A decade after starting college

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>I started college in 2001, UCLA in 2002, and graduated in 2005. Not long after, I did my graduate work and started working.</p>

<p>While my career is still pretty new, I thought I'd share a few of my experiences with a forum I once frequented.</p>

<p>First of all, I would like to suggest to everyone who will listen that they take as much quantitative coursework as they can stomach. It's fine to major in something like English or political science, but for goodness' sake, please do yourself a favor and at least take basic econ and as much math as you can. The economy is rather miserable as it is, and the more "hard" skills you have, the better off you are in the marketplace. </p>

<p>Secondly, don't go to grad school right after undergrad. Just don't. If you can, at least work a couple of years. Older graduate students tend to be more focused, mature, and have a better idea of why they're spending two or more years and tens of thousands of dollars. </p>

<p>Thirdly, learn a language. The honest to God truth is that almost nothing I learned in college, except for Japanese, has been directly applicable to my adult life. If it weren't for the fact that I studied Japanese, I would not have gotten two of my biggest career breaks thus far. Please, please, please learn a language. That includes doing EAP if you can manage.</p>

<p>So, in sum here's what I have to say about my UCLA degree: nobody cares.</p>

<p>That's about it. Nobody cares. You know why? Because it doesn't matter. UCLA is a good school, but there are probably two dozen schools that have an edge in public perception. </p>

<p>Yes, even Berkeley still has an edge. A significant edge. I didn't realize that until almost half a decade out of school. Stanford, and all those hoity toity private universities trump UCLA. Even quiet little Pomona and its brethren make do.</p>

<p>But here's where you're lucky: that doesn't matter. Your degree will be at the bottom of your resume in about five years anyway, rendering it nothing more than a footnote in your career. In the end, YOU will matter. Not the degree. The biggest, most important thing I learned after 4 years of undergrad and 2 years of grad was that the most important thing wasn't where I went to school or what I studied, but who I was and what I did with it.</p>

<p>In short, if you are the proudest Bruin on Earth, maybe tone it down a bit. There's a big cruel world out there that won't care. If you're still upset about not getting into Cal or Stanford or one of the other "top" universities, don't worry. It won't matter. In the end, all that matters, whether you are proud or just settled, is what you do at UCLA. </p>

<p>I may not care about UCLA sports, and I'll probably never be the alumnus who donates a bunch or gets involved, but I am glad for the opportunities that being at UCLA afforded me.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input.</p>

<p>Might I ask what you majored in and what your first few jobs entailed?</p>

<p>I’m assuming if one is to become a computer programmer, then the classes he will take in computer science will be very beneficial if not required for his post college life.</p>

<p>However if that same student became a consultant or some business manager, many of the technical skills he learned in college would not always be directly applicable to adult life.</p>

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<p>All solid advice.</p>

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<p>For north campus majors: take more statistics.</p>

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<p>I agree. It may seem tempting to just jump right into grad school because of the weak economy. But it will be worse if you enter a graduate program and find out you’re not really passionate about the subject. As an added bonus, some employers may actually pay for your Masters degree, and you can tailor the focus to your job at that time. </p>

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Exactly this. Your degree won’t guarantee you a job. 5 years down the line, your GPA will not matter. Experience trumps all.</p>

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Oh please. Even if Berkeley has a “significant edge” over UCLA in the marketplace, there are no other major universities to fill the void between the two schools in California.</p>

<p>The Claremont Colleges, CalTech, and Stanford pump out an insignificant number of graduates every year and a significant number of students from these “big name” colleges don’t even ever stay in California! UCLA is, at worst, distant second best with no alternatives. In Southern California, UCLA is even more of a force. (Employers aren’t going to wait for their hair to gray to find a graduate from Pomona to spite UCLA.)</p>

<p>Don’t pin your own career failings and hardships on the fine name of this institution. It was your own decision to choose a Liberal Arts career path and continue it at UC San Diego.</p>

<p>EDIT: Also, if your opinion is that institution of origin doesn’t matter, why did you even bring up this statement? You’re only going to rile up UCLA students.</p>

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<p>CremieuxR,</p>

<p>I was poli sci and Japanese. What poli sci offered me indirectly was the ability to read large amounts of text and write well. That, I will say, was quite helpful.</p>

