<p>JHB619-Cornell, yes. Princeton… not really.</p>
<p>notice how i said it overlaps in places. congrats. Cornell is an overlap.</p>
<p>“UMich or GaTech or UIUC will PROBABLY (there are always some exceptions) give you a better foundation and opportunity pool in the engineering world.
ExplorerCY is online now”</p>
<p>Where’s the evidence for that? Really? Repeating it over and over again doesn’t make it true. </p>
<p>I would bet serious money that a kid with a Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, etc. ugrad bachelor’s in electrical engineering, computer science or <other> would not be at a serious disadvantage with respect to a student with a bachelors from UIUC or Georgia Tech in competition for all jobs that aren’t local. The only Yale BSEE I know is currently a director of product development at Northrop Grumman. I’ll ask how many UIUC grads work there the next time I see him.</other></p>
<p>If by “better foundation” you mean a better position to get engineering jobs right out of undergrad, that may be right. However, that’s likely due to the ability of ivy u-grads to go to better graduate programs and/or take better opportunities than entry level engineering positions. It’s also probably due to the fact that there are better opportunities than entry level engineering jobs in places where the top schools are located.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a conversation I once had when I had the misfortune of attending the American Ceramics Society conference (yes, there is such a society) as a grad student. One of the guys I met there was a student at Alfred University in upstate NY. He proudly told me that Alfred is #1 for ceramics engineering, in part, because all of its grads get jobs at places like Corning. This is true, Alfred does rank #1 in ceramics engineering and has virtually 100% employment at the bachelors level, blowing away employment numbers for schools like Cornell or Berkeley. Does that mean that Alfred gives you a really great engineering “foundation?”</p>
<p>Follow-up: How many Alfred grads do you think are employed at JPL? And before you start, there’s tons of ceramics work going on at NASA. The skin of the space shuttle, for example, is a high-end ceramics composite.</p>
<p>I may or may not have said this about twenty pages ago, but it bears repeating, I suppose.</p>
<p>1) My masters degree is from UIUC.
2) My employer values that highly, and they’re glad I keep my orange and blue pennant up in my office. Hooray for the #1 program.
3) My company does not recruit at Harvard or Yale and would question my sanity if I were to recommend that they do so. Sorry, Harvard and Yale engineers. I’m sure you’re quite qualified.
4) I’m far more proud of my Rice pennant, which I feel made me into a far better engineer than UIUC did. Nobody really cares about my Rice pennant, and Rice is widely considered to be a better engineering school with better in-house engineering resources than Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d have gotten the callbacks I did on my resume if I hadn’t gone to UIUC.
I don’t think I’d have been baselessly offered so many cool opportunities if I hadn’t gone to UIUC.
I don’t think Illinois made me a good engineer, I think I got into UIUC because I was <em>already</em> a good engineer. I’m pretty sure that not all engineers that go to Illinois are good engineers.
I think industry thinks it means something if Illinois evaluates you, admits you, and you make it over their hurdles… And you’ll probably learn some cool and applicable stuff from some important people while you’re there.</p>
<p>I think that sums up my thoughts on prestige of engineering schools within my engineering field.</p>
<p>I think a lot of this discussion also has to do with whether or not we’re talking grad or undergrad programs. I agree with the previous poster who wrote, essentially, that those with only ugrad degrees in engineering tend to have dim career advancement prospects, regardless of where they went to school. When you have a grad degree, only the grad degree matters in terms of prestige. The undergrad degree only matters insofar as it got you to a good grad program.</p>
<p>“JHB619-Cornell, yes. Princeton… not really.”</p>
<p>Thanks for insulting my education.</p>
<p>i dont understand why you cannot accept that the schools that are good in engineering are not necessarily the schools that are considered overall “the best in the world.” you can look at rankings. i am sure harvard/yale/[insert school here] gives a great education. it, however, may not give as good of an engineering education as some of the schools that are not thought of as “prestigious” (i.e. Purdue).</p>
<p>i dont know what more to say.</p>
<p>also, if you are refering to airbarr’s post, then you are reading something completely different than what i am. it sounds like Illinois opened a lot of doors that other schools that have better overall brand names might not be able to. Illinois is not typically considered to be an overall top 15 school, but for engineering it is prestigious (which is what i have been saying this whole time).</p>
<p>edit: wow. this reminds me of someone who constantly posts that engineers dont really know if they want to be engineers and will prob take business jobs…</p>
<p>ExplorerCY I’d have to agree with you on this one. There are many schools that have very excellent engineering programs that aren’t even known by most people. I go to a very good undergrad engineering school but I doubt any of you have heard of it unless you live in the midwest.</p>
<p>"i dont understand why you cannot accept that the schools that are good in engineering are not necessarily the schools that are considered overall “the best in the world.”</p>
