Is harvard engineering (Biomedical especially) famous?

rtkysg · October 5, 2005, 1:06am

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As a point of reference, I would point out that it wasn't that long ago (maybe 1 generation ago) when Computer Science, when it even existed, was a very small department, with few faculty and few students. The same thing could be said of Ethnic Studies. Nowadays these are rather substantial departments at many schools. The point is that nowhere is it written that the size of a particular department is what it is because that's the way it's 'supposed' to be.

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Why don't you take the number of faculty and students (as well as the aspirants if possible) in Geophysics and compare them with those in Literature across the nation? Until Geophysics reaches the popularity of CS or biomedical, it makes sense to say that Geophysics dept is 'supposed' to be small everywhere.

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So then why couldn't there be some Harvard engineering students who don't transfer for the same (inexplicable) reasons?

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I think I've mentioned previously that the expected behaviour of students who suffer burn-out cases would be different from the one who don't. I think you would agree with me that it's unlikely that Harvard engineering students choose engineering as a burn-out effect.

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I think it has a lot to do with money and marketability. Let's face it - even a mediocre engineering degree can pay more than a top-tier science degree. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that an EE student from Fresno State can make a higher starting salary than a physics student from Harvard. Hence, what I believe happens, and certainly I saw it a lot back when I was young, is that some people decide that they don't really want to go to graduate school, so they want to get a highly marketable bachelor's degree. An engineering degree, if nothing else, is arguably the most marketable of all bachelor's degrees.

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It doesn't change the fact that they would rather have Harvard engineering than let's say, Fresno St. engineering. And hence, as I mentioned previously, the number of students who really want to major in engineering and decide to choose Harvard is huge; not so many for the cream engineering students who are good enough to get to Cornell though.

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Oh really? I can count numerous Asian and international people that I know tried out engineering and then switched out because they found that it was too hard or they didn't like it. Some of those Asians were suffering from "Asian disease" - in which formerly studious Asian students who are no longer under the watchful eye of their strict parents, basically self-destruct and become extremely lazy academically.

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Unless you can give any percentage, I would argue that Asians (esp. International) who start off with engineering but couldn't complete it would be minority. Unsurprisingly, most tech companies are conquered by Asians and Internationals. You surely know this during your stay in Silicon Valley.

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A NRC bioE/biomedE ranking does exist, but Caltech is not in that ranking. However, I can give you the USNews one:

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As I said, BioE is relatively a young subject, the guidelines for 'top' BioE program would arguably be obscure. It doesn't necessarily make my opinion more justifiable than those which form the USNEWS ranking. However, the fact that USNEWS places Wustl below Boston U will not make me take the ranking for granted.

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As far as graduate school is concerned, what REALLY matters is not that a program has lots of profs, but that you get to work with the prof you want to work with. If you, at Harvard, get to work with a prof who is doing the things you want to do and who you work well with, then that's what really matters. If nothing else, we can agree that Harvard engineering has some quite prominent engineering faculty. If they are doing something that you want to do, then what's so bad about going to Harvard for engineering?

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Frankly speaking, as far as graduate school is concerned, the ratio of professor:students does NOT really matter as long as it's not too small. C'mon, do you really think that MIT/Caltech professors are kind enough to teach you stuff in graduate level? the fact is that they hardly spend more than one hour every week with each of their graduate students. The fact is that the grad students are mostly working hard (independently) to give more paper to their profs. The most important in graduate engineering study is the research topic and facility evolving around them.

sakky · October 5, 2005, 2:16am

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Why don't you take the number of faculty and students (as well as the aspirants if possible) in Geophysics and compare them with those in Literature across the nation? Until Geophysics reaches the popularity of CS or biomedical, it makes sense to say that Geophysics dept is 'supposed' to be small everywhere.

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I believe you have mixed your metaphors. My point is that just because a particular division is small is not prima facie evidence that it's weak. As a case in point, I believe there are more geophysics students at Harvard, or at most other schools, than there are at Caltech. Does that automatically imply that the Caltech geophysics department is weaker than those geophysics departments at other schools? Why wouldn't it - you said it yourself that departments with few students are necessarily weak, right?

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I think you would agree with me that it's unlikely that Harvard engineering students choose engineering as a burn-out effect.

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Like I said, it's probably the same reason why people choose engineering everywhere - for the money. Let's face it. If engineering starting salaries weren't so high, then the number of engineering students at every school, including Harvard and including MIT, would drop. It's simple economics - people are responding to the price incentive.

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Unless you can give any percentage, I would argue that Asians (esp. International) who start off with engineering but couldn't complete it would be minority. Unsurprisingly, most tech companies are conquered by Asians and Internationals. You surely know this during your stay in Silicon Valley

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Oh really? You want me to give you a percentage? Do you have percentages to back up your claim?

I don't think you want to challenge me on my biography, but suffice it to say that plenty of Asians start off as engineers, and we can all agree that plenty of people leave engineering. Since that starting pool included a lot of Asians in the first place, that would necessarily mean that a lot of Asians would have to be eliminated.

Your second-to-last sentence in your paragraph is a complete non-sequitur. Consider this example. The NBA is composed of mostly African-Americans. The number of African-American young boys who would like to play in the NBA is a very large number. And of course most don't make it to the NBA. That therefore means that almost all African-Americans who try to make it to the NBA won't make it. Yet it is still true that the end-product (those that do make it) are mostly African-American. So you end up with an end pool that is mostly African-American, while at the same time most African-Americans who tried to make it did not. Hence, both facts are simultaneously true.

