Does prestige of undergraduate school matter in Engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>“you seem to not understand that Berkeley, MIT and Stanford are all amazing engineering schools.”</p>

<p>You you seem not to understand sarcasm. I guess that’s not part of the superior engineering education.</p>

<p>“physics =/= engineering.”</p>

<p>Well done. Engineering, however, equals engineering. I have a bachelor’s and a masters degree in engineering, from Michigan and Cornell. That was in my post.</p>

<p>“Cornell is the best engineering ivy, so you can’t use that to compare cumulative ivy engineering.”</p>

<p>Once again with totally baseless opinion. Take a look at US news grad rankings. Cornell is tied with Princeton in Aerospace. Cornell is not even ranked in biomedical engineering and Penn is a top school. Cornell is not even ranked in chemical engineering and Princeton is a top school. Cornell is virtually tied with Princeton in both computer and electrical engineering. That’s just A-E and I haven’t bothered to look at the rest. </p>

<p>Anyway, my point was that there were a lot of ivy students in my grad program. </p>

<p>“what basis do you have to say that engineering is easier than physics across the board?”</p>

<p>I didn’t say that. I said that people dropped out of physics for engineering because it was “supposedly easier.” That’s the reason they gave for doing so. It’s what people told me, not the other way around. I didn’t say I agreed with it.</p>

<p>“JPL was arbitrary. i do not ever plan to work for NASA… private defense industry has much more money in it.”</p>

<p>Okay, then send me an email in 2 months when you’re president of either Lockheed or Honeywell. LOL. And of course you’re so right about there being no connection between NASA, government laboratories and the private defense industry <rolls eyes=“”>. </rolls></p>

<p>“i disagree w/ joewhiz premise that ivies are research oriented.”</p>

<p>That’s only because he knows what he’s talking about and you don’t.</p>

<p>“i find it interesting that JAOAKL is getting this worked up over the ideas of a hs senior. i have read your posts and considered your ideas.”</p>

<p>LOL, that’s the only good point you’ve made. I have no excuse for this except that I didn’t realize you were hs senior until you said so. Kudos for that. Obviously, nobody could blame you for having opinions and not being very knowledgeable. I do find the strength of your opinions, despite your absence of experience or knowledge, curious. </p>

<p>“a lot of the engineering majors who go to those “ivy-esque” schools do not take jobs in the industry. they go to consulting, business, med school or law school. (not sure how this is relevant, but just thought i would point that out)”</p>

<p>That’s true. It was also true at Michigan.</p>

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<p>Yea that’s true at any college and any major. I think that more engineers go into other areas because an engineering degree allows a person to do that more so than other degrees. Many people decide that their major is not what they want to do but do not have much flexibility with their degree.</p>

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you should be extremely embarrassed. you do not present yourself with any ounce of respect. also, you have no idea what type of intelligence or potential i have. way to bring yourself to a level that i won’t even go to. your immaturity astounds me.</rolls></p>

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<p>look at USNWR rankings. most people accept that cornell is the “engineering ivy.”</p>

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again, you should read that and cringe. you again, failed to understand that i am not saying that ivies are terrible engineering schools, and other schools are exponentially better.</p>

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it is unfortunate that even with “experience” and “knowledge,” you prove your ignorance that the world could be more than you have observed.</p>

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<p>“you have no idea what type of intelligence or potential i have.”</p>

<p>You may well be bright and have lots of potential. That’s beside the point. The point is that you have no problem spouting off unfounded opinions on subjects you know very little about. You’re young and, hopefully, you’ll have time to learn that this doesn’t serve you well in the real world.</p>

<p>Agreed that this conversation is rather ridiculous. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. Sounds like you don’t need it and that you’ve got everything all worked out, but even still a little luck it won’t hurt.</p>

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<p>i didnt mean that in a conceited way. i just meant that you don’t know what type of person i am. you have no basis to judge me.</p>

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<p>I’m not judging you. I’m passing judgment only on what you’ve said.</p>

