Comparing Engineering Schools

<p>Many employers WOULD look skeptically at a Harvard or Yale engineer. Based on history, an employer is going to wonder whether that person really wants to be in engineering industry or if they are just using the job as a stepping stone. Of course they would often have an edge when it comes to management consulting jobs.</p>

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<p>LOL, I’d wonder, but I’d at least investigate. </p>

<p>It’s all theoretical though. In my 15 years in management, I’ve never seen a Harvard or a Yale undergraduate apply for an engineering job I had available.</p>

<p>I’ve heard a lot of good things about Purdue’s engineering school, especially their aerospace program. They also added a new building to the aerospace division (Armstrong Building).</p>

<p>I’m a bit puzzled by the wall st journal rankings cited early in this thread.</p>

<p>“If you want to get a very rough idea of what corporate recruiters think of various engineering programs, look at this…”</p>

<p>School Rankings by College Major ? Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ.com</p>

<p>I noticed these job recruiters don’t rank MIT in the top 5 either for engineering or for computer science (and is outranked on both lists by Virginia Polytechnic). Cornell isn’t even mentioned in the top 10 for computer science. Does this list represent any kind of consensus? Or are these recruiters thinking about which students will actually take their jobs and perform well, as opposed to running off to work for Google?</p>

<p>[School</a> Rankings by College Major ? Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703376504575491704156387646]School”>School Rankings by College Major – Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ)</p>

<p>here is your link mathyone</p>

<p>Remember that large size tends to help attract recruiters. Why spend a visit to a school with perhaps 5 potential applicants instead of a school with perhaps 100 potential applicants?</p>

<p>One of my kids is a recent VT engineering grad. Their Engineering Expo (career fair) is one of the largest. I am glad to see Virginia Tech on these lists. They have a long history of producing quality engineers. MIT probably sends more of their kids to Wall Street, consulting,etc.</p>

<p>I’ve been wondering, as the “go to the big name school because that’s where the important companies recruit” has come up yet again, if that’s really an advantage or maybe a paradoxical disadvantage?</p>

<p>If a recruiter goes to a school knowing they’ll be able to pick from a pool of 100 applicants, that means you, an applicant, will have a very slim chance of landing said job.</p>

<p>Is that wacky and way off base?</p>

<p>I dunno. Like a lot of things it’s likely a “yes and no” answer.</p>

<p>Large engineering universities like VT no doubt deserve their reputation for successfully placing their graduates. But often enough I read about the esteem heaped upon alumni of small schools and the great satisfaction with those engineers’ abilities to see that some small engineering universities do an equally great job of producing talented alumni and placing them with good companies. For example; WPI, South Dakota School of Mines, Case Western Reserve U, U of Rochester. I was impressed even by the engineering department at small and obscure U of Portland, a place that sends engineers to NASA. I guess it’s the tried and true ‘big fish, small pond’ situation.</p>

<p>eyemgh - When a recruiter comes to Michigan, they are probably not interviewing 100 students for 1 job. If that were the case, then yes, I would say one’s chances are slim. I think the point is, a lot of recruiters go to Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, because they can reliably find good quality engineers. Maybe GE has had good experiences hiring Ohio State engineers, and Ford has had good luck hiring Michigan engineers. So they go back every year. As to whether one has a better or worse shot of landing a job at any of the schools on your list, I think your best data comes from the career placement center at each school. In many cases, schools have this info online.</p>

<p>I am wondering why it is bad to be an engineer from Harvard or Yale?</p>

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<p>Would you go to the highest ranked restaurant in town to get a hamburger, or would you go to the highest ranked hamburger place to get a hamburger?</p>

<p>I get it. Harvard and Yale are revamping their Engineering Departments. So the perception is based on the past performance?</p>

<p>Wonderful point, Fractalmstr!</p>

<p>Does anyone have a sense of how local the recruited jobs are likely to be? The OP was asking about schools in the midwest, and of those schools, how many graduates are going to work in the same state of their school, or in the same region?</p>

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<p>Only one of Harvard’s engineering programs is currently ABET accredited. Yale’s program for undergrads is very small - maybe 50-60 students/year. Engineering has been second fiddle at both schools.</p>

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<p>Until quite recently, engineering was treated as sort of a black sheep at those sorts of schools. It was sort of a professional degree and not as well-regarded in those sorts of circles, fair or not. The people who did take that route seemed more likely to parlay that degree into a non-traditional job like management consulting or investment banking or other such “prestigious” jobs. Naturally, some engineering firm isn’t going to waste resources recruiting people they won’t likely get anyway or who will just leave for greener pastures at the first chance.</p>

<p>Of course, this may well be changing now, but it will take some time to change the attitudes of the companies hiring engineers into engineering positions to feel comfortable spending recruiting resources.</p>

<p>I looked at some of the recruiting companies lists provided earlier in this thread for UIUC, Michigan, Purdue, and Virginia Tech, and I also found one for Carnegie Mellon at <a href=“https://toc.web.cmu.edu/event-details/roster.html?f=last[/url]”>https://toc.web.cmu.edu/event-details/roster.html?f=last&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Since my daughter is interested in computer science, I looked for leading companies in that area, and noticed that Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter are <em>all</em> recruiting at Michigan and Carnegie Mellon career fairs, and <em>none</em> of them are recruiting at UIUC, Purdue, or Virginia Tech career fairs. Microsoft attended all but UIUC. I’ll try to look for actual employment information, but from this, it certainly looks like all midwestern engineering programs aren’t created equal.</p>

<p>Adding for convenience:
<a href=“http://expo.ec.illinois.edu/students/company_list/second.php[/url]”>http://expo.ec.illinois.edu/students/company_list/second.php&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“https://careerfair.purdueesc.org/ir2013/students/employer-list/[/url]”>https://careerfair.purdueesc.org/ir2013/students/employer-list/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Engineering Expo | Student Engineers' Council | Virginia Tech”>Engineering Expo | Student Engineers' Council | Virginia Tech;
<a href=“http://umcareerfair.org/companies/[/url]”>http://umcareerfair.org/companies/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Keep in mind that UIUC has two career fairs each semester, so while those companies may not be at EXPO, they may instead be at the ECS career fair. I know for a fact when I was still a student there I saw all of those companies at the career fairs. They also may only recruit during the fall or during the spring. While I was there I know that Microsoft hired more engineers from UIUC than any other single school in an average year, FWIW.</p>

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<p>All schools tend to have some local or regional bias in where graduates go for employment. Note that regional differences in pay levels can affect how the school looks in terms of that.</p>

<p>In the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys-5.html&lt;/a&gt; , some list employers that graduates went to (e.g. Berkeley, Cal Poly, CMU, MIT, Virginia Tech).</p>