<p>My daughter is concerned that she will be limited in career opportunities if she chooses the University of Alabama over a higher ranked school like the University of Illinois Champaign. Let me know if you have any information to show the companies that recruit engineers from the University of Alabama.</p>
<p>We visited both schools and she really liked the campus at the University of Alabama, but the presentation at the University of Illinois Champaign gave her the impression of many more opportunities.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>What are the comparable financials? These surely must play a part if she is OOS for Illinois cham? Are you both talking about the same issue?</p>
<p>We live in Illinois, so Champaign is definitely closer for us, but she has a 32 ACT score so she can get full tuition scholarship at the Unversity of Alabama. As for the cost, Champaign would be about 100k more for 4 years.</p>
<p>Is your daughter aware that the state of Alabama is home to the second largest research park in the nation? Cummings Research Park. </p>
<p>She may not know that many, many high tech companies have moved to Alabama because it is very business friendly.</p>
<p>A very high % of Bama’s engineering students are employed or in grad school shortly after graduation.</p>
<p>I will get the list of companies that recruit at Bama.</p>
<p>If $100,000 more is not an issue for you and your daughter likes being closer to home (many students do), then University of Illinois is the place to go. However, if cost does make a difference (like it did for us), UA is a wonderful school which offers an excellent education and many “extras” that Illinois doesn’t such as CBH, Emerging Scholars, University Scholars, etc. The upside to going to Illinois is she probably will have more job opportunities in the area for her first job and employers are more familiar with the school and their programs. In my opinion, If she doesn’t want to work in the area, I believe that an undergraduate degree in either school will serve her the same. After her first job, where you got her undergraduate degree probably won’t make any difference.</p>
<p>Go to job sites like indeed.com or glassdoor.com and search for engineer jobs (and salaries) at Huntsville, AL. Plenty of jobs and good salaries. There are probably more engineering and manufacturing jobs in the South than the Midwest.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the information, I really appreciate it. </p>
<p>My daughter is mainly concerned that she would only be able to work at companies near Alabama which I know is wrong, but just looking for some information to back that up.</p>
<p>It is not that she does not like the area, she just does not want her opportunities limited to companies near Alabama.</p>
<p>The $100,000 difference in cost is an issue, but I would prefer that she was happy with her choice and that the 100,000 was not the only reason she chose to go to a school.</p>
<p>She actually likes the idea of going to school down south, so that is not an issue.</p>
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<p>That’s not the case. She doesn’t have to worry about that. </p>
<p>The graduate income survey is available here:
<a href=“http://career.ua.edu/students/firstDestination.cfm”>http://career.ua.edu/students/firstDestination.cfm</a>
You can take a look at the median starting salaries of different engineering disciplines within the college.
From what I see and hear around the internet UIUC engineers have higher starting salaries.</p>
<p>My daughter is actually not that interested in money. She is more interested in making a difference in the world and helping people. So she just wants to have the best opportunity to help people in some way. She has just recently noticed some helpful information on college confidential and has seen some positive things about Alabama so I think that will help her. Because engineering may not turn out to be her final major I am encouraging Alabama so she can switch to another major without going into a lot of debt and be forced into having to get a high paying job to pay debts.</p>
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<p>Hmmm…then it doesn’t really sound like she’s really interested in going to work for some company…lol. </p>
<p>Your D’s feelings aren’t unusual. What does she see herself doing? </p>
<p>My younger son got his degree in Chemical Engineering, but he didn’t have a strong interest in working for a company doing “chemE” stuff …lol. He wanted to go to med school. He, too, wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. So, that’s where he is…he’s a second year med student. </p>
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<p>Hmmm…then it doesn’t really sound like she’s really interested in going to work for some company…lol. </p>
<p>Your D’s feelings aren’t unusual. What does she see herself doing? </p>
<p>My younger son got his degree in Chemical Engineering, but he didn’t have a strong interest in working for a company doing “chemE” stuff …lol. He wanted to go to med school. He, too, wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. So, that’s where he is…he’s a second year med student. </p>
<p>joecollege373: My older son, a Bama grad, is friends with lots of engineering majors. Here’s a sample of what happened to them following graduation:</p>
<p>A chemical engineering/political science major works for the British Embassy in DC. Flies to London regularly.
A mechanical engineering major who won the Hollings, Goldwater, Mitchell and National Science Foundation scholarships. Got her masters in engineering in North Ireland. Currently earning a PhD at Stanford.
A chemE major who is in medical school.
Another chemE major getting his PhD at Stanford.
A mechanical engineering major who works in his field in Kansas City.</p>
<p>So there are many opportunities for engineering majors at Bama. </p>
<p>And NoVADad99 is correct about the job opportunities in the Huntsvillle area. My younger son attends UAH (and loves it). He knows lots of students who graduate into jobs, because the region is looking for well-educated engineers, as well as other majors – he is an economics/finance major.</p>
<p>Sorry for the extra post upthread. My post posted three times! I saw the one duplicate, but didn’t see the other!</p>
<p>Anyway…engineering majors have options. There’s a female eng’g major who graduated last Spring and now works for Goldman Saks. GS seems to be hiring a number of engineers…don’t know their reasons, but they must have them! 
And GS pays amazing salaries.</p>
<p>One of my engineering advisees (Computer Engineering) at Illinois Tech is graduating this spring with a great offer form Goldman-Sachs. He interned there for two summers and is really excited about the job and NYC. Goldman routinely comes to campus to recruit. They want smart people who can not jsut write code but know how to analyze data. That means science and engineering majors.</p>
<p>If the $100,000 will be financed with loans, it will cost a lot more than $100,000 and as that amount is well over the limits for Stafford loans, the parents will be financially liable for much of the money.</p>
<p>While it is often easier to get ones first job closer to where they went to school, it is very possible to get jobs elsewhere as well. Regardless of where one goes, one will have to put some effort into finding a job and practice their job searching skills. </p>
<p>With your daughter’s career goals, it does not seem like she’ll have a variety of jobs throughout her career. What will matter more in her case will be how to translate her previous experience into new positions. These positions may be in other states, regions, or even other countries. </p>
<p>GS pay is amazing, but it comes with expectations. It’s not unusual for GS traders to work 100+ hours a week. If you go into Wall Street, go with your eyes wide open about the expectations. If work-life balance is a priority, then it’s probably not for you. Wall Street is hiring CS and engineers because they are betting their future on high speed trading and squeezing out every nanosecond advantage over other trading firms. Also, they need to protect their IT infrastructure against increasing intrusions and compromise of the integrity of their systems which handle trillions of dollars of trades.</p>