I would venture to say that molliebatmit could make a few choice comments about Asians and internationals who try out MIT engineering and get weeded out or otherwise switch out of engineering.

I would also further emphasize the basic point that even those internationals and Asians who do make it through and graduate with engineering degrees often times are precisely the same ones who switch to other career fields. I vividly recall knowing a bunch of guys from India who completed chemical engineering degrees at an elite engineering school that shall remain unnamed , and yet not a single one of them took jobs as chemical engineers. What did they do? Management Consulting. Investment Banking. Hedge Funds. Private Equity firms. Strategy Consulting. Every one of them basically said "Why should I work as an engineer when these other companies are making me better offers?"

What that illustrates is my basic point which is that plenty of people who think they want to be engineers will not work as engineers. Be honest. You keep talking about these Asian internationals coming in to be engineers. But, honestly, how many of them really want to be engineers? They may want to be engineers only because they believe it's the best job they can get. But if Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers were to give them offers, how many of them would turn it down? Be honest. You know and I know that a lot of them would take it. What that shows is that they don't "really" want to be engineers that much.

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As I said, BioE is relatively a young subject, the guidelines for 'top' BioE program would arguably be obscure. It doesn't necessarily make my opinion more justifiable than those which form the USNEWS ranking. However, the fact that USNEWS places Wustl below Boston U will not make me take the ranking for granted.

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I think you vastly vastly overstate the strength of WU. WU has a great medical school, but not necessarily great bio doctoral programs. As you can see from the NRC bio rankings, WU is generally ranked anywhere from 8 to 16. So the fact that USNews would rank WU BioE as #14 is not particularly outrageous in the least - in fact, it is quite consistent with the NRC rankings.

Surely you're not going to take the position that the NRC is wrong too?

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The most important in graduate engineering study is the research topic and facility evolving around them

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And that's exactly my point also, which means that your objection that the Harvard faculty is small is an irrelevant objection. You said it yourself - what is important is the research topic and the facilities. If Harvard engineering faculty are researching the topic you want to do, and if the facilities are available that you want to use, then what's so terrible about going there? Keep in mind that, because of cross-collab, Harvard engineering students have access to many MIT facilities and profs. Hence, it seems to me that Harvard engineering graduate students have adequate resources. As good as at MIT? No, of course not. But still better than what a lot of other students at a lot of other schools have.

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It doesn't change the fact that they would rather have Harvard engineering than let's say, Fresno St. engineering. And hence, as I mentioned previously, the number of students who really want to major in engineering and decide to choose Harvard is huge; not so many for the cream engineering students who are good enough to get to Cornell though.

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This is another irrelevant objection. On a pure quality comparison, Harvard engineering is better than Fresno State engineering, even if you ignore the Harvard brand name. Like I said, Harvard engineering is ranked somewhere in the 20's, whereas Fresno State is nowhere even close. Of course people will prefer a higher ranked program over a lower-ranked one, all things being equal. Is that really surprising to anybody?

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And hence, as I mentioned previously, the number of students who really want to major in engineering and decide to choose Harvard is huge

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You are sure you want to stick with the story that the number of students who really want to major in engineering and still choose Harvard is huge? I would argue that this number is small. I would argue that many of these people won't even bother to apply to Harvard, and would strongly prefer MIT, or Caltech, or Stanford.

My discussion revolves around people who MAY want to be engineers, but who aren't 100% sure. If you truly are 100% sure, I doubt you will apply to Harvard, because I have always agreed that there are better engineering programs out there. However, what I am saying is that Harvard engineering is not that bad, such if you are not sure, you can SAFELY choose Harvard knowing that you still can still get a very good (if not the absolute best) engineering education if that's the direction you end up taking. And given all those people who end up leaving engineering anyway, including all those Asian internationals who get engineering degrees and then run off to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, it is important to be SAFE.

CasualObserver · October 5, 2005, 2:53am

I don't know about everyone else reading this, and I typically just lurk, but this is a forum, not a debate. There are no contentions to uphold. You're all quibbling over details and statistics like you're trying to win. This started out as being a helpful thread but now it's just annoying and tedious. Instead of bringing up fifteen things at a time and insisting upon all opponents addressing each point in their replies as though these were specific situations and then catching them on technicalities, is there any chance we can get back to a frank discussion of the basic issue at hand? That was helpful, but this isn't.

Anybody else feel this way, too, or am I the only one?

rtkysg · October 5, 2005, 1:37pm

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Why wouldn't it - you said it yourself that departments with few students are necessarily weak, right?

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Not at all, judging from your coment, you seem to have misunderstood my post vastly. Departments with few students are not necessarily weak, isn't it we have agreed to the case for Caltech geophysics? However, for a popular major (e.g. History), if its dept. doesn't constitute a large size in proportion to its school (other depts) then relatively it is weak.

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But if Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers were to give them offers, how many of them would turn it down? Be honest. You know and I know that a lot of them would take it. What that shows is that they don't "really" want to be engineers that much.

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I guess you wouldn't try to sell this idea, yes? Working at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs normally requires longer hours than typical engineering jobs at GE or Lucent. You may see the net flux from engineering into financial institution and not vice versa. But it is not because the nature of the jobs is more appealing among the engineers. As you said, many people choose engineering because of its marketability, and hence this people would obviously prefer working in financial companies. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean working in financial companies is more alluring for most engineers, how many engineering grads do you think would choose Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers over Google or Microsoft or Yahoo or Oracle?

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but suffice it to say that plenty of Asians start off as engineers, and we can all agree that plenty of people leave engineering. Since that starting pool included a lot of Asians in the first place, that would necessarily mean that a lot of Asians would have to be eliminated.

