept secrets in academia, but certainly not in the maritime industry. If you are interested in getting a great job right out of college, with little debt, and you are smart and willing to work hard to learn about engineering in shipbuilding, then read on.

Webb Institute is a rare school; and like many rare things, it is invaluable, if you can recognize and appreciate it. Admittedly, Webb is not for everybody. It is a hard, taxing, and focused school. It’s like being in the Marine Corps for the mind. But the status and opportunity that come with a degree from Webb certainly make it all worthwhile. A Webb education is a topnotch education, certainly better for engineering than any Ivy League or technical school— and the price just can’t be beat. So, if you have the interest in ships, the smarts, and the stamina necessary to make it through Webb, by all means, DO IT! It may very well be the most accelerating four years your career will ever see.

Information Summary

Ranks 10th in New York and 83rd overall. See the entire top 2,000 colleges and universities list
Overall Score (about)	95.7
Total Cost On-Campus Attendance	$70,825
Admission Success rate	N/A
ACT / SAT 75%ile scores	34 / 1550
Student Ratio Students-to-Faculty	10 : 1
Retention (full-time / part-time)	100% / N/A
Enrollment Total (all students)	104

Academics

Webb is a hard school. There is no doubt about it. Nobody flies through Webb; everybody suffers alike. But that’s what makes it good, and the 146 credits required to graduate (that’s more than eighteen credits per semester) is only the tip of the iceberg. Add multiple field trips, highly respected faculty both in engineering and humanities classes, two months of practical work experience each year, and projects that few other schools dare to attempt—such as the senior thesis and the preliminary design of a large ship—and you begin to get the bigger picture. The incredible amount of learning and work that Webb crams into four years is what makes the school dear to alumni, and the alumni dear to employers.

Webb doesn’t teach you how to be smart. You’re already smart when you come here. Webb teaches you how to work.

Courses

Webb Institute confers only one undergraduate degree—the Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Everyone takes the same technical classes over the course of four years. There are about six classes per semester, on average, with one being a humanities class. Freshman year, the courses are mostly basic scientific courses, such as calculus, physics, and chemistry, as found in any good engineering school. Sophomore year, more fundamental engineering courses are presented, such as fluid dynamics, strength of materials, and thermodynamics. Then in the junior year, study tends toward more field-related work, beginning with ship resistance and propulsion and including ship structural analysis, ship auxiliary and steam systems, electrical engineering, and ship maneuverability. Finally, in the senior year, the courses are almost all marine-related and involve huge projects such as ship design, ship’s lines, machinery arrangement, propeller design, and a senior thesis of the student’s choosing. Despite the above trends, one of the many unique aspects of Webb is that naval architecture and marine engineering courses are presented throughout the four-year program, as early as first-semester freshman year. This tactic helps to keep students interested and to prepare them (especially freshmen and sophomores) for their winter work jobs.

There tend to be two kinds of students at Webb: those who are interested in small pleasure and utility craft and those who prefer to deal with large ocean-going commercial and military vessels. The Webb curriculum distinctly favors the latter; however, the engineering and marine fundamentals learned often can be transferred to the design of smaller boats. The small craft design course in the junior year helps this transition, and discussion of small craft technologies, such as fiberglass hulls, is included in other classes.

Disciplines

Another good point about the Webb curriculum is that it is quite streamlined, yet still broadbased. This apparent dichotomy is possible because of the nature of naval architecture and marine engineering. Consider all the disciplines involved in designing a ship. First, there is the hull moving through the water; the study of this action involves knowledge of hydrodynamics (and even aerodynamics—a modern rudder is a type of wing). Next, there is the hull itself; the design of adequate structural integrity requires a good understanding of the principles of civil engineering. Then there are the guts of the ship—all the machinery and electrical equipment. The design of these systems requires, for example, knowledge of combustion and heat transfer (chemical engineering), engines and other auxiliary machinery (mechanical engineering), and ship electrical power distribution and electronic control systems (electrical engineering). Elements of all these various disciplines must be learned, but in only one, four-year degree program. Therefore, to accelerate the learning process, only the highlights of each discipline are discussed. The fundamental engineering principles are taught first, followed by those aspects pertaining to shipbuilding (for example, the use of steel and fiberglass). Irrelevant aspects (such as concrete) are reserved for independent study. This somewhat narrow approach can be maddening to people with purely scientific interests, but is great for those with an engineering inclination who “just want to use it.”