<p>My first job out of college was teaching English in Japan. I did that because I wanted to go work on my Japanese language, not to be a teacher. After that I went to grad school (too quickly, I might add), and ended up with a job at NHK Japan Broadcasting as a business/economics journalist. I am now with a large cellular carrier doing business development and market analysis. You’re right that if I had done engineering or accounting, my classes would have applied a helluva lot more, but I can’t tell everyone to major in engineering, now can I?</p>

<p>Most of my skills have either been learned on the job or have been Japanese. </p>

<p>rpicton,

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<p>Oh goodness yes. Not only will this prepare you for business school if you decide on that, most jobs will somehow involve statistics today anyway.</p>

<p>If I could go back, I’d spend more time doing OLS and Bayesian analysis. You cannot believe how much I use statistics even in silly little day-to-day work things. </p>

<p>Also, learn Excel. If you can, master pivot tables. Employers love pivot tables. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>sentimentGX4,</p>

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<p>Why limit yourself to California, though?</p>

<p>If you have the stats to get into UCLA, you have a reasonable shot at plenty of other schools nationwide, including Michigan, which is a fantastic institution.</p>

<p>I realize that if you’re already at UCLA it’s kind of “too late,” but the fact is that with California’s economy being in the stinker, it’s pretty hard to focus solely on California anyway.</p>

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<p>You do know that I did my master’s in business/economics right?</p>

<p>I’m quite happy with my career, actually: I’m easily in the top 10% of earners in the US at the age of 27. I’m not saying that my career is by any means bad-- in fact, my career has been quite interesting in all of 5 years. I’ve worked in three countries, two states, and for two of the most prestigious Japanese organizations. I’m doing okay, and given my trajectory, I can say I’ll probably be in the Gibson middle class in a decade or less.</p>

<p>I’m not blaming UCLA for crap.</p>

<p>What I’m saying is that UCLA wasn’t that gold seal that maybe Berkeley would have been. But so what? My resume speaks for itself, and yes, UCLA offered me the opportunities that helped me get it there. What’s important for young graduates is to realize that it won’t be UCLA that gets them the job. Hell, the networking outside of SoCal is pretty lackluster at best, in my experience. It’ll be them. UCLA can get you to where you want to be. But you might have to work just a bit harder than someone else.</p>

<p>But that’s life. And life is hard.</p>

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<p>Because it’s what I’ve experienced? Because during my interviews, I’ve maybe spent all of ten seconds discussing my schools, and the rest of the interview discussing my work experience.</p>

<p>Let me give you another example: when I started my current gig, they hired two people. Me and one other gentleman. The other gentleman went to a small public in Illinois and Thunderbird. Not exactly “world famous” schools, to be sure. However, he had 10 years of experience on me and a ton of more experience in business development. So he started with a better title and more responsibility.</p>

<p>That’s how the real world works. </p>

<p>Now, in 10 years, I’ll easily be at his level, if not further. However, it won’t be my degree that gets me there. It’ll be me. </p>

<p>That’s why I’m stressing that students should focus more on quant, more on bringing skills to the table. Because at that first interview, it won’t be, “Wow, you went to UCLA.” It’ll be, “What can you do for us?”</p>

<p>Bring skills and experience to the table and you’ll go far.</p>

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The state of Michigan is in an even worse rut than California and the UMichigan suffers from a much worse regional reputation than UCLA given all the “public universities are garbage” views back East. You speak as if UCLA is bottom rung but Michigan is really bottom rung given the major private alternatives near there.</p>

<p>At least UCLA has a regional stronghold in one of the United States’ economic epicenters. The suggestion that Michigan is a smarter choice than UCLA based on name is quite offensive to the institution and untrue. </p>

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The Berkeley name is not a “gold seal”. There are a number of universities with better name than Berkeley everywhere. </p>

<p>For example, you mentioned Stanford and the Claremont Colleges earlier. Berkeley would not be above any of those institutions if one were knowledgeable.</p>

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So you’ve come back to tell those from your alma mater that there is no worse decision than UCLA despite the fact that university name does not matter?</p>

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<p>Having lived now in a few states and on both the East and West Coast, my experience is that Michigan does quite well out here, and if you want to break into the East Coast’s big employers, it has a stronger network.</p>

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<p>I never said that. I’m saying that there are plenty of options outside of UCLA if you don’t want to go to Cal and didn’t get into Stanford. You just have to look outside of California.</p>

