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It sure seems to me that Caltech engineers are doing pretty well for themselves, despite the fact that Caltech is an absolutely tiny school in terms of population. It has fewer total students (undergrad + grad) than even many LAC's do.
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I'm sure you understood my point.</p>
<p>Well, MrPayne, it was more for the benefit of others here. I know that you know it, but I suspect others don't. A lot of people really do seem to believe that school population is a hugely important factor in terms of obtaining engineering recruitment. I use the Caltech example to demonstrate that it may not be as important as some people seem to think it is.</p>
<p>Perhaps if you used another program that wasn't internationally known for kicking ass your point would have been stronger? :)</p>
<p>School size is a major factor to how many employers are at job fairs, which seems to be the path the plurality of college graduates get jobs.</p>
<p>"...so why do you feel that you have to disrespect others and their schools?"</p>
<p>I told you, I'm crazy. If you don't want to listen to a crazy person, you don't have to.</p>
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Perhaps if you used another program that wasn't internationally known for kicking ass your point would have been stronger?
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</p>
<p>I know this is just a facetious topic that we are kicking around just for fun. But I do think it bears mention for the readers out there that school population is not the only thing that matters. </p>
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"...so why do you feel that you have to disrespect others and their schools?"</p>
<p>I told you, I'm crazy. If you don't want to listen to a crazy person, you don't have to.
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</p>
<p>This is more about being respectful to other people on this board. The terms of service on this board are fairly clear about prohibitions about personal insults. If some people want to go to an Ivy for engineering, then let them. Like I said, to each, his own.</p>
<p>how about getting back to the original topic</p>
<p>I don't think rocketDA insulted anybody. I don't see a problem when people just say their own opinions.</p>
<p>From my D experience 2 years ago, there wasn't much advantage for a female getting into an engineering program (but she was an NMF, so that may have overshadowed her gender). However, all the graduating female engineers said they had multiple job offers. Their male classmates might have one.
If I recall correctly when Harvard recruited my D for engineering, you go across the river to MIT to take the engineering courses. My D opinion was "If I am taking MIT engineering classes, why would I go to Harvard? In engineering, an MIT degree is much more impressive than Harvard." I am not sure about the other ivy league schools.</p>
<p>I thought Harvard and MIT were on the same side of the "river"</p>
<p>RatedPG, I think Harvard is on both sides of the river but the engineering dept. is on the Cambridge side, so you are probably right about logistics.</p>
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I don't think rocketDA insulted anybody. I don't see a problem when people just say their own opinions
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<p>RocketDA got rather upset when other people were 'expressing' their negative opinions about his school, Harvey Mudd. I just find it interesting how he doesn't like it when people dis his school, but he has no problem in dissing other schools. Live by the sword, die by the sword.</p>
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If I recall correctly when Harvard recruited my D for engineering, you go across the river to MIT to take the engineering courses.
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</p>
<p>The only thing on the Allston/Boston side of the river is Harvard Business school, the athletic facilities, and, I suppose, the Longwood Medical Campus. Everything else, inculding the engineering program, is in Cambridge. Engineering will eventually move to Allston, but that will take years.</p>
<p>"RocketDA got rather upset when other people were 'expressing' their negative opinions about his school, Harvey Mudd. I just find it interesting how he doesn't like it when people dis his school, but he has no problem in dissing other schools. Live by the sword, die by the sword."</p>
<p>Ahh, but you see, I did not attack any one school. Rather, my comments are about the Ivies, not one specific school such as Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>THAT is the difference. I would not freak if someone said, "I do not know why people go to LACs for engineering." (If no lacks were renowned for engineering.) Furthermore, Ivies are generally hyped but I'm not so sure the hype should apply for engineering, besides perhaps Cornell.</p>
<p>If you look through my posts, you'll find my praise of programs that I believe are worth praise. Schools that kick butt are:
Olin College
Swarthmore
Pomona College
USC (in a few cases)</p>
<p>This schools I've dissed in the past have been:
Caltech
MIT
The Ivies (generally)</p>
<p>The trend is I believe schools that are worth praise (for undergrad) are the schools that really make their undergrads priority. When you are an undergrad and you are the reason why the school exists, you'll have better chances for a smashing education.</p>
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</p>
<p>Quote:
If I recall correctly when Harvard recruited my D for engineering, you go across the river to MIT to take the engineering courses.</p>
<p>The only thing on the Allston/Boston side of the river is Harvard Business school, the athletic facilities, and, I suppose, the Longwood Medical Campus. Everything else, inculding the engineering program, is in Cambridge. Engineering will eventually move to Allston, but that will take years.
