<p>Hello CCers!
I want to pursue a degree in engineering, but don't know much about the process (and don't have many recourses to use to find this out). I just had a few general questions: </p>
<p>1.) How many years do engineers go to college? Do most just get a bachelors as an undergrad, or do most get their masters degree (or even phD)? How many years does it usually take?</p>
<p>2.) which is more important for career purposes: getting your undergrad degree at a lesser known college and getting a masters at a more prestigious school, or vice versa? Does the prestige or rank of the engineering program you go to matter? I only ask because I am able to go to a top ranked program as an undergrad, but it would cost me 20k a year. However, I can also go to a lesser known, lesser ranked school for about 5k a year. Is the more pricey school worth it, or should I save my money and go where I want for my masters?</p>
<p>Also, if anyone is in the process of getting an engineering degree and has some insights or advice, feel free to let me know!
Thanks!!</p>
<p>I think you’re learn a lot by simply reviewing the threads in this forum, over the last 6 months or so…please browse through them. :)</p>
<p>On question 1, it’s a 4 year degree, but it’s not uncommon to take 5 years. If you co-op, it would also take 5 years, on average. Most get bachelors degrees and then enter the workforce, most engineering fields do not require a masters(biomedical engineering being something of an exception to this rule, most universities will strongly advise you get a masters degree for this major). Many schools now have 5 year combine BS/MS degree programs, that allow you to complete your masters in only one additional year. Very few if any engineers pursue a PhD, unless they plan on teaching at the university level.</p>
<p>On question #2, the school that awards you the Masters degree will be of much more importance. For that reason, it’s highly recommend you keep your debt to a minimum, as you pursue your BS. Save your money for grad school. Prestige matters to a degree, but less in engineering than many other fields. After you get your first job, employers will be much more interested in your work experience than where you earned your BS. It’s almost never worth going into $40K+ in debt for your BS degree. If you can afford the more expensive/prestigious school, great, but don’t go into significant debt over prestige. </p>
<p>"1.) How many years do engineers go to college? "</p>
<p>3-6 depending on AP credits, length of program vs average load, co-op programs, etc.</p>
<p>“Do most just get a bachelors as an undergrad, or do most get their masters degree (or even phD)? How many years does it usually take?”</p>
<p>Most get the BS. Most masters programs I’ve seen are designed to take 2 years post BS, but some highly talented/motivated students can start chipping away it senior year (assuming same school). I don’t know enough about PhD programs to comment on that process.</p>
<p>"2.) which is more important for career purposes: getting your undergrad degree at a lesser known college and getting a masters at a more prestigious school, or vice versa? "</p>
<p>Assuming you go straight to grad school the former. If you want your job to pay for your masters then going to the school more employers have heard of could boost your visibility right out of undergrad.</p>
<p>“Does the prestige or rank of the engineering program you go to matter?”</p>
<p>Not unless its MIT, Berkeley, Cal Tech, or Stanford. ABET accreditation is what matters.</p>
<p>" I only ask because I am able to go to a top ranked program as an undergrad, but it would cost me 20k a year. However, I can also go to a lesser known, lesser ranked school for about 5k a year. Is the more pricey school worth it, or should I save my money and go where I want for my masters?"</p>
<p>Minimizing debt is paramount. If that 20k per year is loans, it had better be a top 5 program. The potential increases in rigor and employment/research opportunties, real or perceived, do not make up the cost differential.</p>
<p>My advice for all incoming freshman engineer’s 1st semester:
-don’t take more than 15 credits
-don’t take more than three stem classes
-for every credit, budget 3 hours per week including lecture time (I.e. 15cr = 45hr/wk)</p>
<p>Engineering is pretty unique in that you don’t need a graduate degree to get a good job, and in fact, the vast majority of engineers go straight to work after earning their BS. A decent number get their MS right after their BS but many more eventually earn an MS sometime down the road, often funded by their employer. Very few ever go on to get a PhD, as it is really only helps if your goal is to do research for a career and hurts you in basically any other endeavor. A BS usually takes 4 to 5 years, a research-based MS usually takes 1 to 3 years, and a usually PhD takes 4 to 8 years beyond a BS (or 2 to 7 beyond an MS).</p>
<p>As you may be able to tell, a PhD is very variable and often takes a lot of extra time.</p>
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<p>While true that few engineers get a PhD, there are certainly plenty of non-academic jobs for those with PhDs. You will find most major R&D departments, national labs and NASA labs filled with PhDs, to name a few.</p>