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<p>Since Lockheed was brought up, I will mention (again) that of the 27 key schools we define for engineering recruitment, about 2/3 are publics…of the 1/3 that are private, two are ivies. If you’d like to know what those schools are, please do a search.</p>

368

<p>JAOAKL, you went to Cornell and don’t realize its a better engineering school than Princeton? Really? Did you get an MEng? According to US News (a ****ty source of rankings but since this is what we’re using), overall, Cornell is ranked 9th and Princeton is 18th. </p>

<p>Cornell is also 25th in bioengineering, unranked for princeton.
15th vs. 7th for Chem E
tied for Comp Sci</p>

<p>and then the rest is ownage by Cornell</p>

<p>9 vs. 10th for EE
10th vs.16th for Civil
13th vs. 24th for Environmental Engineering
9th vs. unranked for industrial
10th vs. unranked for materials</p>

<p>You also forgot to mention Penn sucks outside of bioengineering.</p>

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<p>“Cornell is also 25th in bioengineering, unranked for princeton.”</p>

<p>That the Princeton bioengineering department isn’t ranked may be related to the fact that it doesn’t exist. Princeton doesn’t have a bioengineering department.</p>

<p>“JAOAKL, you went to Cornell and don’t realize its a better engineering school than Princeton? Really? Did you get an MEng? According to US News (a ****ty source of rankings but since this is what we’re using), overall, Cornell is ranked 9th and Princeton is 18th.”</p>

<p>US news is not great, but we don’t really having anything else. Anyway, I agree with the subject-matter rankings you laid out. They show that Princeton beats cornell in a lot of areas. I don’t think that “overall” rankings matter in the least. I mean, who cares if you’re in the 9th best engineering school “overall” if the department that gave you your degree isn’t even ranked? Makes no sense.</p>

<p>“You also forgot to mention Penn sucks outside of bioengineering.”</p>

<p>I disagree with you, though your standards may be way higher than mine. </p>

<p>According to US News Penn is the school ranked just below the three schools tied with Cornell for chemical engineering.</p>

<p>I know from experience as a researcher in materials science that the department at Penn is considered to be one of the best research departments in the country. According to the US news rankings Cornell materials only outranks Penn by four spots. That’s more of a difference than I expected, but to me that’s hardly a big difference. I mean, Penn bioengineering outranks Cornell by 18 spots.</p>

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<p>“Did you get an MEng?”</p>

<p>No, I got a masters in materials science and engineering.</p>

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<p>“10th vs. unranked for materials”</p>

<p>Princeton also doesn’t have a standard materials science department either. What they have are several institutes (PMI, PRISM, etc.) that produce some of the world’s best materials science research.</p>

372

<p>I will offer an unbaised arbitrary opinion, being neither a student of an ivy-league nor a student of a prestigious/top-engineering public or private school.</p>

<p>However, I have done research and talked to recruiters. An engineering degree from an ivy league will help if you want to do non-engineering work like investment banking. A recruiter basically said to my face, sorry we wouldn’t interview you because you don’t go to our target schools like Cornell. (I wanted to say F**K YOU, lol).</p>

<p>Anyway I think it is like this: a prestigious engineering non ivy is like a Toyota Avalon. It is the best, most expensive, and luxurious car under the Toyota brand (I didn’t say made by Toyota because I know they make Lexus). An ivy league engineering degree is like a C-class Benz. The Benz might cost more although the Avalon might give you more bang for your buck and is actually a better car. However, when ignorant (for lack of better term perhaps) people look at the two cars, they will see the benz and get all big eyed. However, industry people know that the Avalon is actually better. </p>

<p>I hope you enjoyed my serious/joking analogy.</p>

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<p>Does it surprise anyone that elitism is rampant in the finance/business industry? It sure is in the legal profession (i.e. biglaw firms recruiting exclusively from the T14 law-schools, etc.)</p>

<p>Though in your case, since iBanking is definitely outside the target-field of an engineering degree, I think the operating assumption is that an engineering applicant would have already done independent research on his own, to figure out what kinds of applicants ibanking generally recruit. In other words, they probably expect applicants to police themselves and realize when their pedigree isn’t good enough to apply. :)</p>

