<p>DS’s mom, it really is great of you to want your son to go to the best school possible. I’m here to tell you to relax!</p>
<p>I’ve been to 4 public univsersities and I was best man for a guy who got his masters at USC Electrical Engineering program. Im currently an Intern for Southern California Gas Company.</p>
<p>Here’s some advice about engineering schools and careers in engineering</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Employers do not care if a school is top 30 or top 50, at that point it does not matter. The employers mostly base their decision a candidates’ look, how they talk, and their GPA. I go to a local state school and got the same job as USC & UCLA students did. I’ve been to top 20 and top 40 schools, the quality of education is identical, dispite what other people say. I’ve sat in the classes myself, and I could not a tell a difference. The quality of a class is based on professor to professor</p></li>
<li><p>Private schools are not worth the money. I pay $6,000 a year for tuition at California State University, Long Beach. I spent a fraction on school compared to “name brand” schools and still got a very good internship in engineering with a promising full-time job after. </p></li>
<li><p>GPA, resume, and cover letter matters more than what you school you go to. Out of 14 internships I applied for, I got 7 interviews because of my strong GPA (3.75) and good cover letter.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s his ATTITUDE that will determine if he likes the school, more than anything else. People could be at the best school in the nation, but if they have a negative attitude, they’re going to hate it. I don’t go to the best school in the nation, but I absolutely love my school, and therefore I perform better.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Your son seems like a smart kid, as long as he remains smart, he will get a good job after college, regardless of what school he goes to.</p>
<p>Pick a university thats near a lot of engineering companies (THIS IS CRUCIAL). This is very important because universities that are far away from engineering companies can only offer a small number of internships. Simple supply & demand.</p>
<p>Your son might be willing to travel for the summer internships, but most of the hiring is done in April (during the school year), and and majority companies require in an in-person interview. He would not be able to interview for many positions.</p>
<p>mittran: I appreciate your perspective and I certainly agree. But this is CC and it is useful to solicit other opinions so that I can guide him, as appropriate. The decision will be his and he will do fine. He has a lot of potential and I just don’t want him to pick a school without knowing all the facts because he is blinded by a lesser priority.</p>
<p>As he is swamped with junior year work, we are doing this college search as a team. Since no one else in my family is in engineering, I like to seek the input of people here. There has been some great information on this thread and I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Agree with ucbalumnus on biomedical engineering unless it’s a really tippy top program. Otherwise, choose electrical, mechanical and chemical and do research with a professor that does biomedical. </p>
<p>I profusely disagree with Mttran about the quality of the school. To work for the gas company as an intern, perhaps they don’t care about the rigor of the program, but I assure you that the more complicated and novel the technology, the more employers care about the quality of the program that the students have come out of. The course work appears to be the same in order to get accreditation. However the difficulty and depth of the courses are not, and the quality of student peers are not. Consider the difference in how much a class at CSU Long Beach can learn in a 14 week semester vs a class at MIT can learn in the same period of time. Do you really think it’s the same? Now consider four years of that increasing gap. Now consider yourself as an employer who can pay top dollar for top talent. Which school would you rather recruit at?</p>
<p>I also disagree about the importance of picking a school near a lot of high tech companies. Cornell and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are both absolute powerhouses in engineering, and neither is really a high tech mecca of the likes of the Bay Area, Boston or Washington DC. </p>
<p>I like your list, except for Miami and Tulane. I don’t see any theme running through the choices except perhaps popularity with long islanders. I’m surprised Northeastern and BU aren’t on there. Michigan is also popular with people on the east coast. I think BU is highly regarded in biomedical engineering, and Northeastern has a great coop program.</p>
<p>Just as a note on Classic and Mttran’s comments, most companies recruit from a pool of schools that match their needs, including so-so schools that are conveniently nearby and excellent schools that are far away. Top programs (like JHU for bioengineering) have no problems getting internships and jobs for their students across the country, while lesser programs are able to do so only for nearby companies.</p>
<p>Also, while a good GPA is essential, it is often scaled by employers and grad schools depending on the quality of the undergrad school. Someone with a 3.4 from Penn State is probably going to be considered about equal to someone with a 3.2 from MIT, especially with grad schools. Likewise, someone with a 3.75 from Penn State will not see as many opportunities as someone with a 3.75 from MIT.</p>
<p>In practice, employers will recruit at the local universities, and travel to selected universities with a good reputation in the subject that they are recruiting for. CSU Long Beach will likely attract local employers, but not so much in the way of out of area employers the way that UCLA or MIT would.</p>
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<p>For job seeking, it is an advantage to be local. Getting a job at a Silicon Valley computer company is easier from Berkeley or Stanford compared to Cornell, and easier from San Jose State compared to Florida State.</p>
<p>But I would say that for a new grade getting a high end job at a Silicon Valley computer company, it is easier from Cornell than San Jose State.</p>
