Does it matter where you go to college for engineering?

<p>Of course the Ivy degrees are a great asset at job interviews, but what about the other top schools and other schools? It is repeatedly said that it's not where you go to learn but how you use what you learn, essentially meaning the individual plays the major role in getting a job and becoming successful in their field.</p>

<p>Can anyone explain to me the key advantages of attending the upper engineering programs instead of any engineering program out there?</p>

<p>There are two major advantages. First, top institutions attract top professors, so at a top school, you can take classes with people who are the top minds in their field. Those look good on letters of recommendation and give you lots of great research opportunities if you are interested in them. On top of that, you are getting to learn from one of the great minds in the field.</p>

<p>The other advantage is that the higher the prestige of the school, the better the industry recruiting profile will be. If you go to MIT, the companies recruiting there are going to be top notch across the board. If you go to East Jesus State College, chances are you may get a couple of major companies that have a local or regional presence, but for the most part, you are going to just see a lot of more local and regional companies.</p>

<p>This question is probably the #1 question in the engineering thread and it is a subjective one.</p>

<p>The answers are: Yes, No and Depends.</p>

<p>First, Ivy schools don’t generally have the best engineering schools (MIT is not an Ivy, and yes there are a couple exceptions). That doesn’t really matter though.</p>

<p>I will come to this as a student who has transferred from a small engineering school (Grand Valley State University) to a top 10 engineering school (U-M Ann Arbor).</p>

<p>I will say that there definitely is a difference in rigor between the two schools, especially in the weed out courses (calc/physics sequence). However, I probably went from the top 10% of my class at GVSU to top 20% at U-M. That is to say, if you are a good student, you can do anywhere.</p>

<p>One negative about big, respected engineering schools (U-M at least) is that the class sizes are enormous compared to smaller schools. There were no 200 or greater level courses at GVSU with more than 30 students in it. The last engineering course I took before I transferred had 12 students in it. Needless to say, I actually got a chance to talk to my professor, he was a really good guy.</p>

<p>This doesn’t mean you can’t connect with your professors at big research institutions. Most students do not take the effort to even visit office hours, so you do have access to your professors at top programs.</p>

<p>The biggest benefit that I can potentially see to going to a highly-ranked engineering school is regional job opportunities. It would have been no problem getting a job after I graduated from GVSU if I would have stayed within a 100 mile radius, but it probably would be easier to get a job in the Chicago area with a degree from U-M.</p>

<p>I have no facts to back up that statement, but it is my gut feeling. And like boneh3ad said, more top companies recruit at top schools. I would never have seen Apple or Cisco recruiting at GVSU, at U-M, they are commonly seen at career fairs.</p>

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<p>Kudos on pointing that out. This fact gets overlooked SO many times on these boards it isn’t even funny.</p>

<p>Most optimistically, I’m crossing my fingers that “regionally” means all of the east coast, or all of the southern places. Not just, regionally like my college’s city and the neighbouring one.</p>

<p>1 solution to this is summer internships. Tell your advisor or prof u wanna go to your fave city for work</p>

<p>How far down the rankings until those greater employment opportunities disappear and local/regional opportunities take their place. Odds are I’m not getting in to the top 10 engineering programs though I am applying to 2. Would a school like Rutgers/Syracuse/Stony Brook give me great opportunities after college assuming I don’t get into Cornell or Carnegie Mellon?</p>

<p>And I’ve always heard that the bottom 30% or so of the engineering class gets the short straw when it comes to employment. is that true everywhere? Doesn’t pertain to me in any way, but I’m just wondering.</p>

<p>Engineering jobs (like others) fall into the same Supply & Demand rules.</p>

<p>If your major/concentration/specialization has a lot of new grads and not as many jobs, then competition will be fierce.</p>

<p>If your major/concentration/specialization has a few new grads and many jobs, then competition will be not as fierce.</p>

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<p>That is sort of true in life just in a general sense. If you are at the bottom of the barrel, you are going to get what is left over. If there is nothing left over, you are hosed.</p>