Humanities

There is one humanities class each semester. Standard topics range from technical communications to U.S. foreign policy to ethics. Occasionally, students are able to have some choice in what humanities courses they take, such as during the first semester of junior year, when the class, interacting with the faculty, decides on topics for three to four electives. Professor Richard Harris, the sole full-time humanities professor currently at Webb, teaches several of the Webb courses, and the rest are taught by adjuncts, many of whom are fairly well-known in their fields. Through all these classes, Webb students can broaden their horizons and hone their communication skills, as much as is possible from a highly technical program. As alumni attest, many employers are impressed with the excellent writing and speaking abilities of Webb graduates.

When students grow sick of ships, they can take a break and work on their humanities classes.

Classrooms and Faculty

One of the big benefits of Webb is how conducive the environment is to learning. Each class (such as the sophomores) has its own classroom, with a workstation in it for each student. Almost all the classes are held in these four classrooms; the students stay put and the professors are the ones who have to run to their next class! Classes begin at 9:00 A.M. and go to noon; after an hour of lunch, they continue until three. On Monday mornings, there is a special one-hour lecture by a guest speaker from industry. Although these arrangements may be reminiscent of third grade with Mrs. Hoag, there is nothing elementary about the faculty or the lectures. The student-to-faculty ratio is around seven to one. All the Webb professors have earned master’s degrees, and several have earned doctorates. The small class size and common coursework enable the professors to gauge how much the students know and how much remains to be covered. Students often interrupt the lectures with questions, which the professors welcome, as this promotes understanding and allows the professors to move swiftly over the simple stuff and dwell more on the difficult material. After classes, the professors are readily available to answer further questions and to help students with problems.

Library, Computers, and Labs

After classes are done for the day, many students work together in the classroom, or in the Livingston Library, which is open twenty-four hours a day (like the rest of the campus) and contains one of the best collections on naval architecture and marine engineering in the country. All students are given laptops when they enter Webb and the campus facilities are completely covered by a wireless network with full Internet access. High-quality printers and a high-speed plotter are available, as well as a photocopier—all for free. The student-run bookstore provides everything else necessary, from notebook paper to rulers to coffee mugs. Laboratory equipment is not always state-of-the-art, but it is adequate. There are chemistry, materials science, and physics laboratories in the basement of the main building, and marine engineering, fluids, and electrical engineering laboratories in the Haeberle Laboratory building. Special equipment in the Haeberle Laboratory includes a complete boiler/turbine steam system, two diesel engines with dynamometer, and a flow channel.

The Towing Tank

The pride of Webb is the Robinson Model Basin. This basin is a long tank of water in which scale models of ships’ hulls are towed and their performance variables are measured. Significant recent research in the basin includes testing of commercial and military hull form, yachts, and systematic study of high-speed multi hulls.

Workload

It is appropriate at this point to emphasize the intense workload at Webb. Four hours per night tends to be the typical amount of time spent on homework, but it can often be much higher than that. Pulling all-nighters for major projects and even regular homework assignments is all too common. Most of the work is not overly difficult; it’s just that there’s so much of it that it takes forever to do. How to handle all that pressure is one of the major lessons that students learn at Webb. The other one is how to work together to have a shot at getting all the work done.

What do you call the guy who graduates last in the class? A naval architect!

Winter Work Program

Last but certainly not least is the winter work program. To understand this program, you must first understand Webb’s unusual calendar year, which runs as follows: Fall semester starts at the end of August and goes until winter break; spring semester starts at the beginning of March and goes until late June. This arrangement leaves two two-month breaks in the year: January through February and July through August. The summer break is just that—time off that’s free of scholastic obligations. For the winter break, however, all students are required to work at jobs that are related to the maritime industry, sort of like coop jobs or internships. The school finds jobs with shipyards for freshmen who work hands-on as apprentices doing welding, fitting, etc. For sophomores, the school arranges berths on merchant ships, where the students work as cadet observers in the engine rooms and on decks, doing routine maintenance. Of course, one of the perks is that students get to travel, sometimes even overseas to the Caribbean, Europe, or Asia, depending on the particular ship. Junior and senior year, however, students are on their own and must find maritime, engineering-related jobs. Most students get jobs in shipyard engineering departments or separate design or consulting offices, though a wide range of opportunities exists because Webb is fairly broad on what it considers marine-related work. Increasingly, students are going international, finding jobs all over the world. Thus, by the time a student graduates from Webb, he or she has first-hand experience of how a ship is designed and engineered, how it is physically constructed, and how it is operated at sea. This knowledge is invaluable to employers, especially when some competing graduates from other naval architecture schools have never even set foot on a deck!