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Oh really? But I would argue that Asians who start off in engineering and end up in engineering is more than those who don't. And for Internationals? Are you aware of the gap between the International students and local students in general at schools like MIT or Caltech? You can ask any student at MIT to verify that yourself.

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If Harvard engineering faculty are researching the topic you want to do, and if the facilities are available that you want to use, then what's so terrible about going there?

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This is where the problem lies. I don't know if you've attended any graduate study in engineering, but you would notice that in schools with small engineering depts and facility, the research is normally narrow and too theoritical and does not focus on 'hot' stuff in engineering.

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If you truly are 100% sure, I doubt you will apply to Harvard, because I have always agreed that there are better engineering programs out there.

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This is where I disagree with you. I contend that there are a bunch of determined engineering student candidates would prefer Harvard engineering than Michigan or CMU just for the sake of Harvard's name.

rtkysg · October 5, 2005, 3:04pm

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think you vastly vastly overstate the strength of WU. WU has a great medical school, but not necessarily great bio doctoral programs. As you can see from the NRC bio rankings, WU is generally ranked anywhere from 8 to 16. So the fact that USNews would rank WU BioE as #14 is not particularly outrageous in the least - in fact, it is quite consistent with the NRC rankings.

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From the links that you gave above and the way you consider BioE = Bio + Engrg , how would you then surmise that BioE program at Caltech is weaker than Boston U?

sakky · October 5, 2005, 8:02pm

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Not at all, judging from your coment, you seem to have misunderstood my post vastly. Departments with few students are not necessarily weak, isn't it we have agreed to the case for Caltech geophysics? However, for a popular major (e.g. History), if its dept. doesn't constitute a large size in proportion to its school (other depts) then relatively it is weak.

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No, I think you're just quibbling. Ask yourself - why is Caltech geophysics "unpopular" (in the sense that it has few students)?

I'll put it to you another way. Many schools have extremely large and popular departments in such discipline as "Parks & Recreation", "Cosmetology", and "Leisure Studies". In fact, I think I read somewhere that US schools confer more total bachelor's degree in "Parks & Rec" than in EE. Are these departments popular because they are strong, or is something else going on?

In any case, the point is that

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I guess you wouldn't try to sell this idea, yes? Working at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs normally requires longer hours than typical engineering jobs at GE or Lucent. You may see the net flux from engineering into financial institution and not vice versa. But it is not because the nature of the jobs is more appealing among the engineers. As you said, many people choose engineering because of its marketability, and hence this people would obviously prefer working in financial companies. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean working in financial companies is more alluring for most engineers, how many engineering grads do you think would choose Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers over Google or Microsoft or Yahoo or Oracle?

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I never said it was alluring for most engineers, however it is inescapable that finance as a career path is highly appealing to many people who graduate with engineering degrees, indicating that their heart was never really in engineering.

It doesn't even have to be finance. Take consulting. McKinsey is also extremely popular with many engineering graduates. I would argue that the number of hours you work in consulting may actually be LESS than the number of hours you work as an engineer at Microsoft, or Google, or Yahoo, or Oracle, or GE (yes, GE is a notoriously workaholic company). And in consulting, you may actually get paid more. Not to mention consulting is an extremely flexible and prestigious career path.

What I will tell you, and I'm sure molliebatmit will agree, is that at MIT, consulting and finance are 2 of the most popular career paths for graduating engineers. Furthermore, looking at the numbers of people who enter consulting/finance does not tell you the full story because there are plenty of other MIT engineers who wanted to get in but didn't get an offer.

Now again, that doesn't mean that EVERY engineer wants to go down that road. I never said that. But what is undeniable is that many do.

The inescapable truth is that a lot of people are in engineering just for the money. Be honest - if engineering didn't pay as well as it did, less people would be in it, including (and perhaps especially) Asian internationals.

Look, I don't want to stereotype Asians, but for various personal reasons, I think I'm on safe ground when I say that Asians tend to be highly pragmatic in their career choices. Basically, a lot of them are looking for money. That's why few Chinese students, even internationals, major in Chinese, even though obviously many of them complete that major very easily. Many of them are in engineering precisely because it pays well. If engineering didn't pay well, they'd be off studying something else that did. And this is precisely why these same Asians are often times attracted to consulting/banking, because, again, it pays well. Wall Street banking offices are underrepresented with respect to every single minority race, and with women - the notable exception being Asians, who are strongly OVERrepresented.

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Oh really? But I would argue that Asians who start off in engineering and end up in engineering is more than those who don't. And for Internationals? Are you aware of the gap between the International students and local students in general at schools like MIT or Caltech? You can ask any student at MIT to verify that yourself.

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Of course what you are saying is correct, but it does not vitiate what I am saying - which is that plenty of Asians, even internationals, leave engineering, either before or after they get their engineering degree. Like I said, Asians are often times attracted to engineering just for the money, which means that they are liable to leave engineering if and when something better comes along.

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This is where the problem lies. I don't know if you've attended any graduate study in engineering,

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Oooh, you just stepped into it right there. So what would you say if I did attend a graduate school in engineering? I'm not saying that I have, but what if I did? Are you willing to change your mind?

If you're not willing to change your mind whether I've been to a grad engineering school or not, then why even bring this point up?

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but you would notice that in schools with small engineering depts and facility, the research is normally narrow and too theoritical and does not focus on 'hot' stuff in engineering.

