I am an international student from Europe and I narrowed down my choices to Georgia Tech and UIUC. I want to major in EE in both. I want to get a graduate degree in highly prestigious universities(Stanford, MIT etc.) and become an academician in those universities.
Therefore, which school will help me more to build connections, do research/internship and end up in a grad school like MIT, Stanford? I am leaning more towards Georgia Tech as of now and I know Georgia Tech offers great opportunities for students who want to work for renowned firms(Google, IBM) However, I don’t know if this applies to students who want to become professors in engineering at top-notch universities.
Also is it true that since Georgia Tech is in south, if you graduate from there you can’t use its prestige in any other regions of US and therefore you can’t get opportunities anywhere besides south?
First, realize that this is an aspiration on par with becoming an astronaut - it is absolutely possible, but it is extremely competitive. Considering how grad programs specialize, each step (getting the PhD and becoming a professor) is likely to come down to you versus just a couple of other real candidates, each of who will have an impressive resume.
Second, realize that this is not the same aspiration as “being the top person in specialty XYZ”. Once you have chosen your specialty you may find that the best place for you to be is somewhere else entirely.
Both schools are extremely strong in EE and offer nominally comparable opportunities to do everything you just listed. The largest distinction between the two is going to be that no single department is going to be equally strong in every specialty and every grad program requires you to specialize. For example, Berkeley is a very highly regarded program, but they really don’t support optical remote sensing in research, making that a tough field to break into or from Berkeley.
If you have specialties in which you are interested, then I would look at which schools are doing leading research in those areas. If you are dead-set on those schools then you need to look at the overlaps between the undergrad and grad programs to see where it will be easiest to step from a research group at the undergrad school to a similar research group at the grad school - there will be several, but pick which options look more appealing.
GT’s reputation gets it national respect and recruiting from national and multi-national corporations as well as elite grad programs. If you apply to MIT from GT and get rejected, it would not be because of geography.
And I am a UIUC ECE grad student, if that matters.
I’m guessing you’re not from the U.S. The South has plenty of world-class universities. Beyond GaTech, you have Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, Tulane, UNC, Davidson, Wake Forest…
For EE, both Georgia Tech & UIUC are @ the top, aka on par with each other. I would pick the one that fits you best in terms of location/weather + financials, and aim to be @ the top of your graduating class.
But to reiterate the obvious,
“I want to get a graduate degree in highly prestigious universities(Stanford, MIT etc.) and become an academician in those universities.”
The first part is doable (doing graduate work @ stanford/MIT in EE) if you are very good, graduate @ the top of your class and do good research @ either georgia tech or UIUC.
The second part is much more of a stretch. I think the astronaut analog is pretty apt. But hey, dreams are what drive us right? If you shoot for the moon, you could miss and land among the stars... hehe.