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<p>Silver seal? 14K gold seal instead of 18K gold? It’s pretty solid, even on the East Coast.</p>

<p>You’re right that Stanford and Claremont Colleges do really well, though. </p>

<p>However, you have to assume that employers ARE knowledgeable. That’s sometimes a dangerous bet, to be honest. Especially when dealing with the very much automated HR filters in place these days. </p>

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<p>Where did I say that? I’m saying that UCLA can give you the tools to succeed, but that my experience, after years of work experience, is that it isn’t quite Berkeley in terms of name brand. However, despite that, given how much of your job trajectory is self-governed, it really doesn’t matter a whole lot. I’m saying that even if Berkeley might have an edge in public perception, it’s meaningless a few years out.</p>

<p>Yeah, you might not have that edge for your first job, and if you do leave CA, you might have a tougher time, but it doesn’t matter. Once you do get a job (and if you are smart, you will), then you’ll do great as long as you are willing to work hard and perform well.</p>

<p>I don’t see how this is so controversial. All I’m saying is that your future is in your hands. I would think that this is pretty good.</p>

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<p>I agree with what UCLAri said. Experience is far more valuable than the name of school. If you don’t have experience, you are guarantee that you will start off low. People here are so concentrated at the name of school because they think that the name, UCLA will land you a job. Kinda sad.</p>

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<p>Look, the fact is that UCLA WILL help you at job time because many top tier employers come to the job fairs.</p>

<p>[UCLA</a> Career Center](<a href=“http://career.ucla.edu/Students/CareerFairs/ArchivesPreviousFairs/Fall2010_JobsForBruins_WedOct6.aspx]UCLA”>http://career.ucla.edu/Students/CareerFairs/ArchivesPreviousFairs/Fall2010_JobsForBruins_WedOct6.aspx)</p>

<p>But I notice a number of employers at Cal that don’t go to UCLA:</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Fairs/Cal.pdf[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Fairs/Cal.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, let’s say I don’t get that dream job right out the gate. Oh well. I just kick butt at my first gig and get a job at something even better later. No big deal.</p>

<p>But there is no arguing that you don’t have at least a significant employer advantage out the gate at Cal job fairs, which I think is really helpful-- and is a good metric of what employers think of the respective campuses.</p>

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<p>sGX4- I think you’re seeing an attack on UCLA, when there really isn’t any IMHO. </p>

<p>UCLAri’s got some good insights and I appreciate you taking the time to come back and post it.</p>

<p>Just to add to the thoughts, at first the degree will somewhat matter though (at some of the top organizations in this world) but you can only do as best as you can. </p>

<p>Interviewing at Google, for one of their prestigious non-engineering rotational programs (RAMP, before I switched to doing product management) I remember being the only UCLA student on the bus (out of 24 folks in my interview group). There was one other person from Berkeley, but many were MIT, Harvard, UPenn, Stanford and Brown. </p>

<p>A good piece of advice in general that I’d like to add would be to continually look for more opportunities to improve your resume or your business savvy (or whatever domain of knowledge is) because at the end of the day, you’re competing against some serious top notch competition. They’ll have more resources to prepare them (yes, pampering from their career centers) so you’ll do well to get as far ahead as you can. </p>

<p>I was accepted to Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, waitlisted at Stanford. UCLA was not in my top 7 list of schools for where I wanted to attend, and I came here only after having a very frank conversation of my parents about not being able to afford Columbia. It’s funny to think though, that I’d still probably be in the same position - just now I’m 100k less in debt and still with a job at Microsoft that will pay very very well. Random anecdote, but it may be helpful for some on this board.</p>

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<p>Deuces,</p>

<p>Actually, what I missed-- and this is a glaring oversight on my part-- is to do internships.</p>

<p>Do lots and lots of stuff outside of school, but particularly internships. Having a network outside of your friends and some professors will make a huge difference when it comes to getting that first job. It will also show your future employers that you can handle something besides exams and studying, which is incredibly important.</p>

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<p>I’ll echo that. Try to do paid ones if you can (can’t really help it if you’re in media entertainment/sports) but usually after freshman/sophomore year look through friends & family and junior year do winter recruiting with the on-campus crowd (or whatever place you want to work with after you graduate). If you can handle an internship during the school year, that’ll help out as well.</p>