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I think that there are far far more important factors at play here than the simple size of the program. Caltech, for example, is a relatively small engineering program, far smaller than many of its competitors, yet nobody would seriously accuse Caltech of being too narrow and of not focusing on hot stuff. The largest grad engineering program, by far, is not MIT or Stanford or Berkeley, but rather is at Georgia Tech. Heck, Georgia Tech has more than twice the number of graduate engineering students than Berkeley has. Yet I would argue that Berkeley is better than Georgia Tech.

And besides, if you happen to find a Harvard engineering profs who are doing what you want to do and is willing to work with you, what does it matter if the department is small? It's better than going to some huge engineering department is you're not allowed to do what you want to do.

For example, im_blue may be able to confirm this, but I have heard that at Stanford EE, advisor choices are determined by your performance on your quals. Score highly on your quals, and you will be given top choice of what advisor you want. Squeak by, and you'll be assigned to an advisor who you may not want Hence, the fact that you're at a big department like Stanford doesn't really help you much if you end up with something you don't want.

The point is, these sorts of things have to be taken on a case-by-case basis. I'm not saying that Harvard is perfect on this issue either. What I am saying is that you cannot simply generalize that bigger departments are better than smaller departments. Sometimes smaller is actually better. For example, I don't think that the small Caltech program is necessarily worse than, say, the much larger Purdue or USC programs. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

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This is where I disagree with you. I contend that there are a bunch of determined engineering student candidates would prefer Harvard engineering than Michigan or CMU just for the sake of Harvard's name.

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And, like I said before, even if they did, what would be so wrong with chasing prestige? We live in a world where prestige is useful. Plenty of people choose Harvard programs of all types (undergrad, law, medicine, business, etc.) just for the prestige. I've known people who really liked the elite LAC's like Williams and Amherst, and who have admitted to me that they prefer the LAC environment, but turn it down for Harvard because they want the prestige. {Incidentally, these people are all Asians, and they chose Harvard over a LAC in part because of strong pressure from their Asian parents to take the prestige}. So why single out Harvard engineering?

Case in point - consider Bill Gates. He went to Harvard. Everybody, including himself, knew that he was going to study Computer Science there. But why Harvard? Harvard CS isn't the best now, and it wasn't the best back then. So shouldn't he have been going to MIT instead? Or Stanford?

Hence, I don't see why we are picking on Harvard Engineering specifically. Harvard engineering is not the easiest Harvard program to get into and complete (I would argue that the Harvard M.Ed. program is). Plenty of people in all of Harvard's programs are there just for the prestige. So why single out Harvard engineering?

Furthermore, you are not addressing my main point which is that Harvard is still very good at engineering, prestige aside. Plenty of people will choose Harvard grad engineering just because it's the best they could get into. Like, again, that guy I know. He freely admits he'd rather be going to a better program. He didn't get in. So now he's going to Harvard. Is that wrong?

You are also not addressing my other point which is that I dispute that Harvard engineers will get laughed at. Again, why? Nobody is laughing at the Fresno State engineers. So why pick on the Harvard engineers? Whatever their motives for going to Harvard, Harvard engineers are still better than the vast majority of engineers out there, because most engineers come from no-name schools.

And like I said, if all you want is the Harvard name, there are so many easier ways to get it than to complete a Harvard engineering degree. If all you want is the Harvard name, why would you do it through engineering? Engineering degrees are hard, no matter what school you're talking about. Do it through the Education School. Or the Kennedy School. It would seem to me that you should choose the easiest path to get what you want.

sakky · October 5, 2005, 8:28pm

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From the links that you gave above and the way you consider BioE = Bio + Engrg , how would you then surmise that BioE program at Caltech is weaker than Boston U?

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I didn't say that I thought that Caltech BioE was weaker than BU.

What I am saying is that there is no reason to believe that Caltech BioE is a superelite BioE program, and in fact much reason to believe that it is not. That may well be because it is a young program that needs time to develop, but that doesn't take away from the fact that at this time, it's probably not considered at the same level of Duke or Johns hopkins. Nevertheless, I am sure there are people who will turn down Johns Hopkins for Caltech. Should these people be laughed at?

My ultimate point is that I strongly disagree with the notion that Harvard engineers ought to be singled out for ridicule. Why? Not all Harvard departments are tops in their field. For example, NYU art history is higher-ranked than Harvard art history. And I'm sure, for undergrad, anybody who can get into Harvard can get into NYU. So does that mean that anybody who studies art history at Harvard should be ridiculed, because they foolishly turned down the top art history program in the country? Harvard is relatively low-ranked in French. In fact, CUNY surprisingly has a higher-ranked in French than does Harvard. So then anybody who goes to Harvard to study French should be ridiculed? UMass, UConn, CUNY, Ohio State, Arizona, and UCSantaCruz are higher ranked than Harvard in Linguistics. Wisconsin is higher ranked in Spanish. So does that mean that anybody who studies these disciplines at Harvard deserves to be ridiculed?

If not, then why are we singling out Harvard engineering? Harvard Linguistics is the #21 ranked program according to the NRC. So does that mean that people in the Linguistics industry go around laughing at all the Harvard people?

I know, I know, like wrprice said, rankings don't matter that much. I agree. But whether you think rankings matter or not, I still don't see the basis for Harvard engineers getting singled out for ridicule more so than the Harvard linguistics students should. If we're not going to pick on the Harvard linguistics students, then we shouldn't be picking on the Harvard engineering students.

rtkysg · October 5, 2005, 10:59pm

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Ask yourself - why is Caltech geophysics "unpopular" (in the sense that it has few students)?