<p>The answer depends on whether you are in the middle, at the top of at the bottom. The top people at every school have about the same level talent. The middle at top schools is better than the middle at bottom schools. The bottom at all schools is about the same. If you are a top student at an average school, you might have to wait longer to move into more prestigious jobs and positions.</p>

<p>The one thing that really does matter is how well the school goes over the theoretical basis in engineering. Also, if you can find out whether or not the school is allowed to judge professors based on student reviews. If they are the quality of the school is worse than if they aren’t. Here is a link on the subject: [What</a> happened to studying? - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/04/what_happened_to_studying/]What”>http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/04/what_happened_to_studying/)</p>

<p>Some employers don’t even go to top engineering schools because the students that come out are too narrow minded with getting the right answer down to the .0001 that it actually deters their ability to contribute to the company. Sometimes it comes down to getting an estimate and scaling that number 10% to get a good enough, for a lack of better word, number. The point I’m trying to make is that you don’t need the physical chemistry II or quantum physics 5230 to apply it to the real world.</p>

<p>I would pick a good state school, they usually have good career fairs (do your research though). For example, I will be interning for a top chemical company and I’m going to be living with students from NC state, University of Tennessee, Purdue, U. Maryland, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, U. Louisville, Georgia Tech and even international students.</p>

<p>Now what I can say is that employers going to hire for research go for the Phds coming out of MIT, Stanford and Caltech.</p>

<p>I hope this helps.</p>

<p>what about University of Washington? I cant find rankings but I know it’s not i ranked in the top ten. People tell me it’s a good engineering school, but how good? Compared to top schools like University of Mich or university of Illinois how successful are the students at finding top jobs?</p>

<p>^</p>

<p>You can’t find rankings though they are stickied in this forum?? Cmon…pay attention…</p>

<p>U Washington is a very good school for engineering. Top 20 caliber though I believe it’s ranked a little under the top 20.</p>

<p>1.Is there any point to going to an out of state school? even if you were accepted to one that was better then the one you are in.</p>

<p>1.If I know faculty at the university of Illinois will that increase my chances of getting accepted or a better scholarship or both?</p>

<p>If I had to choose between university of illinois and the university of washington which is in state… does this all come down to the cost or should I consider illinois because it is #7 for my major of interest.</p>

<p>How good job opportunities at UW compared to top 10 schools.</p>

<p>Stop making 9872986 posts in a row. Just sum it all up nice and neat in one post. Also, you ought to start your own thread for things like this.</p>

<p>Anyway, UW is a fine engineering school. I know it has a strong connection with Boeing as well. I don’t really know about how it fairs with other aerospace companies though. I am not familiar enough with it.</p>

<p>I do know quite a bit about Illinois though, given it is my alma mater. Knowing professors likely won’t help you much if at all. Professors have pretty much no say in undergraduate admissions, nor do they really want it. That is pretty much true of any public school that I know of. You may be able to find an exception, but I have never heard of it happening. It likely won’t be able to help you with scholarships either, as it would be a conflict of interest for anyone who you are close friends with to be on the committee deciding your scholarships.</p>

<p>Generally speaking, I would say that Illinois is not so much better than Washington that it is worth the huge difference in price based on academics alone. Now, if you like the campus better, think you would be happier there, or just generally have your heart set on Illinois for any reason, then I more than encourage you to go there. It is an excellent school, and I had an awesome time there.</p>

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<p>I got from thie above quote the following question:</p>

<p>Is the adage true for engineers that is spoken of doctors - namely, </p>

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<p>To a certain extent, yes. In a good economy, most if not all engineers will find jobs, though the bottom of the barrel might not be finding interesting or good jobs. They are still jobs though. In an economy like this, you would call the bottom of the engineering class unemployed.</p>

<p>In my opinion, there are “good” schools and “bad” schools, good schools being places like UWash, MIT, UIUC, Georgia Tech, RPI, Carnegie Mellon, U michigan, etc, and bad schools being most other places. I think all degrees from good schools are more or less the same, and you should just go to the cheapest good school you got into.</p>