@Rivet2000, is your S attending an engineering school that many would consider among the “better” engineering schools, nationally? Or one that is not so reputed?
Because if the former that is not in conflict with my #113.
At my own school, in the northeast, people got more offers out-of-region than in-region, probably.
But I don’t think graduates of “tier 3” (or whatever) schools in the same region were being flown out to Texas or California, or wherever, in the same proportions. Was my point.
@monydad Good point, but my only reservation is that most of the internships, especially some of the most sought after ones, are really open to all applicants. Most of these come with some level of technical testing, but they seem to provide a level playing field to all. S has many friends from HS attending what some may call t2 or t3 schools that have and are interning at some of the same large tech companies.
It can impact your first job also. My son just told me a new person started last week. I asked where he went to school and it was a uni I didn’t even know had engineering but that kid was hired in more for engineering tech type position…as opposed to the kids who start, get handed a project and told “go”. They may all end up in the same place in a couple years but they do start with different skill sets and internships and the uni can make s difference in that regard. I personally do think it is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things just different paths based on hiring manager’s knowledge of what the grads from s particular uni have learned and how much hands on vs. theoretical.
This is a direct quote from the person in charge of organizing on campus recruiting at MIT. “I’ve worked at other top engineering schools, but the day I started at MIT, I had to go from offense to defense. The demand for MIT students is unreal.”
My kid is there now, and has gotten offers from every company she interviewed with. They are all top tier (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla). I doubt this would have happened if she attended a lower ranked school.
It depends on what you define as a lower ranked school, kids from SJSU get offers from those companies as well, may be not Tesla, but replace Tesla with Apple.
Looking around our NASA facility this morning I saw recent grads from Cal Poly, University of Oklahoma, University of Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, University of Houston, Auburn, Sam Houston State University, Prairie View A&M, Stanford, Iowa State, Arkansas, UVA, BYU, and Mississippi State. That was just this morning. Folks from Ivy to small schools, almost all engineers of all varieties. (Lots of contractors, more than federal employees).
I’ve seen kids from various colleges at pretty much all types (small religious, state schools, private secular, etc) get offers from those companies - often multiple offers. If we’re talking CS or computer engineering, many kids know a bit going in to those majors in this day and age. We’ve often wondered if top kids even need a degree.
SJSU state kids regularly get offers from Tesla. Tesla is among the most common employers of SJSU engineering/CS grads and participates both in both SJSU on campus recruiting and SJSU Handshake. As such, Tesla has far more SJSU alumni engineers on LinkedIn than does MIT alumni. The top 5 for most represented colleges for Tesla employees in the United States with the word “engineer” in their job title are:
Stanford
SJSU
Berkeley
Cal Polytech
Purdue
If I search for intern instead of engineer, then the top 5 are:
For software jobs, some people do get hired without CS degrees (or with degrees in other subjects), but with proven competency in what the job wants. Note that there is a lower barrier to entry for self-education in computing than engineering, more ways to demonstrate competency, and computing jobs are much less likely to require external licensing and degree accreditation than engineering.
However, self-education does require strong ability and motivation. Most people would learn more effectively within the structure of a school environment, which is why starting from a bachelor’s degree in CS is the most common way to enter software jobs.
SJSU students are recruited LOCALLY by Tesla, Apple and Google, and they do the CS grunt work. The idea that they are giving top positions/salaries to SJSU grads is ridiculous. Those positions are going to MIT, UCB, Stanford grads. If you want to see who is in demand look at who is recruited nationally. You can’t take an average student out of high school and send them to SJSU and expect them to be an equivalent of an MIT grad. Period.
Do you have any evidence of this claim? Or are you just assuming that all SJSU grads must be doing grunt work, even if many have the same job title is the same as MIT grads at the company?
I think the truth lies somewhere between what @cu123 and @data10 have posted. Here’s why. At any large tech company Google, Facebook, or Microsoft (for example) there is a bunch of what may be termed “grunt work”. Well paid grunt work I might add. There is however, also quite a bit of research, applied research, and early development work that requires a different level of expertise. The rate at which one college’s students is placed into on category or another is, as far as I know, unknown. Title is not a good indicator of this either. For instance, at Google you can have a title of SWE and be working on fixing Chrome bug reports or investigating how reinforcement learning can be applied to robotic neural nets. Same title, different requirements, different pay.
Some of the employers go to specific colleges for certain types of talents, which they only need a few. That’s true not only for the companies in tech, but also many firms in finance that are looking for the similar types of talents. Those positions tend to be choicier, and pay significantly more.
At ANY large company there is a bunch of grunt work. You’ve got an insurance company- there are thousands of people with the title “Manager of Analysis” or similar. Most of them do process work; inputting numbers into spreadsheets, working with an algorithm developed by someone else, picking off the anomalies to see if something weird is going on, or if it’s a one-off and not a trend. Every function has a team of these folks- marketing, underwriting, claims, HR. Then a small number do actual and complex and sophisticated analytics work- requiring much more intellectual horsepower and creativity, and very, very strong math skills and programming skills.
I’ve got a neighbor whose kid works for an insurance company in one of these process roles. She can’t understand why anyone would be stupid to study for the actuarial exams, or stupid enough to get a PhD in Applied Math, since the company her kid works for, hires those profiles as well and guess what- after all that hard work, they end up as “Manager of Analysis” or some other comparable title just like her kid. Who has a degree in “business”.
Of course I’m not going to tell her that her kid (a very genial, nice guy but no mathematical whiz) is likely making $72K per year, and ten years from now, will be making the inflation adjusted version of 80K. And that when he gets tired of insurance he can get the exact same job at a credit card company or a bank and maybe boost his comp to inflation-adjusted 90K. Whereas the quant gets hired at the insurance company for $130K (same title, but not a process job at all) and after a few years will end up at a hedge fund or private equity fund making $350K or more if he or she chooses.
Title and alma mater on Linkedin does not tell you what someone actually does all day or the skills required to get and keep and advance at that company.
Just love how we can marginalize and demean so many wonderful and hard working people. This is the height of the issue many see with the cultural elite. Grunt work. Really.
I call it entry level. And good.
Despite the millennial myth, not every job is ceo or unicorn start up with growlers every Friday afternoon day one off your campus.
Even mit and Harvard.
And if you get into mit and Harvard. Congrats. The 2000 of you aren’t enough talent combined to staff one big company. Thank god we have so many of the unwashed masses to keep the trains running in time for you all.
And these are high paying engineering gigs. Hate to hear how you would describe your grandparents, recent immigrants and low ses fellow citizens.
Just remember that many of these grunt work jobs paid for you snobs to go to college.
Whoa there @privatebanker , dismount your overly righteous horse. I think you over analyze word usage here just a tad. So as not to offend, how about we change “grunt work” to “routine but extremely valuable work contributions”. That might even be a better term than “entry level” because, in the example I gave, a Googler can make a career of repairing Chrome bug reports, so in describing their contribution as “entry level” your are marginalizing and demeaning many wonderful and hard working people, and I know that’s not your intent.
Most insurance companies differentiate their job titles more than that. If position A requires you passing X actuarial exams and position B doesn’t require you to have passed any, most companies won’t assign the same job title to positions A and B. A PhD doing true quant work would probably have scientist in their job title.
I think you over analyze word usage here just a tad. So as not to offend, how about we change “grunt work” to “routine but extremely valuable work contributions”. That might even be a better term than “entry level” because, in the example I gave, a Googler can make a career of repairing Chrome bug reports, so in describing their contribution as “entry level” your are marginalizing and demeaning many wonderful and hard working people, and I know that’s not your intent.