<p>I don’t want to give too much away, but during my summers I interned at a technology/security company, a small non-profit in clean energy, and a large technology consulting firm. Each of these experiences led to collectively to the next jobs and opportunities.</p>

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<p>I’m an engineer and the UCLA name gave me plenty of opportunities UCI or UCSD probably wouldn’t have been able to.</p>

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<p>How exactly do you know what got you the opportunities you got?</p>

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<p>“…my experience is that Michigan does quite well out here, and if you want to break into the East Coast’s big employers, it has a stronger network.”</p>

<p>I would agree with this. At least, this certainly seems to be the case here, outside NYC.
We see very few students from here going to UCLA, and I’ve seen very few of its grads afterwards. By contrast, many good students go off from here to Michigan every year, and their alums have high representation. It’s not necessarily that people here think less of UCLA, more like they don’t think about it at all, as much. Michigan has long been a friendly destination for strong students from these parts.</p>

<p>I formerly lived in the midwest, and needless to say the same situation is evident there.
So I guess the inescapable conclusuion is that Michigan has a stronger brand outside the west coast. It wouldn’t surprise me if it gets more broadly national recruiting (other than west coast).</p>

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<p>Well we don’t really think about Michigan at all here in California either. -.-</p>

<p>A lot of these things are geographical and has nothing to do with national brand. An East Coast company isn’t going to pay the plane fare for a UCLA student to travel to the East Coast. </p>

<p>The same is true for Michigan (and even Berkeley to a great extent). The only West Coast university East Coast firms really reach out to is Stanford so it its really unfair judging UCLA in this regard.</p>

<p>There are just more big companies in the East, though the West does host most major tech firms. Again, I would not pin this on UCLA as a whole.</p>

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<p>Michigan’s stronger representation mostly has to do with the number of OOS students it admits. Up until like a year ago, UCLA and berkeley only admitted like 10% OOS (compared to michigan which is like 30%) now they’re admitted around 25%, and if this remains constant (the precedent is already being set for it) i wouldn’t doubt in 10 years, UCLA grads being everywhere.</p>

<p>Michigan isn’t a bad college (high endowment, comparable strength to UCLA) but it’s still ranked lower than UCLA, UVA, and Berkeley. It’ll be interesting to see if this remains constant and reflected in the new rankings.</p>

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<p>sentimentGX4,</p>

<p>Actually, if you look at Cal’s career fairs, they’re doing remarkably well with firms outside of CA. Maybe not as well as Stanford, but it does suggest to me broader national reach.</p>

<p>You don’t need to pay for plane fare out to NY. You just need to go to the campus. The fact that they’re going to campus fairs at Cal suggests that they see the expense as worth it.</p>

<p>And honestly, I think it has a lot to do with national brand. If employers aren’t traveling to a school, it suggests that they don’t see the expense as worth it. When I was at UCSD for grad, I had employers fly out from DC to interview me, so it’s not like they won’t go to great distances to interview those whom they like. </p>

<p>beyphy,</p>

<p>You are right to a degree, but I suggest that UCLA grads will never leave CA en masse. It’s too nice there!</p>

<p>Honestly speaking, I’m moving back to CA ASAP myself. 5 years in NY is too much snow. </p>

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<p>I’ve long learned to disregard rankings to a degree. For example, NYU is ranked lower than both USC and UCLA, but I’d argue on a national stage most people hold it in higher regard simply because it’s done a great job developing a brand.</p>

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<p>UCLAri, at this point I would like to suggest that you’re not ranking the perception of UCLA as a whole but the perception of UCLA as a business school. </p>

<p>In terms of business, I would wholeheartedly agree Michigan and NYU are significantly stronger than UCLA. I would agree Berkeley has a significant edge.</p>

<p>NYU is not a reputable school in most other regards, however, and in other industries there will be a strong preference toward UCLA. Whenever a person holds schools such as NYU to such high regard, they usually work on Wall St. -.-</p>

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<p>As a business school?</p>

<p>How about just as a school to get the best job you can get?</p>

<p>I dare say that most undergrads will get similar educations at any top 25 or so school. But what does that matter if you have a hard time getting a job outside of a specific job market?</p>

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<p>Let me put this another way. The people who are screening your resume at hiring time are in HR.</p>

<p>Be afraid. Very afraid.</p>