<p>This is not necessarily the case. Cornell engineering grads probably have at least an equal shot at employment in Silicon Valley for a number of reasons. One reason is that it is arguably the best engineering school amongst the Ivies. Another strong-point is that Silicon Valley tech employers are likely to see a much smaller percentage of applicants from Cornell than from Berkeley, thus making Cornell’s applicants stand out to some extent. Universities are not the only organizations that seek demographic diversity.</p>
<p>Cornell probably isn’t even the top target on the east coast for engineering and CS recruiting; “Ivy League” is nowhere near as magic in engineering and CS recruiting as it is for investment banking, consulting, and law recruiting.</p>
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<p>However, travel time, money, and hassle mean that it is a lot more expensive to recruit across the country than it is to recruit locally. Smaller companies may find it too big of an expense to recruit at a lot of non-local schools.</p>
<p>Cornell has some incredible mojo in the area of engineering/physics/CS/IT et cetera, and this has been true for a long time. Top tech employers on either coast are more than aware of this fact.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t preclude interested/qualified Cornell engineering grads from being proactive in resume submission and interview trips to these smaller sized tech firms.</p>
<p>I don’t think you read my message correctly. Comparing MIT to CSULB is comparing #1 to #40, but comparing #30 to #40, it’s all the same to employers. Also, do you have a degree from MIT and a state school? if you do not, you are purely just theorizing based on no facts. Anyone can make that assumption, but I actually have 2 degrees, one from a UC and 1 from a state school. They are exactly the same in difficulty</p>
<p>I have classmates that are interning for Boeing, Oxy petroleum (both nearby Long Beach), and other classmates interning at other small firms nearby. We are able to go to school and work the internship at the same time. A school that’s distant from engineering companies would not have that luxury.</p>
<p>If a state school can land me a job at Boeing, Oxy, ConcoPhilip, and etc, I think I’ll be okay in life.</p>
<p>In practice, if you’re magna cum laude, from any local ABET school. You have a chance at getting a full-time position anywhere you’d like. Though many of you will disagree with that, that’s how it is. I doubt many of you answering actually have real world experience that can attest to what you say.</p>
<p>How many of you actually got a summer internship? and with what company? and what schools did you guys attend?</p>
<p>I really believe half of you are just joining bandwagons with no real world experience.</p>
<p>The only person that I think that actually has real world experience is UCBalumnus</p>
<p>I think everyone who makes these Ivy league theories & assumptions are not exp in the real world, and definitely have not had any summer internships or full-time positions as recruiting engineers.</p>
<p>Here is real-life reasoning of why recruiters do not care about what school you go to as much as you all believe.</p>
<p>At my work there are graduates from USC, LMU, UCLA, CSULB and Cal Poly Pomona.</p>
<p>We all work together. If we didn’t tell you what schools we came from, you would not be able to tell. Some of our best engineers, (and in the highest positions in the company) are CSULB and LMU graduates. Schools not known for engineering.</p>
<p>Once I started working as an engineer. I realized engineers from USC or UCLA don’t necessary know how to work better than students from CSULB. Most people in the working world already know this</p>
<p>You don’t have to believe me, but thats how the real working world is.</p>
<p>I have a BS, MS and PhD from MIT all in EE plus over 20 post-PhD years in industry. I think I know more than a current intern, thank you. </p>
<p>I personally recruit and hire many recent graduates from top engineering schools. None from the likes of CSU-Long Beach. The equivalent here is probably UMASS-Lowell. Sure they get jobs, but are they the best jobs? No. Will they lead to the same kind of leadership opportunities? No. Research jobs on the cutting edge? No. Sorry, nobody in my Boston area group is from a school like that. I have MIT, Illinois, Cornell, Michigan, Penn State, NC State, Ga Tech, Purdue, RPI, Texas A&M and Northeastern. </p>
<p>When I mentioned Cornell, I wasn’t thinking Ivy League. Cornell is a top engineering school under any circumstances. Ivy and a football league have nothing to do with it, and no other Ivy comes close. It’s a great engineering schools despite being in the Ivy League. </p>
<p>UCBAlumnus, with all due respect, you got it wrong. Cornell is probably ranked 2nd in the northeast in terms of engineering behind MIT. It’s not even that close. Whoever is 3rd, probably CMU, is significantly behind in all areas except CS.</p>
<p>I think for all those fields that require standardized government licensing (ie CPA and PE licences), which school you go to really doesn’t matter so long as you can meet the minimal requirement for the licensing.</p>
<p>As parent, you’ll probably want to look for the cheaper public university.</p>
<p>I think this thread has turned into a ****ing match among some of you. The point is to provide quality advice to a parent. Perhaps you should get back on track.</p>
<p>I’m not one of these guys who thinks that college rankings are all that important. However, I also disagree with Mttran that the school you choose isn’t important. It IS important and you should encourage DS to go to a school with a rigorous engineering program because it will open more doors for him.</p>
<p>Qualcomm is certainly a company on the cutting edge!</p>
<p>I agree with socaldad, this thread has gotten off track and I’m done with it. I just wanted to put forth another credible opinion over that of the intern at the gas company. Clearly there are exceptions to everything and YMMV.</p>
<p>My original question was about trade-offs and rankings. This discussion has shown that there are opinions on both sides. You’ve also given me some insights about what DS should look for when he is visiting colleges. So thank you for your opinions and suggestions.</p>