Hi guys,
not sure if this goes in college admissions but I didn’t know where else to put it. I am currently a senior trying to figure out what college to attend next year. I plan on studying aerospace engineering with a focus on astronautical engineering. The schools I’m currently looking at/been accepted are: Purdue, university of illinois. university of maryland. penn state, and university of colorado boulder. Im waiting to hear back from UCLA and I got deferred from University of michigan so waiting to hear back from them as well.
My question is to my future employer (raytheon, nasa, Lockheed martin, space x) what degree would look the best. Would an aerospace degree from purdue be that much different from an aerospace from penn state and so on.
I plan on getting my masters before i start working and then potentially work towards a phd after I work in a company for a couple of years.
Ignoring every factor such as cost, social life, location and anything else what degree would look the best when it comes time to get a job.
I can’t speak to the prestige of any of the schools, but internships and co-ops are very important especially for engineering/STEM. Many employers will go for someone who has three internships and a fair GPA (say a 3.6) rather than a 4.0 and no outside experience. So look into these types of programs for each of these schools, and decide what you like about them. Does one have a lot of opportunities for these experiences? Does one not really support this type of work? This could be a very important factor in future employment, and in some cases more important than “X University is more prestigious than University of Y”
As I live in Indiana and am also considering Purdue for aero engineering, I know an extreme amount about the program. It’s pretty hard to beat Purdue for aero. Sorry, I don’t know much about Pitt, but here’s a linking showing the placement of Purdue bachelor’s degree grads by year from 2005-2014: https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAE/Academics/Undergrad/BSGradStats/RecentBSGradStats.htm
None of those schools will put you out of range for your desired companies, but I don’t ignore cost. If your family is willing to pay $50K+ for an OOS school then fine, just state that. If they can’t afford that you’ve done a poor job with your application list. Are you in-state for any of them?
What state is OP in? If it’s Indiana, Purdue is a no-brainer.
I live in massachusetts so all of them are out of state tuition, however I’m fortunate enough that cost is not an issue because of my family’s income, merit scholarships, and regular scholarships so cost is not a deciding factor for me. of course my family isn’t going to just give out a ridiculous amount of money to a college, but cost is not an issue.
Ah, OK. I’d say that Purdue is your best bet, then. Probably followed by UMD and Penn State.