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You seem like to twist my sentences, don't you; I didn't say that Caltech geophysics is unpopular in the sense that it has few students, but the fact that literature is popular subject (in general) but has small dept and few/no student at Caltech would indicate that Caltech is weak in literature. C'mon you should be kidding to compare it with the Park & Recreation study (I don't even know that it exists LOL!).

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What I will tell you, and I'm sure molliebatmit will agree, is that at MIT, consulting and finance are 2 of the most popular career paths for graduating engineers. Furthermore, looking at the numbers of people who enter consulting/finance does not tell you the full story because there are plenty of other MIT engineers who wanted to get in but didn't get an offer.

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I am not going that far as to say which is the most popular career paths while the number of those going to finance & consulting I believe is less those going into engineering/science/tech companies. While they are many MIT engineers who wanted to get into Mckinsey but didn't get the offer, they are many too who wanted to get into Google but didn't get the offer and ran to finance.

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Like I said, Asians are often times attracted to engineering just for the money, which means that they are liable to leave engineering if and when something better comes along.

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I just want to say, regardless being passionate or pragmatic, most Asians who start off in engineering would finish their study in engineering, and perhaps work in engineering/tech too.

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If you're not willing to change your mind whether I've been to a grad engineering school or not, then why even bring this point up?

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I just wanted to know if we have some common background as to perceive and measure the quality of graduate study engineering, as it would save words for my explanation. You can build a symposium to argue, but I could assure you that graduate study in engineering at Caltech is viewed as narrow, theoritical but hot, while the one at Harvard is not at all and its engineering facility is mediocre. You see, the size of the engineering dept. couldn't be too small to produce important result. It has something to do with facility and capital. And surely I don't say that large engineering dept. translates to good engineering dept. There are too many trade offs and grey area in this case. I don't have enough energy to give you explanation why Harvard graduate study in engineering is terribly weak compared to let's say CMU, Michigan, UIUC let alone MIT/Berkeley/Caltech/Stanford. It's up to you to do the research.

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And, like I said before, even if they did, what would be so wrong with chasing prestige? We live in a world where prestige is useful. Plenty of people choose Harvard programs of all types (undergrad, law, medicine, business, etc.) just for the prestige.

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Nothing's wrong of course, it's not something like you shoot someone's head. But taking engineering at Harvard instead of Cornell or CMU would probably make you laughable in the engineering circle.

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Case in point - consider Bill Gates. He went to Harvard. Everybody, including himself, knew that he was going to study Computer Science there. But why Harvard? Harvard CS isn't the best now, and it wasn't the best back then. So shouldn't he have been going to MIT instead? Or Stanford?

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I believe Gates intend to major in law originally and applied science, not CS??

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You are also not addressing my other point which is that I dispute that Harvard engineers will get laughed at. Again, why? Nobody is laughing at the Fresno State engineers. So why pick on the Harvard engineers?

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Because they're normally good enough for other schools better in engineering like Cornell or Michigan, but still choose Harvard for its name. It sounds vain, but again I didn't say that they're wrong. Heck I would've probably chosen Harvard too last time if I didn't get a much better choice for engineering. But still it doesn't change the fact that many engineers laugh at Harvard engineering students.

sakky · October 6, 2005, 7:35am

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I didn't say that Caltech geophysics is unpopular in the sense that it has few students, but the fact that literature is popular subject (in general) but has small dept and few/no student at Caltech would indicate that Caltech is weak in literature. C'mon you should be kidding to compare it with the Park & Recreation study (I don't even know that it exists LOL!).

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No, rtyskg, I think you are missing the basic point I am trying to illustrate.

Throughout this entire thread, I have been pushing one basic theme, which is that people don't just always study a particular field at a particular school just because a school happens to have strong programs in that field. Some people just want money, so they will study a relatively weak (but high paying) field of that school. Some people just want an easy degree, which is why they will do Film Studies.

What that means is that just because a program is small does not necessarily mean that the program is weak, and just because a program is large does not mean that the program is strong. A program may be weak, but may also just be easy, thereby attracting all the lazy students. You cannot make the simple generalization that just because a program is small or big or whatever, then the program is automatically weak or strong.

As far as the parks & rec thing is concerned, consider this quote.

"In the US, more students are getting degrees in parks and recreation than in electrical engineering"

<a href="http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2003/c03033.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2003/c03033.shtml</a>

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While they are many MIT engineers who wanted to get into Mckinsey but didn't get the offer, they are many too who wanted to get into Google but didn't get the offer and ran to finance.

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But the real point is that IN GENERAL, consulting/banking tends to raid more people from engineering than vice versa. Put another way, the average consulting/banking job is considered to be more desirable than the average engineering job. Yes, there are some mediocre consulting/banking jobs, but believe me, there are a LOT of mediocre engineering jobs out there.

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And surely I don't say that large engineering dept. translates to good engineering dept. There are too many trade offs and grey area in this case. I don't have enough energy to give you explanation why Harvard graduate study in engineering is terribly weak compared to let's say CMU, Michigan, UIUC let alone MIT/Berkeley/Caltech/Stanford. It's up to you to do the research.

[/quote]

Again, I never said that Harvard engineering was to the level of the other schools you mentioned. However, my consistent point is that Harvard engineering is still very good. Let's face it. There are hundreds of engineering programs out there that Harvard is better at. I never said that Harvard engineering could compare to MIT engineering. But it's better than most of the other programs out there.

You keep pushing the idea that Harvard engineering is mediocre. The definition of mediocre is "ordinary". So is Harvard engineering is mediocre, then what about all the hundreds of engineering programs out there? Are you saying they are all "less than ordinary"?