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Admissions

The admissions form asks basic questions, such as, “Who are you? Where do you live? What do you like to do?” Other paperwork includes teacher evaluations, high school transcript, college transcript, if you have taken any courses at the college level, and proof of citizenship or green card. That’s about it. Many students say the Webb application was the easiest one they filled out.

What kind of student does Webb want? The school was founded to entice the brightest and best young people in the United States to pursue careers in shipbuilding, mainly by offering them a great education at no cost; therefore, Webb has set very high standards for prospective freshmen. Applicants must be in the top ten percent of their high school class and have a minimum GPA of 3.5. They must also take both the SAT and the SAT Subject Tests in Mathematics Level I or II, and Physics or Chemistry. A minimum score of 600 Verbal and 660 Math on the SAT is required. Applicants must either be United States citizens, nativeborn or naturalized, or hold a green card showing permanent residency and have attended a secondary school in the United States or its possessions or territories.

Webb also wants people who will do well in the Webb environment, with particular regard to the smallness of the school and the academic emphasis on ships and engineering. This means that people who are well-rounded and have at least some social skills are preferable to those who just sit in a corner and stare at the wall. Also, prospective freshmen must show dedication at least to engineering, if not to shipbuilding specifically. These qualities show through in the extracurricular activities that an applicant lists on the form and through the required personal interview with the president of the school.

A couple of side notes are in order here. First, Webb accepts incoming students only as freshmen; in other words, there is no transferring from another school into the upper classes of Webb. Second, Webb does not give any Advanced Placement credit. So, in short, everyone starts out equally at Webb. However, this fact should not discourage Webb wannabees from taking AP classes in high school, particularly calculus, because it may give them a slight edge in admissions (as well as make the first-semester race through integrals a little easier).

So what are an applicant’s chances of acceptance? They are better than they might first appear, considering that only twenty-five freshmen are admitted each year. Stephen Ostendorff, the Director of Student Services and Admissions, describes the admissions process from his perspective in this way: First, the qualified students are separated from the unqualified students, based upon their application forms and SAT scores. This first cut typically narrows down the applicant pool to about seventy. Next, Steve starts inviting the top prospects to the school for interviews; as they accept, the marginally qualified students are dropped from the bottom of the list. Over thirty of the seventy are invited for interviews, because sometimes after the interview, the school realizes that the prospective student is not right for it or the prospective student realizes Webb is not right for him or her. Steve said the really tough decisions are about the students in the “forty-to-fifty” range. These students are qualified, but ultimately some are not pursued because of the high yield among the top thirty applicants. In summary, then, if an applicant meets Webb’s academic standards, he or she stands greater than a fifty/fifty chance of acceptance. Then if that applicant is invited to interview and really wants to go to Webb, he or she stands a very good chance of getting in.

There’s one last item about admissions: It is Webb’s policy not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, gender, or physical handicap, but does have physical and mental requirements due to the strenuous nature of the winter work and curricular program. This fact is important to keep in mind, especially when visiting the campus, because one quickly realizes that the vast majority of students are white males. However, female and minority students historically have not had any major problems with the students or the school. Webb’s mission is to educate the best people, period. Basically, if you’re a minority and you don’t mind being in the minority, Webb is still a fine school for you to consider attending.

Financial Aid

Financial aid can be very simple at Webb. First of all, Webb provides a full-tuition scholarship to all students; this is possible because of a huge endowment created by the beneficence of William Webb and the generous contributions of others. Thus, the only major expenses are about $7,000 a year for room and board (living in a mansion is not cheap!) and about $300 to $700 per semester for books (though for the first semester of freshman year it’s more like $900 for books). However, Webb Institute is dedicated to providing whatever financial aid is necessary to allow all students to attend, because that was one of William Webb’s original stipulations when he founded the school and donated his millions to it. First of all, Webb participates in the Pell Grant program and the Family Federal Educational Loan program, which includes Plus and Stafford loans. Any further needs are met with Webb’s various own scholarships. The bottom line is that graduates from Webb don’t have the tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt to pay off that many graduates from other top-notch schools do, and any debt that Webbies do incur is small and easily paid off with the high starting salaries that Webb graduates procure.

