Well, to understand why it was specifically a federal crime, you would need to know about the actual federal criminal codes involved. Of course to distinguish them in other ways would not necessarily require such analysis.
Princeton is considered a top place for CS, especially theory. Not saying that youâre wrong in asserting that sometimes general prestige may overshadow a âlesserâ reputation in, say, tech, but Princetonâs reputation in CS is high enough to explain that level of hiring.
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One needs to consider how many well qualified students apply to or favor the listed employers over alternative employers. For example, looking at GeorgiaTechâs post grad survey, more CS grads work in Georgia than any other state, even though Georgia has relatively little Google/Meta/Msft/Amazon presence compared to Silicon Valley, and salaries average substantially lower for GT grads working in Georgia than Silicon Valley/Seattle.
Does this occur because Google/Meta/Msft/Amazon doesnât like hiring GeorgiaTech grads, in spite of GeorgiaTech CS grads likely being well qualified as a whole, and GeorgiaTech CS being rated as high as #1 in various reviews? Or does this occur because students who grew up in Georgia, choose to go to college in Georgia, and have friends/family in Georgia; often favor working in Georgia over moving to Silicon Valley/Seattle?
Similarly, if I do a search on LinkedIn for all software engineers alumni working at Google/Meta/Msft/Amazon/Apple, San Jose State is among the top 5 most represented colleges, with >10x more alumni than Princeton. Yet SJSU is not generally not considered prestigious compared to other colleges listed in this thread.
Simply looking at the number of alumni working at a company tells you very little about the importance of prestige in hiring decisions.
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I was looking at percentages. Not absolute numbers.
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Iâve seen comments on CC that people would prefer applying to a real engg school for CS, and, charitably Cornell is listed as the one Ivy that might have a decent engg school. Compared to the likes of Mich, GT etc. I think there is certainly a good sized minority that doesnât apply to Princeton if they want to do CS.
The same principle applies, regardless of whether using percentages or absolute numbers. Looking at percentage of alumni working at a particular company also tells you very little about the importance of prestige in hiring decisions at that company. There are many reasons why a relatively large percentage of students may be working at a particular company than the company placing heavy weight on prestige of college name in hiring decisions.
For example, maybe students from that college are more likely to apply to the particular company. Maybe students from that college are more likely to excel in the technical interviews that the average student at most other colleges. Maybe students from that college who have multiple job offers are more likely to choose that particular company. There are many explanations besides prestige of college name.
You also see many specific colleges for which percent of alumni working at the listed companies does not follow prestige of college name well, suggesting that prestige may be correlated, rather than a primary driver.
SJSU CS students are likely to notice the presence of numerous smaller companies in computing that may not be as obvious as the well known big companies to students at distant schools like Princeton. So their job destinations in computing may be more diverse than those of a distant school, regardless of the level of prestige in the school.
The same may apply to other nearby schools like Stanford, UCB, UCSC, etc.
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Universitiesâ computer science departments/schools have different origins. CS at Princeton budded off from mathematics, and Princeton had a very strong mathematics department. They still are extremely strong in CS theory, and are well known among computer scientists in theoretical CS. However, fields like computer architecture are stronger at universities with strong engineering programs.
As an aside, at many universities, CS was started both in mathematics and in engineering, and for a while, there was a certain disconnect between the people who developed more powerful computers and the people who developed the algorithms which used the computers in new ways or more efficiently.
I am aware :-). I am speaking of public perceptions.
I think the âpublicâ ends up pretty subdivided on questions like this, including for that matter the part of the âpublicâ engaged in college admissions.
At least in my circles, the kids looking at STEM fields usually end up pretty well-informed about the different focuses different universities might have in their field. And the CS kids in particular seem well-aware there are more âengineeringâ sides to CS (although technically you might actually call that Computer Engineering), and more âtheoreticalâ sides, and they may well focus their lists based on what they are looking for. If they know.
Of course that doesnât mean that group is representative of all kids applying as CS majors. Still, for kids like that, they also tend to be well-aware there are many colleges that might not be considered among the top engineering schools, but are very good in the theoretical side of computer science.
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Some students are very informed and very opinionated on how they want to pursue a CS degree. Many others, not so much (very evident on CC threads)
Popular majors that are seen as leading to âgood opportunitiesâ often seem to have that sort of split. I suppose all do to some degree, but I feel like the evolving list of âtopâ majors tends to lead to a lot of HS kids having a general but not focused interested in the âtopâ majors at any given time.
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I agree with this but have observed that hard work, putting yourself forward and good choices can look an awful lot like like luck and serendipity.
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Itâs just one ranking, but Princetonâs undergrad Engineering is ranked 12th by USNews. Thatâs pretty decent in my book. Only Cornell, among Ivies, is ranked higher in Engg.
(That ranking is based 100% on peer assessment â so itâs based entirely on reputation.)
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My understanding is at this point, almost all the Ivy and âIvy Plusâ universities are trying to be at least pretty good in Engineering. Maybe not competing for Top 10-ish like Cornell and Princeton, but somewhere in the top 15-50ish range at least. Chicago is a bit of a hold out, I guess, but otherwise it appears these schools have realized that with STEM becoming so popular, they really need to be at least pretty good at the E.
My understanding is also that if you want to go on to graduate school in Engineering, that might actually be a fine path (to go to an Ivy/Ivy Plus undergrad for Engineering, even if it isnât one of the âbestâ ones for Engineering). The trickier bit is if you want to use your bachelorâs to go straight into an engineering job. And even then, it might be more a matter of having to go to general recruiting fairs, as opposed to having them come to your college, but you might still do fine once you make the effort.
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They certainly have the resources to do it.
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I think they are different, but certainly the former doesnât hurt the latter. As they say, chance favors the prepared mind.
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âIâm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it â â Thomas Jefferson.
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Quite a few Ivy Plus type colleges have very limited engineering presence and engineering majors. You mentioned Chicago. The problem isnât so much companies donât think Chicagoâs USNWR ranking in engineering is prestigious enough. Itâs more that Chicago offers extremely few engineering programs. Chicago offers no mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, ⊠major. There are also extremely few students in the limited engineering program (molecular engineering) that is offered. I work in a subfield electrical engineering. Why would my company choose to recruit at Chicago with extremely few students with electrical engineering background that my company desires, when they could instead recruit at the nearest UC at a much lower cost?
Chicago is far from the only Ivy Plus college with extremely limited engineering. For example, while Dartmouth has more of an engineering presence than Chicago, Dartmouth also doesnât offer any of the engineering majors listed above. Instead one would need choose an engineering sciences degree and take concentration courses in what would be their desired major at other colleges.
Iâd put colleges like Yale in a similar category, even though it does offer EE. Being a Yale grad probably isnât going to offer much help for typical engineering positions. Yaleâs engineering program hasnât been historically strong. There was even discussion of eliminating engineering from Yale in the 90s. The school has put more money and effort in to engineering recently, but they still have a relatively weak alumni network in key tech areas, and are not considered a preferred tech school by the bulk of recruiters and employers. They also have a relatively small number of engineering grads. Both can influence recruiting efforts at the college.
Princeton Chemical Engg is ranked #7, incidentally. Not that people are looking at this ranking before deciding. Kids move fluidly through majors, and my kidâs friend thought themself as a CBE major for a brief half semester, before moving into what the heart desired. I think this person did 3-4 major changes all together, and the final job is apart from all these majors.
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