[quote]
just want to say, regardless being passionate or pragmatic, most Asians who start off in engineering would finish their study in engineering, and perhaps work in engineering/tech too.

[/quote]

And like I said, finishing engineering and actually turning down consulting/banking/law/medicine to work in engineering are entirely different things.

I agree with you that Asians are more likely to finish engineering degrees than other races are, although even then, considering the high attrition rates, plenty of Asians are still weeded out. You must agree that that happens. Not all Asians want to work as hard as it takes to complete an engineering degree. We've all seen those Asians who would rather just goof off.

On the other hand, I don't think it is controversial to point out that lots of Asians finish their engineering degrees and then would prefer to go to more lucrative non-engineering career fields. In fact, one guy who just finished his EE degree at MIT was basically "ordered" by his family to not work in engineering, but instead to take an investment banking job offer that he had gotten.

The point is that stereotypical Asian values have nothing to do with engineering or technology per se, but have to do with making money and career advancement. If engineering is the best you can do, that's what you do. But if something better comes along, Asian values would dictate that you take it.

[quote]
But taking engineering at Harvard instead of Cornell or CMU would probably make you laughable in the engineering circle.

[/quote]

And again, I would attribute that to either jealousy or willful arrogance. Again, are these same Cornell guys laughing at the guys who went to Fresno State? Only the most elitist and downright obnoxious such Cornell people would go around laughing at other people's schools. Would those same Cornell guys have taken Harvard themselves, if they had gotten the opportunity? I would think many if not most would.

Besides, the Harvard guy, if he got laughed at, would have a highly effective response, which is that while the Cornell or CMU guy might have 'better' engineering degrees, they are probably going to end up working for him and not vice versa.

Now obviously that's a pretty harsh comeback, but, hey, it's no less harsh than the idea of people laughing at other people's schools. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[quote]
I believe Gates intend to major in law originally and applied science, not CS??

[/quote]

No, I believe he stated in his autobiography that he was going for CS. Think of it this way. He was already an avid computer hacker and hobbyist while he was still in high school, spending almost all his free time doing that. So it is natural to think that he would have continued with computers at Harvard. Obviously nobody will ever know for sure (he dropped out before he declared a concentration), but he certainly showed no such love for law while he was in high school.

[quote]
But still it doesn't change the fact that many engineers laugh at Harvard engineering students.

[/quote]

See, there it is again, and I would assert that those people who do that laughing are either insufferably arrogant or simply jealous.

Think about it - what it is about Harvard that elicits the laughter? Nobody goes around picking on the Fresno State engineers. So why pick on Harvard, which is a far better engineering school than Fresno State? What is it about Harvard that generates the scorn?

You might say that that's because the Harvard guy could have gone to a better engineering school, but as has been pointed out, #1, that may not be true (because MIT/STanford/Caltech admissions are a crapshoot), and #2, not everybody's gunning to always go to the top program in their field anyway. For many people, other factors are more important than obsessively gunning to go for the best program in your field. As I said, a lot of people switch out of engineering. And a lot of people are more interested in things like personal fit or social atmosphere. I happen to think there are many good reasons for choosing Caltech over Johns Hopkins even if you intend to major in BioE. Similarly, I can think of many good reasons to choose Harvard over MIT, even if you intend to major in engineering.

And even if it is true that they chose Harvard just for the name, well, so what? I am sure that many of those Cornell or Michigan engineers might graduate and choose an engineering job just for the name. For example, some of those Cornell engineers will choose to work at Microsoft or Google or Intel just for the name. How is that any different? Believe me, there are a lot of engineers who, after graduation, choose jobs with employers that they don't even really like, but just because they want to hook onto a bigname company to build their resume. So what's the difference between that and going to Harvard just for the name? Should they be laughed at too?

wingardiumLeviosa · October 6, 2005, 3:01pm

Careful when you talk about consulting Sakky.

Consulting sucks. Sure, it's got money in it but you have to put up with so much politics and b.s. My dad worked for Oracle before and they paid him well but the job was really stressful and a lot of times, he didn't get the credit he deserved. Now, he works for GE as a consultant and they pay him really good money but he has to put up with a lot of crap.

If this is what Mckinsey consulting is like, I'd rather be an engineer.

rtkysg · October 6, 2005, 4:57pm

[quote]
You cannot make the simple generalization that just because a program is small or big or whatever, then the program is automatically weak or strong

[/quote]

But I don't make any generalization here. All I said is that Engineering is supposed to be one major department; Harvard is a large school, if its engineering dept doesn't constitute what other major depts has, then it is a symptom that its engineering dept. is weak (relatively compared to other major depts in the same school), i.e. it's not the main appeal for the students who applied and admitted to Harvard.

Now as I said, it's very unlikely that students who don't intend to take engineering finish off with engineering in the end. It implies that they already have engineering in their mind from the very beginning. When someone got admitted to Harvard engineering, it is very likely that he also got offer from Michigan, Cornell or CMU. Now when he rejected those offers and end up with engineering from Harvard, the reasoning is normally either he has tendency to transfer to other major or he choose Harvard because of its name. You can see that while the first reason is very normal, the second reason tends to be more provocative. Now while undergrad students in engineering at Harvard may have one of those two, the grad students would most likely choose Harvard engineering only for the second reason. For many people this sounds rather vain and hence laughable.

[quote]
And again, I would attribute that to either jealousy or willful arrogance. Again, are these same Cornell guys laughing at the guys who went to Fresno State? Only the most elitist and downright obnoxious such Cornell people would go around laughing at other people's schools. Would those same Cornell guys have taken Harvard themselves, if they had gotten the opportunity? I would think many if not most would.