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</p>
<p>You could say that students would have to go down the river to take classes, though. :) You can get from Harvard to MIT by boat, although the subway is probably faster.</p>
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Ahh, but you see, I did not attack any one school. Rather, my comments are about the Ivies, not one specific school such as Harvard or Yale.</p>
<p>THAT is the difference. I would not freak if someone said, "I do not know why people go to LACs for engineering." (If no lacks were renowned for engineering.) Furthermore, Ivies are generally hyped but I'm not so sure the hype should apply for engineering, besides perhaps Cornell.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's a distinction without a difference. So it's OK to dis a GROUP of schools but not just 1 school? Dissing is dissing. If somebody were to dis all LAC's, I would disagree with them (and I have). If somebody were to dis all LAC's in California, I would certainly disagree with them. </p>
<p>Look, at the end of the day, you're insulting people. If you don't want your school (or your group of schools) to be insulted, then you should in turn refrain from insulting others. </p>
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This schools I've dissed in the past have been:
Caltech
MIT
The Ivies (generally)
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</p>
<p>I don't know about you, but I would say that the undergrads at Caltech and MIT are being taken care of just fine. </p>
<p>But more to the point, like I said, to each his own. Some people DON'T REALLY CARE about going to a school that cares about its own undergrads. Some people go to school just for the brand-name. I see that a lot at Harvard and at many of the other big-name schools. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like it or not, we live in a world where branding matters, because branding signals to the labor markets that you are a quality product. Just like some people go to work for McKinsey or Goldman Sachs just so that they can put down on their resume that they worked for McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. It looks good on the resume. It impresses future employers. I see nothing wrong with that. Branding and market signalling is a legitimate reason to do something.</p>
<p>I'm kind of in the middle on this one. I would agree with RocketDA that going to a specific place <em>solely</em> for self-marketing value is typically a bad idea. </p>
<p>I speak from personal experience... my time at UIUC, the top structural program in the nation, was absolutely abysmal. I could not have been more miserable, due to being in the middle of nowhere, the cold that I was completely unaccustomed to, and a long and pitiful series of things that one could attribute either to really crappy luck, or to falling through the cracks of a very large program. I made the choice to go to the top-ranked program for self-marketing reasons and a) it completely killed my desire to get a doctorate, and b) it very nearly killed me. I'd go home and find myself yelling at my cats. That's not a good emotional place for a person to be in, and given the choice, I'd have found a place where I could be a productive and HAPPY graduate student, because there are enough top programs out there that I <em>would</em> have been happier at, and still would've gotten excellent career avenues to follow, such that I really put myself through a lot of crap for nothing.</p>
<p>BUT...</p>
<p>If you visit Harvard and it dazzles you... If you feel like you can get the sort of education that you want there, and if you want to go into an engineering field and don't care about ever having to work with the nuts and bolts of systems, then I'd say, by all means, go there if you can. Ivy academics are good, all-around, provided you're willing to put up with a limited supply of engineering courses for you to take (whereas at other places, you'd be able to take something like "Advanced Nonlinear Asphaltic Reinforcement," or other obscure/highly specific things), a small department with fewer professors and more cross-discipline faculty members, and the occasional or even frequent commute downriver (thank you, Mollie ;) ) to MIT.</p>
<p>Ivies, however, aren't designed quite right for the traditional engineering education process, and it's not their priority to evolve to be able to offer that to their students. For a lot of people, that's just fine. You'll get a good, non-traditional engineering education. Also realize that within engineering, though, when you say "Harvard/Yale/Columbia Engineering," engineers who are way heavy into the practical side of things will visualize you as an engineer that didn't take a concrete lab or shop class, that you've never shoveled gravel and that you don't know the first thing about how to strike an arc, let alone what the difference is between Mig and Tig welding. You'll know your stuff, from a technical rigor standpoint, but there will still be a LOT of application left for you to learn. Most other engineering students have a head start on you there, by a fairly large margin. You may have read the manual for the metal lathe, but have you ever used one? Even if you have, engineers in the field will assume at first blush that you've not done a whole lot of practical engineering, and in those cases, I really don't know that a degree from an ivy like Harvard or Yale's going to help you all that much.</p>
<p>If you don't plan on going on to become a practicing engineer, if you want an engineering background for a future financial gig or something, or even if you want to go on to academia, then an Ivy may very well be one of your best choices.</p>
<p>If you want to tinker with new airplane designs in the company wind tunnel, or design a motor for a new muscle car, or don the steel-toed boots and hard hat, however, know that though it's incredible prejudicial and may be completely and utterly ridiculous, employers might worry about how much more time you'll be spending at the country club than out in a muddy field. Why introduce doubts into your future employers' minds unless there's significant reason to do so? If prestige and self-marketing is the only thing you're concerned about, from a traditional engineering standpoint, there are far better places to go in order to be hired by the best traditional engineering firms.</p>
<p>Ivy engineering is merely different. For a lot of old-school engineers (we're still using KILOPOUNDS in structural, for the love of pete...), and there are a LOT of them out there, ivy engineering may be <em>too</em> different, and will leave them wondering why on earth you went to Harvard, or Yale, or Columbia. It's not really worth it to leave that point open to discussion, I don't think.</p>
<p>Seriously look at CMU. Top engineering and CS program.</p>
<p>I'm starting to regret why I chose an ivy to study engineering whereas I could go to easier school but with better "engineering" brand (like going to purdue). shucks..</p>
<p>You think Purdue would be easier in Engineering? How hard is Ivy engineering exactly? What do your classes tend to curve to?</p>
<p>Yeah, I've heard Purdue engineering is quite intense.</p>