Our eldest daughter, from SoCal, intended to go to med school. She applied to SUNY Buffalo because they had a program for grads which linked her for admissions for a few med schools, given a few requirements by the university. She was accepted. She changed majors after taking some biomed engineering courses and majored in EECS.
She came back to California, and because she could do both EE and CS she was well recruited and worked for several very large companies. She has been offered jobs at Google and Amazon, but prefers to work “normal” work hours and not 90-hour work weeks. She has worked for several large corporations and performed well at each company as indicated by her rise in ranks as a manager, interviewer and trainer. She has never lacked for a job nor a promotion. She attended SUNY Buffalo, an underrated university in upstate New York, with a great engineering program.
You say you’ve been robbed of the college experience? I think you’ve done well and you’ve attended college, so I don’t think you’ve missed anything. A few parties? The dorms? Most people move out of the dorms at or before junior year. Junior and Senior year in Engineering are difficult.
Our middle daughter did Med school in San Francisco. Her studio rent was $5K per month. Berkeley, San Francisco and LA rents are insane. You can afford those rents? Transfers don’t get the best financial aid.
Our youngest is a Comp Sci Engineer. No problems in finding a job-he had several competitive offers. All he had to do was flash that degree. Yes, he did attend Caltech and ASU, but his job only cared about his degree and work status for security clearances.
My husband (Stanford Alum) is a EE system technical interviewer for his world-wide company. He prefers to hire CSU grads because he likes their practical approaches to engineering. He’s interviewed from all of the top 10 schools, UC’s/CSU’s as well as small no name schools from all over the country. His company pays extremely well. He doesn’t care where they went to school as long as they can answer his questions. He does ask about projects and internships and what they did on their projects- and to explain how the project was implemented using engineering concepts.
He can snort out fluff and his reviews carry a lot of weight in whether or not someone is hired. He is very fair, but doesn’t like it when candidates try to tiptoe around a direct question. He says that his “customers/clients/government” tend to ask direct questions and new hires need to be honest and straightforward with their responses. FWIW: His area Vice President is a CSU grad.
This appears to be a trend and is, currently, what our eldest is requiring of new trainees. She’s been asked to interview tentative new hires. She is also fair and gives the benefit of the doubt but is a little like her Mom, in that, she doesn’t tolerate fluff.
Good luck, but you need your back-up plan.