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<p>If only amercian engineers, ivy league or otherwise, could still design cars that were as good as either the Toyota Avalon or a C-class Mercedes…</p>

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<p>ok, i have avoided this topic until now because of page count of 25…</p>

<p>now i realize this is actually one of the most interesting thread going on within the engineering forum.</p>

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<p>Go to an Ivy and be a banker, get connections, and no matter what happens, you still will have graduated from an Ivy. On the other hand, if you don’t graduate from an Ivy your degree only holds so much clout. Take engineers from LSU for example. The ones who ended up becoming filthy rich ended up attending an Ivy League school for an MBA. For example, one of the engineering alumni who went to HBS donated 50 million to LSU last year. Engineering will provide you with a great breath of knowledge and technical skills no matter where you go. It is great to have that kind of background. I just think that as for as going into anything business/consulting an Ivy is the best way to go. You can’t lose. Even if you get the engineering degree from the Ivy you still went to an Ivy League school and will have a alumni base that will get you places. Either way, you can’t go wrong. As far as petroleum engineering goes, any engineer can do petroleum engineering. Screw every other school if you can get into an Ivy. I’ve talked to plenty of engineers who want to do consultant work , but they don’t have the business connections with an Ivy school like others have. Take my friends dad for example, Civil engineering degree from WVU and an executive MBA from Columbia. Is a senior VP of a major oil company now. He will tell you that the engineering degree and his experience got him on with the company, but the MBA got him into management and into his executive position. Which is where the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Is!!!</p>

377

<p>If only american engineers would actually be doing engineering instead of doing 10 percent engineering and spending the other 90 percent thinking about doing engineering.</p>

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<p>Following the thread even if more as a lurker, I would like to add my two cents then. I think basically, the nuance appears to be a choice between the brand( name) and the quality of education given into top engineering school.</p>

<p>A big school name-e.g-IVIES,Stanford,MIT- never hurts when written on a resume but more important than that, I`am noticing a factor that you members of this forum must think about;

These days, I am seeing more and more debates and discussions about the quality of programs and therefore the worthwile character of the big 8 (ivies) in field like engineering. Thus, following this observation, i tend to conclude now that people are becoming more and more unbiased before an ivy degree with the field engineering stuck on it.

Besides that, it seems to me that the real presence of opportunities within the engineering field is a truly random point since among the thousands firms across the states if not world will altogether hold drastically different list of "key schools" at 90% close. I like the example the Benz C class compared to the Toyota Avalon. In fact the reality resides in that the WoW factor`s downfall has been hastened nowadays. I do believe that money is the key factor that makes Harvard engineering or brown engineering known despite the prominent lackluster before other schools like MIT or Gatech in the "Grad field"and conversely, school like Rose-Hulman or Harvey Mudd unknown by the obeserver before school like Stanford,Umich or Purdue in the "Undergrad field".</p>

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<p>I went to UIUC (business) and ended up after graduation at a top management consulting firm in chicago. The other recruits were from the following schools: Northwestern, UChicago, Cornell, Purdue, NIU, Grinnell, Puget Sound, SIUC, Indiana. There were more, but these are the ones I remember. We all received the same pay, although those with Masters Degrees earned a little more, but we were all doing the same work. Basically this firm took bright individuals with a variety of backgrounds and trained them. Many of these recruits are partners currently, or are top executives in industry. </p>

<p>Maybe it’s different on the east coast, but in the midwest, UIUC and Purdue engineering graduates are considered highly qualified for ANY position, including consulting.</p>

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<p>About the whole prestige vs. non-prestige issue, this is what I’ll add to it:</p>

<p>Let’s say you decide to go to Harvard for the name to study engineering when Purdue is the better program for engineering. You may have the name to get a good first job but the skills you could have earned with a high class engineering education at Purdue could keep you in a well-paying position for a long time because after your first job, its all about what you can do and not about the school.</p>