<p>I agree that you don’t understand, but I think you’re confused about what it is that you don’t understand. My point was simply that engineering grads from ivy league schools are not, as you say, at a disadvantage to people with a bachelors from umich, uiuc or university of Milwaukee or wherever else. I really don’t think they are. Moreover, I don’t think there’s any basis for your saying that they are.</p>
<p>I was an academic researcher and a researcher in industry for many years. I can tell you that everywhere I worked (one major corporation, one national lab and two universities), people from the ivy league were not at a disadvantage. If anything, they were sought after. That’s not to say there was any prejudice against people from umich or uiuc (both are fine schools), but they certainly weren’t preferred over ivies.</p>
<p>Further, the prestige game is really played out at the grad level more than the ugrad level. As I wrote above, it doesn’t so much matter where you went to ugrad when you get a grad degree. If you stop with a bachelor’s, your experience tends to matter a lot more than you went to school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really?</p>
<p>USNews 2009 Graduate Edition, Overall Engineering Rankings.</p>
<h1>21 - Harvard</h1>
<h1>35 - Rice</h1>
<p>Engineering school research expenditures ($millions per annum)
Harvard - 37.90
Rice - 34.85</p>
<p>Now, I might agree that Rice is better than Harvard when it comes to Civil Engineering. But that’s hardly the same thing as saying that Rice is “widely considered to be a better engineering school with better in-house engineering resources” than Harvard has, on an overall basis.</p>
<p>I think sakky has issues with “having to be right” over the internet =</p>
<p>Hey, I’m just publishing information. People are free to to read it or not.</p>
<p>OMG! all i am saying is that a school does not HAVE TO BE in the top 15 overall in the country to be a top 15 engineering school. IN FACT, many of them are not.</p>
<p>WOW! that is a pure fact. you cannot sit here and tell me that GaTech MechE is viewed the same as Yale MechE (do they even have that major??? idk, just an arbitrary major and arbitrary “prestigious” school) in the engineering community. the slight edge goes to GaTech in that case. does that mean that Yale engineers can’t find jobs? NO! does it mean that they are inferior? NO! it just means that the advantage in education and opportunities will probably go to the GaTech engineer.</p>
<p>MAJOR POINT: PRESTIGIOUS OVERALL does not always equal PRETIGIOUS in ENGINEERING. PRESTIGIOUS in ENGINEERING does not always equal PRESTIGIOUS OVERALL.</p>
<p>"I think sakky has issues with “having to be right” over the internet ="</p>
<p>All he had to do was google it. Takes 13, maybe 14 seconds, depending on your internet connection</p>
<p>Incidentally, Rice is a great school. Having a bachelors from Rice wouldn’t be a disadvantageous either, regardless of the rankings.</p>
<p>“WOW! that is a pure fact. you cannot sit here and tell me that GaTech MechE is viewed the same as Yale MechE”</p>
<p>You’re right, probably wouldn’t be from the perspective of an employer looking at undergraduates. Frankly, people know that Yale is harder to get into as an undergrad institution. They would know that undergrads from Yale would likely, regardless of major, have higher SAT scores and have had more AP credits than GaTech ugrads. (2007 acceptance rates: 9.9 %, Yale, 63.4%, GaTech)</p>
<p>The engineering ranking is primarily based on the qualities of the professors and the graduate school program. People know that there’s very little difference in the level of instruction at the undergraduate level. The only thing that really differs is the quality of students.</p>
<p>“it just means that the advantage in education and opportunities will probably go to the GaTech engineer.”</p>
<p>Name one. Seriously. I’m a person who’s actually been in the real world and I’m telling you that you’re wrong. You just keep repeating yourself like it’s going to change the facts. Doesn’t.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I know I’m just making fun.</p>
<p>i think JAOAKL and Sakky are really the same person. its a conspiracy.</p>
<p>but really, you havent addressed the main thing that i am trying to say… at all. good job with that…</p>
<p>Actually, I did several times. I’ll summarize here: you don’t know what you’re talking about.</p>
<p>I think your idea that “prestigious” engineering schools grant bachelor’s degrees that are considered to be more valuable than those granted in engineering by ivy league schools is just wrong. If anything it’s the opposite.</p>
<p>The simple reason is that most of those engineering schools you’re talking about aren’t very selective at the undergrad level. They’re less selective, on average, than the ivies. Employers know that and the rankings (which are largely based on the quality of the professors and spill over from graduate programs) don’t change it.</p>
<p>i never said anything about exclusively bachelor’s degrees.</p>
<p>well, you are the only person who i have ever heard say that. i think you are wrong, but you will obviously never see that. you, again, failed to comment on my point. congrats.</p>
<p>“i never said anything about exclusively bachelor’s degrees.”</p>
<p>You haven’t figured out how this internet thing works yet, have you? Why don’t you take a look at your post from yesterday at 2:59pm. The one that started this discussion.</p>
<p>Here, I’ll help:</p>
<p>Yesterday, 02:59 PM #311
ExplorerCY
Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 523</p>
<p>^^^regardless, you know the essence is true. harvard is not the place to get an undergrad engineering degree if you want to do actual engineering. there are better programs out there.</p>
<p>“well, you are the only person who i have ever heard say that”</p>
<p>Well, as you also admit you’ve never actually worked as an engineer or, for that matter, with a college graduate. Then, the fact that you don’t know how college grads are viewed from the vantage point of a prospective employer isn’t surprising.</p>