@bluedog Thanks man, that was a great post. I was leaning Brown when I started this thread, but now I am leaning Duke. Just for curiosity, what departments do publish detailed statistics? I like ECE and economics and mathematics too, did you happen to come across anything specific for those depts?
@lb43823 My pleasure. I actually don’t see any departments with post-grad information as specific as the Brown CS site (with position title and company), but some give just a representative sampling of companies and then a percentage breakdown of industry. For example, the civil engineering dept, which only graduates ~25 undergrads a year as I recall:
http://www.cee.duke.edu/undergrad/where-students-go
MechEng:
http://www.mems.duke.edu/undergrad/where-students-go
@Ib43823 from reading your thread it sounds to me that if you had assurances that job prospects for a Duke grad were equal or better than that of a Brown grad, you would prefer Duke. If that’s the case, go with Duke! I think it’s beyond question that Duke grads are heavily recruited by Wall Street and Silicon Valley. It’s up there with Harvard and Stanford in job placement in my humble opinion.
Your college will be your home for four years. You’ll make lifelong friends there and more than likely meet your spouse there. Go where you feel most comfortable! Go with your heart!
I think your most telling personal impression was stated here:
You also seem to have concerns about the culture and social climate at Brown. In my opinion the open curriculum permeates the campus culture both socially and academically. It drives the type of faculty and students attracted to Brown.
The Brown president talks about it here https://vimeo.com/91641978
She uses the term “constructive irreverence”
Prof Ken Miller discusses it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU
Andy van Dam here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=107&v=GX1LXeWKTGI
If the open curriculum doesn’t excite you or is not a driving factor in your decision, Brown might not be the best choice, and I say this as someone who loves Brown. My daughter goes there and is beyond happy.
@MBVLoveless normally I would not have brought that up but the OP made it clear he wanted to dissect every aspect of each school’s student body so I think it was perfectly relevant. I didn’t say anything false. Duke has a strong anonymous forum community talking about it’s classmates (something Brown doesn’t have) and that whole incident was quite unfortunate and sad.
I agree 100% with @arwarw