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<p>Well, the best way to think of it is to realize that the last school you attend before going into the workforce carries the most weight, so if you intend to go straight to work after your BS, then obviously that school’s reputation affects you the most. If you end up going straight to graduate school, it will be that school’s reputation that has the largest effect on your job placement. My advice is to always go to an undergraduate school that can get you the job you want with your BS, as you really can’t know a priori whether or not you will be interested in graduate school 4 or 5 years down the road. Also, something to note, basically all engineering PhD programs and many engineering MS programs are funded and you don’t actually pay a cent to attend (other than books and fees), so you don’t really have to take on loads of additional debt for graduate school.</p>
<p>The major effect of school prestige is in what companies recruit on your campus. Generally speaking, schools that are more prestigious tend to have a larger number of top companies actively recruiting their graduates and a larger number of companies overall. That isn’t to say that good companies don’t recruit the lesser schools, but they are more likely to recruit the perceived “top” schools. I always suggest checking the list of companies that recruit at career fairs at your prospective schools. If a cheaper school has companies you like, then you are probably perfectly safe going there. If your cheap option only has stuff like the city parks department recruiting engineers and that isn’t what you want, you may want to look elsewhere.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Engineering majors are nominally 8 semester or 12 quarter bachelor’s degree programs (there are a few exceptions, like Dartmouth). However, lots of students do take one or more extra semesters or quarters, particularly at schools other than the most selective (this is true in other majors as well). Co-op jobs will extend calendar time to your degree, but not the number of semesters or quarters that you are paying tuition.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember that hiring and recruiting tends to have a local bias, particularly with smaller employers that may not have the resources to travel to recruit, and may only need a few new hires, so they just visit the local universities.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for the answers everybody- this is really helpful.</p>
<p>Colorado_mom- I have not finished applying to both schools, but I am almost guaranteed to be accepted to both because I am a recruited athlete. I will apply very soon.</p>
<p>The problem is, I want to apply to my first choice school early decision, because it is my dream school. However, I am wondering how I will be able to pay off the 20k in debt (per year, btw), as I have no college fund at the moment and would have to pay it off by myself. If I get a good job from a top company out of college, would this somehow serve to offset the debt?</p>
<p>$20,000 per year in debt means $80,000 total debt, which is rather risky even if you major in something that typically has good job prospects at graduation (though economic and industry cycles four years from now may affect the job prospects).</p>
<p>You may want to consider how much of a time commitment (including trips to away games or competitions) your sport requires, and whether the sport’s season overlaps with all or only some of the semesters or quarters of the academic year. A heavy time commitment for the sport may make it difficult to take a full load of courses (particularly lab courses) during the sport season, which may cause the need for extra semesters or quarters.</p>
<p>Engineers generally fall in to two main categories: Working Engineer (BS, and MS) and Research Engineer (PhD).</p>
<p>Employers usually treat the MS degree as a BS + a couple years of experience in a particular area of engineering. Surprisingly, most MS degree holders end up doing the same type of work as BS degree holders. The primary difference is that those with an MS have a better shot of getting hired right away in to niche positions, straight out of school. You would also start out with a higher salary (~5-10k/yr) compared to someone with just a BS. Having said that, it is not vital that you get an MS degree in order to have a successful career as a working engineer.</p>
<p>The PhD, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. Most PhD’s I know follow one of three career paths: 1) Teaching, 2) Research for a private or government organization, or 3) Management/Consulting. </p>
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<p>It really depends on what you mean by “prestigious”. Most people on this forum believe that “prestige” is simply a measure of how selective a particular school is. However, given that good engineering programs are accredited, excessive selecitivity generally doesn’t mean much to most employers. Those who performed at a weaker level in high school will simply get filtered out as they continue along through an engineering program. The ones who make it to the end have demonstrated that have what it takes to perform as an engineer, and that is what employers ultimately care about. </p>
<p>The other type of “prestigious”, which I feel is more important than selectivity-based prestige, relates to how strong a school’s engineering program is. A good engineering program will churn out high quality engineers, year after year, that employers want to hire. The curriculum will be rigorous, the faculty will be highly experienced, class offerings will be vast, and the labs/buildings/equipment available to students will be top-notch. </p>
<p>Find out which schools the good companies recruit from. Companies aren’t going to recruit from a particular school if they have had consistently poor results from that school’s graduates.</p>
<p>Well, there have already been a lot of responses, but here is my view (BSEE, MSEE, working on PhD in EE, 7 years professional experience):</p>
<p>