[/quote]

I don't say that laughing at Harvard engineering students is just, but it is the same way that many people laugh at those who attend Park and Recreation Study. It's arrogant or jealousy perhaps, but it is a fact that many people laugh at them, I don't think we should the turn the world up side down, should we?

[quote]
But the real point is that IN GENERAL, consulting/banking tends to raid more people from engineering than vice versa. Put another way, the average consulting/banking job is considered to be more desirable than the average engineering job. Yes, there are some mediocre consulting/banking jobs, but believe me, there are a LOT of mediocre engineering jobs out there.

[/quote]

It is true, but this is because many students take engineering to be safe, since it is perhaps the most marketable job out there. These students are not in the first place interested in engineering works, but again it doesn't mean that consulting/banking job is more desirable. And to make things fair, we should compare jobs at let's say McKinsey with the ones at Google and not arbitrary manufacturing company in Texas.

[quote]
No, I believe he stated in his autobiography that he was going for CS

[/quote]

This link states that he doesn't have any idea what to take for the college and enroll for pre-law.
<a href="http://ei.cs.vt.edu/%7Ehistory/Gates.Mirick.html%5B/url%5D">http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Gates.Mirick.html</a>

[quote]
And even if it is true that they chose Harvard just for the name, well, so what?

[/quote]

Yeah they got laughed at.

[quote]
I am sure that many of those Cornell or Michigan engineers might graduate and choose an engineering job just for the name. For example, some of those Cornell engineers will choose to work at Microsoft or Google or Intel just for the name. How is that any different?

[/quote]

Be careful here, those companies pay high salary and hence the name materializes. But I don't think Harvard engineering student would have any edge competing with Cornell or CMU students, and hence the name doesn't materialize.

sakky · October 6, 2005, 6:58pm

[quote]
Consulting sucks. Sure, it's got money in it but you have to put up with so much politics and b.s. My dad worked for Oracle before and they paid him well but the job was really stressful and a lot of times, he didn't get the credit he deserved. Now, he works for GE as a consultant and they pay him really good money but he has to put up with a lot of crap.

If this is what Mckinsey consulting is like, I'd rather be an engineer.

[/quote]

Well, believe me, engineers have to put up with a LOT of crap too. Surely we've all read the comic strip Dilbert. The character of Dilbert is an engineer, as was the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams. Adams got the idea for a comic strip about a put-upon engineer from his days as an engineer.

aibarr · October 6, 2005, 7:56pm

The real world is full of crap, guys. You can't escape it. Everyone has to deal with crap. I can't think of a job out there where you wouldn't have to deal with crap. There are plenty of comics out there:

Dilbert: about a put-upon engineer
Piled Higher and Deeper: about a put-upon grad student
Crankshaft: about a put-upon bus driver
Blondie: about a put-upon caterer
Jump Start: about some put-upon cops
Beetle Bailey: about a put-upon soldier
For Better or For Worse: about a put-upon dentist and his put-upon family
Calvin & Hobbes: about a put-upon kid, and often, put-upon parents, teachers, and babysitters

The thing is, there's bureaucracy and inanity in life, but there are also vast rewards waiting in each profession. Things can be good, things can be bad, but we can't take one or two or ten experiences and assume that it's going to be that way everywhere. Heaven help us if we all turned to comics to tell us whether or not we'd be disgruntled after starting a family, or the population would die out pretty quickly.

Please don't start a "my job has more crap than your job" war...

sakky · October 6, 2005, 8:27pm

[quote]
You can see that while the first reason is very normal, the second reason tends to be more provocative.

[/quote]

I still fail to see what is so provocative about it. So people are choosing to do something just for the prestige. So what? This happens all the time, and not just with Harvard, and not even just with education, but with a lot of things in life. See below.

[quote]
the grad students would most likely choose Harvard engineering only for the second reason. For many people this sounds rather vain and hence laughable.

[/quote]

I find this notion even MORE inflammatory. The presumption here is that these Harvard grad engineers are just as able to get into another (better) engineering program as the Harvard undergrad engineers are. I would like to see the evidence of this.

For example, one might say that Harvard is much more difficult to get into than Illinois for undergrad, so anybody who gets into Harvard undergrad should also be able to get into Illinois. However, graduate school is a completely different story. I find it highly debatable whether admission to Harvard grad engineering is more difficult than Illinois grad engineering. This is something that is captured quite poorly by things like GRE scores (which are really only a minor admissions factor) and admissions percentages (which are radically affected by the small size of the Harvard program). The most important factor for grad admissions is your research potential, which is obviously difficult to quantify. However, the point is, I find it highly unclear whether Harvard grad engineering is more difficult than other grad engineering programs to get admitted.

And if it's true that Harvard grad engineering is not more difficult to get into than the other top grad engineering programs, then the whole argument falls apart. That would mean that Harvard grad engineers are going there because it was the best program they could get into. Like that guy I used to work with. He would rather be going elsewhere for his EE PhD, but Harvard was the best he could do.

Like I said, not everybody gets to go to the best program in their field. In fact, very few people do. But that doesn't give those people who do get in the right to laugh at those who don't. What kind of arrogant elitist world are we living in if the best students go around laughing at those who aren't as good?

[quote]
This link states that he doesn't have any idea what to take for the college and enroll for pre-law.
<a href="http://ei.cs.vt.edu/%7Ehistory/Gates.Mirick.html%5B/url%5D">http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Gates.Mirick.html</a>

[/quote]

Yet I think you can tell from his background that computers was already very much in his mind when he was a high school student at Lakeside.