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Ranks 6345th for the average student loan amount.
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Students

It is most unfortunate: a stellar social life is one of those things that students generally have to give up when they come to Webb for their college education. There is just no way that a school averaging around eighty undergraduates can offer the same amount of social diversity and opportunity that, say, a state school with 20,000 students can offer. This hard fact, coupled with the intense technical workload that Webb requires and (for many male students, at least) the realization that, in some years, you can count the female students on two hands and a foot, tends to make life at Webb seem almost monastic at times.

Most Webbies laugh sarcastically when someone mentions social life at Webb.

The above view is overly pessimistic, however. On those rare moments when you’re through with your work and you finally have time to look around you, Webb is actually a great place to live. There is an active choral group and a theatrical troupe for students’ artistic outlets. From the campus, to sports, to the student organization, to being directly on Long Island Sound, to the City of Glen Cove, to nearby New York City, Webb has many positive attractions to enjoy.

The Campus

For starters, life at Webb is about as comfortable as a middle-class undergrad could hope for. The Webb campus is the former estate of Herbert L. Pratt, who is irrelevant to our story here except for the fact that he owned a really nice house on a really nice piece of property in a really nice area, and now it’s Webb’s. More specifically, Webb’s mansion is located on twenty-six acres of prime waterfront property on beautiful Long Island Sound, in an area nicknamed the “Gold Coast” because of all the rich people who built their lavish estates here back in the Roaring Twenties.

Think The Great Gatsby, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the look of the place. Or, if you haven’t read that book, you can watch the movie Batman Forever and look for Webb as the exterior of Wayne Manor; the outdoor shots were filmed here in 1994!

The main building is the mansion, of course. It houses all the important things on its three floors, including all four classrooms in the wings, undergraduate male residence, dining room, library, the academic laboratories, lecture hall, laundry room, computer room, faculty offices, and administrative offices. What this means is that a male student can stay completely indoors for whole weeks at a time (though this is not recommended). The female undergraduate students, on the other hand, have their dorm rooms on the second floor of the nearby Robinson Model Basin, so they are forced to get fresh air every day as they stroll a few yards over to the main building for classes and meals. Both male and female rooms are relatively spacious and are adequately furnished, with two students per room being typical. Phone jacks and TV hookups are in each room. All in all, it’s a nice place to live.

Conveniences

What are really nice are all the conveniences that Webb offers. The food service provides three meals a day during the week and brunch and dinner on weekends, and the chefs do an excellent job (honestly, this is the best college food in the universe). Little things like free soap, a linen service, fifty-cent washers and dryers, free laundry detergent and bleach, and ample parking for all students (including freshmen) make life just that much easier. Also, the Student Organization (S.O.) services are particularly helpful. The S.O. treasury allows students to cash checks and make deposits and withdrawals. The S.O. kitchen allows students to refrigerate and microwave their own food. The S.O. bookstore has just about every academic tool necessary for classes. Other facilities include the S.O. garage, wood shop, and machine shop. All these services are accessible twenty-four hours a day. Almost anything a person needs to live and work comfortably can be found on campus, which is a big plus for students without cars.

The S.O.

The Student Organization merits further explanation. Basically, students govern themselves, and to a degree not found at most other schools. All students are members of the S.O. and agree to abide by the S.O. Handbook and the Honor Code. The handbook lays out all the chairmanships and rules, and the Honor Code forbids stealing, cheating, etc. Such documents are not peculiar to Webb; many schools have them. What is different about Webb is that students actually govern themselves by these rules, for the most part. Thus, a tour of Webb will reveal unusual practices, such as dorm rooms with locks operated only from the inside, attic storage of students’ belongings, books and calculators left on classroom desks and library tables, and the aforementioned twenty-four-hour-a-day access to almost every public room and building on campus. This freedom does not mean that Webb is unsafe, however.

During the day, everyone is everywhere on campus, and with only eighty-some students, everybody knows everybody who should be there. A student Officer of the Day is also on duty to greet guests. At night, hired security patrols the campus. In short, Webb has not had any serious crimes in a long, long while, and any minor offenses are usually dealt with by the S.O. Honor Council and the school administration. Thus, students at Webb don’t have to worry like students at other schools do about the safety of themselves and their belongings.

Social Events

Webb has several social events throughout the year, both large and small, formal and informal. A small event may be an evening of eating, drinking, and shooting pool and the breeze in the student pub while a local guy plucks out some songs on his guitar. Big events include Homecoming, Parents Weekend, the Beach, Halloween and Christmas parties, and the biggest one of all—Webbstock. Webbstock is held on a Saturday in June, just before the school year is out, and entails six or seven bands (some of them famous), free drinks and food, and all sorts of sports, games, and activities out on the terraces under the hot sun in front of the blue Sound. It’s quite an experience.

