<p>if money is not an issue, go to Columbia. </p>
<p>engineering employers don’t value school name that much, so its not like some aerospace company will value UMD over Columbia. so even if you have a “superior” undergraduate education, its not going to affect your job prospects or career path to a large degree.</p>
<p>the reason for columbia, however, is pretty much any other job field. you might catch the banking bug after a couple years, or try to break into management consulting. heck you might even want to become a newspaper journalist.</p>
<p>you are 17 or 18 yrs old…there is no way you KNOW you want engineering. don’t limit your options…go to columbia.</p>