The vast majority of engineers will graduate within 4-5 years, depending on general academic performance as well as out-of-classroom activities like co-ops, internships, and research work. Bear in mind that engineering has long prerequisite chains, so failing or dropping a class as a sophomore can lead to tough decisions (and sometimes extra semesters) as a senior.</p>
<p>Most engineers will go into industry with just their BS, but (in my experience) the percentage of engineers with advanced degrees increases as you go higher in any company. For this reason, many engineers either get their MS immediately or else get it part-time while working. I do NOT recommend joint BS/MS programs simply because I see little advantage to them - you are generally better off doing the MS separately. I DO recommend getting the MS, preferably in full-time study - while it does not pay off immediately in the paycheck, research degrees generally lead to a deeper level of understanding that leads to better jobs and money in the long run.</p>
<p>The PhD is more common in engineering than some would think, and only a fraction of them go into academia. The PhD prepares you for research, so most industry PhD’s are working in industrial or government research centers. And some few work as high-level engineers with little or no research responsibility.</p>
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Yes, somewhat. </p>
<p>Industry tends to recruit more at “better” programs, so your final full-time institution will substantially affect your first job, but the difference in recruiting between two schools will generally pretty small, with a few exceptions: The top few schools (like MIT and Stanford) draw some very stiff competition for graduates that can mean substantial differences in pay and opportunity, and Ivy League schools feed a lot of high-paying engineering-related careers (like finance and patent law) far out of line with their engineering prestige.</p>
<p>Academia likewise seems to favor the rankings a bit - if you want to get into MIT’s grad programs, it is easier from a top-5 program than from a top-50. There are other factor’s as well, but these are often related to the rankings - the amazing researcher who writes your LOR for grad school is also contributing to your undergrad department’s ranking.</p>
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I think it depends a lot on the schools in question. Is MIT worth $15k a year more than South Central Louisiana State (Go Muddogs!)? Darn straight it is. Is Penn State worth $15k a year more than Ohio State? Heck no.</p>
<p>That money is going to be a big weight, and unless you are looking at a very top program (or comparing to a very weak program) it will take a long, long time to pay off, and may never actually give a return on the investment. Without knowing the programs an the field of interest, it is hard to say more.</p>
<p>The company I worked for would actively recruit from the top 10 engineering schools. We would get applications from all over and evaluate them all but it was easier to get a job from one of the top schools. Starting salaries did vary by school a little bit with the top schools getting more. However, 80K (plus??) debt for a top school is a big hole to dig out of financially.</p>
<p>We hired BS, MS and PhD people. MS were considered as BS plus 2 years experience for tech level and pay levels. PhDs were evaluated as to what our needs were and what they had for experience. Most PhD applicants did not go straight thru to their degrees and had some work experience thrown in.</p>
<p>What we did wasn’t considered research but was very cutting edge. I managed a group of 12 engineers at one time, 7 of them had their PhDs. Work assignments were not by degree level but by ability. (Meaning, I had some very experienced, and very smart, MS people who were working at a higher level than some of my PhD people).</p>
<p>Most people hired with a BS eventually got their MS, either going back to school full time or doing it part time at the local university. (only 1 of the 12 still had only their BS degree and he was working on his MS)</p>
<p>My advice: If you know EXACTLY what you want to do, then straight thru to an MS might be the better path. You are already used to the poor student life and have the connections right at your school (assuming that they offer an MS degree). HOWEVER, I know several people that thought they knew exactly what they wanted to do but figured out they were wrong after a year or two on the job. Now that experience they gained with their work as well as their MS degree wasn’t worth as much for their next job. They would have been better off entering the real world and seeing what it was like and then gone back for a MS in a field that they did like. Getting experience as a summer intern would help make the career path a lot clearer.</p>
<p>{As an example: my son got a BS in ME with a specialization in mechatronics. His work experience has led him to want to get his MS in CS rather than ME}</p>
<p>As you compare your packages, if there is any merit component… be aware it may hinge upon a minimum GPA. In general engineering GPAs can be low, especially in early years. If you do a sport too that may be a factor.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that engineering can be double the amount of study hours and you will be competing for grades with kids not playing a sport. IMO, as an athlete with grad school as your goal, you should choose a place where you are either near the top academically or a place where athletics and engineering academics coexist peacefully.</p>
<p>Your GPA and your debt will define your life choices four years from now more than the school name on the diploma.</p>