Student Enrollment Demographics

Student Graduation Demographics

Athletics

There are many sports and activities at Webb to help students eat up all their free time. For athletics, Webb belongs to the Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference, a sports league of small schools in the area. (Although it says Men’s Athletic Conference, women are welcome to and often do play on the teams—it’s really more like coed sports.) Many students play sports which include basketball and volleyball (played in the gymnasium), soccer (on Thorpe Field), tennis (on the two courts on campus), sailing, and cross-country. For sailing, Webb owns several 420s for competition on the Sound, in addition to Lasers and two motorboats— all for qualified students to use. For personal fitness, Webb has some weight equipment in the gym; also, students can use the Glen Cove YMCA at no cost, with its complete weight room, pool, and gym. Actually, since Webb athletics are run pri marily by the students, if students want to start a sport not currently offered, they can form a team, call up other schools in the area that have the sport, and, Presto! there’s competition.

Look, Ma, I’m playing college basketball!

The above description may make talented athletes and sports enthusiasts cringe when they read it. Admittedly, you’ll never see Webb in the NCAA basketball final four or in the Rose Bowl. However, the general informality of Webb athletics does not mean that athletes do not play hard or that competition is not fierce and fun. All of the Webb teams have won several games in their recent seasons. The sailing team is particularly good and regularly places highly in regattas, occasionally beating schools like Cornell and the U.S. Naval Academy. And this success is all achieved with ordinary students, not elite athletes. Many students who would not otherwise ever play intercollegiate sports can show up for practices and then proceed to beat the tar out of teams from schools ten times larger. Or, if that’s not your style, you can play on an intramural team and just beat the tar out of your roommate.

Local Community

Finally, some reports indicate that there is life outside of Webb. Glen Cove is a quiet suburban town, with a movie theater, various stores, several different churches and houses of worship, public beaches and parks, and the all-important Taco Bell (it stays open the latest). Students with musical talent are welcome to join the North Shore Symphony Orchestra. In addition, students can hop on the Long Island Rail Road and be at Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan in under an hour and a half. Of course, if you have a car, all of Long Island and New York City is within a couple of hours driving time, at most. Students also participate in the Solar Splash Competition. The students work all year on a solar electric boat and then travel to the competition, which has recently been in Buffalo and Arkansas. So, in summary, there are a lot of fun things to do at Webb, both on and off campus, if you have the time…if you have the time.

Alumni

After four excruciating years, it’s nice to know that you can get into just about any graduate school in the country or go straight into industry with a high-paying job and a promising future. Webb’s record is one-hundred-percent placement, even in an industry that has been shrinking in the United States for the past couple of decades. And, by the way, ships aren’t in any danger of extinction! That kind of security is really hard to beat in an era of corporate downsizing.

First of all, let’s reiterate: Webb is NOT a military school. There are no obligations whatsoever upon graduation, not even to stay in the maritime industry. You’re free to do as you please with your life.

The next question, of course, is, “What do you do with a degree in naval architecture and marine engineering?” It’s a good question, with a multitude of answers. Webbies always seem to be in demand at shipyards across the country, where they do engineering work as they design the ships of the future. Independent design and consulting offices offer attractive jobs with many different kinds of technical work. The offshore industry needs (and pays well for) Webb graduates. Just about any shore-based maritime work is open for graduates, since the Webb degree covers many different areas of learning. Outside of the maritime industry, there are many engineering jobs for which Webb graduates are qualified, especially if they obtain a master’s degree in the particular field. Actually, Webb graduates are not even limited to engineering; business, managerial, and finance positions seem to be popular destinations among the alumni. Basically, the rule of thumb seems to be that as long as there is a maritime industry, Webb graduates will always have jobs.

To be completely honest, the demand for Webb grads does not rest solely on the quality of the Webb education, no matter how good it is. In reality, the way many Webb students get jobs for winter work and after graduation is by calling up Webb alumni who work at the particular companies of interest. Many of the key people in the maritime industry are Webb alumni, and they are usually more than willing to help a fellow Webbie get a job. This reality After four excruciating years, it’s nice to know that you can get into just about any graduate school in the country or go straight into industry with a high-paying job and a promising future. Webb’s record is one-hundred-percent placement, even in an industry that has been shrinking in the United States for the past couple of decades. And, by the way, ships aren’t in any danger of extinction! That kind of security is really hard to beat in an era of corporate downsizing.

Webb Institute