Hello,
I’m currently stumped on whether I should attend UT or UH. I got into UT as a civil engineering major, and to UH as an electrical engineering major. I chose different majors because I was unsure about what I was more interested in. However, ultimately, I think I want to pursue civil engineering even if I decide to attend UH.
I was practically certain I wanted to attend UT, however, recently I’ve heard that for engineering, as long as a college is ABET accredited (both UT and UH are accredited), then employers hardly care about which college you went to.
If I choose to go to UT, I would likely have to take out some loans and live away from my family, which seems fairly unnecessary if I could potentially have the same credibility with a degree from UH.
Ultimately, for Civil Engineering, would UT likely open up more job opportunities for me than UH? or would I practically get the same treatment from employers?
Also please note, I don’t care too much about a “college experience”, and I am trying to strictly focus on job security and potentially graduating debt free.
Yes, graduates from both school’s civil engineering programs will earn about the same starting salaries, and are recruited by many of the same companies (with UT being recruited a bit more nationally). Nothing wrong with choosing UH over UT-Austin based on cost.
UT-Austin has a much larger program, so it would give you more “options”. For example, have you looked into the Architectural Engineering program (in Civil engineering)? It would also be better (to some degree) for networking.
It also depends on where you want to land after graduation. Its generally easier to get a job in the geographic region where you go to school. The connections are stronger.
Houston and Austin are less than a three hour drive from one and other. Certainly it’s a germane point for a California kid considering the East Coast, but the regionality factor with be minimal in this case.
What you need to consider, and it seems like you are doing a good job of it, is what will going into debt buy you. As @Gator88NE said, UT will probably have some incremental advantages, but what will they cost in opportunity? You can easily figure that out.
Take the difference in price over 4 years, and if you aren’t paying for room and board (note: you still have to eat, and someone has to pay for it), it will be significant. Let’s guess $30,000, or a bit under $10k per year. If you put that in an investment earning 6% over the length of your career, let’s say 40 years, you’d have a little more that $300,000. That’s how much more you’d have to make to break even by choosing Texas over Houston.
Even though Houston is more of a commuter school, you can get the “typical college experience” there too. There will be parties and they have bit time athletics. I would encourage you to make more of your college time than simply looking at it as a means to an end. It is a great time to make life long friends and to become more rounded as a person.