[quote]
It is true, but this is because many students take engineering to be safe, since it is perhaps the most marketable job out there. These students are not in the first place interested in engineering works, but again it doesn't mean that consulting/banking job is more desirable. And to make things fair, we should compare jobs at let's say McKinsey with the ones at Google and not arbitrary manufacturing company in Texas.

[/quote]

That's not fair either. The fairest way would be to compare the AVERAGE consulting/Ibanking job to the AVERAGE engineering job. The very top engineering jobs are very desirable, probably just as desirable as the top consulting and banking jobs. But the average engineering job does not compare well to the average consulting/banking job.

And I believe that it does mean that consulting/banking tend to be more desirable. Consulting/banking (especialy consulting) also tend to draw from engineering PhD's as well. I happen to know several people who just completed their engineering PhD's at MIT, and are now joining McKinsey. I think it's safe to say that these people must be interested in engineering (if not, they wouldn't have the mental strength to complete an MIT PhD). So here are some people who are highly interested in engineering, and yet even they choose non-engineering jobs.

In fact, I see that MIT even has a website specifically devoted to its PhD students who are interested in consulting. On the one hand, I think it's very good that MIT is actively trying to help its doctoral students who are interested in consulting. On the other hand, I think it's sad that there aren't better opportunities available for these newly minted MIT PhD's in their chosen field such that they would consider consulting.

<a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/graduate/PhDconsultingdates05.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/career/www/graduate/PhDconsultingdates05.html</a>

[quote]
Be careful here, those companies pay high salary and hence the name materializes.

[/quote]

Oh no. No, no, no. While I would exclude Google for the time-being, which is a strange exception, I can definitely speak for Microsoft, Intel, General Electric, and companies like that, because I actually know engineers who work or have worked at those companies. These companies do NOT pay high salaries. Not at all. Their salaries are actually quite average for the industry. Starting engineering salaries at companies like this are quite unexceptional.

The way they see it is, they are "paying" you in prestige, as well as possibly in training. Their attitude is that they are just going to pay you roughly the market rate (but no more), and if you don't like it, hey, there are plenty of other people who will work for that salary, just to be able to put it on their resume for later.

I've heard this griping probably the most from former and current General Electric and Intel people. Basically, I know a lot of ex-GE engineers who say that they won't go back to GE because GE doesn't pay well. Yes, GE is a big name that looks great on the resume, and they got very solid and useful experience at GE. But the point is, they feel that they could make a LOT more money elsewhere, especially now that they have GE on their resume.

One of the dirty secrets in engineering (and in most industries) is that, if you want to be paid well, you usually have to choose a company that is not so famous and not so strong (but not so weak that it is in financial difficulty), but is looking to grow and become strong. The reason is simple. These not-so-strong companies know that they can't offer a big nameplate for people to have on their resume. They know that they can't offer the strong training that the industry leaders can offer. But what they can offer is money. They know that top people would rather work for top companies, so to entice them away, they tend to offer more money.

[quote]
It's arrogant or jealousy perhaps, but it is a fact that many people laugh at them, I don't think we should the turn the world up side down, should we?...Yeah they got laughed at.

[/quote]

Now, see, I strongly question what the point of all this laughing is about. Let's think about the situation.

A guy goes to CMU to get his engineering degree. Some other guy could have done the same, but elected to go to Harvard to get his engineering degree. The CMU guy might laugh at the Harvard guy for his provocativeness. But why? Presumably it's because the CMU guy thinks that he has the better engineering degree, and so the CMU guy thinks he will end up with a better engineering career, and so he laughs at the Harvard guy for supposedly hurting his own engineering career just to get the Harvard prestige.

But if all of that is true, then what's the point of laughing? If the CMU guy is right, then he should be content and confident that he will have a better engineering career. If the Harvard guy really is hurting his own career by choosing Harvard, that has nothing to do with the CMU guy, so what does the CMU guy care? The Harvard guy would not be hurting the CMU guy in any way. In fact, the Harvard guy might actually be HELPING the CMU guy because the Harvard guy would be effectively removing himself from competition for the very top engineering jobs. Hence, it's now EASIER for the CMU guy to get those jobs. In fact, honestly, instead of the CMU guys laughing at the Harvard guys, the CMU guys should actually be ENCOURAGING people to go to Harvard.

What I suspect is really happening is that any laughter is really a case of "nervous laughter". Generally, only those people who lack self-confidence are the ones who try to make themselves feel better by putting others down. Michael Jordan doesn't go around laughing at other basketball players. All he has to do is show up with his fingers adorned with his NBA Championship rings. So if the CMU guy truly believes that his engineering degree is better than the Harvard engineering degree, then why laugh? If you're right, you're inevitably going to be proved right by the marketplace, as you are going to get a better job and have a better career.

Hence, I think what's really going on is that the CMU guy has a gnawing suspicion that he is not right and that the Harvard guy might end up with a better career than he will. For example, maybe that Harvard engineering guy will run off to some other non-engineering career path (i.e. consulting, banking, law school, etc.) and become extremely successful. Or maybe the Harvard guy will take an engineering job and get promoted to management faster because of the Harvard name. The CMU guy might even fret that perhaps he will end up working for and taking orders from that Harvard guy and not the other way around. So he laughs at the Harvard guy to make himself feel better.

The point is, if you are really so confident in yourself, you should not feel the need to laugh at others or put others down. The fact that you do indicates to me that maybe you're not that confident.

rtkysg · October 6, 2005, 9:12pm

[quote]
The most important factor for grad admissions is your research potential, which is obviously difficult to quantify. However, the point is, I find it highly unclear whether Harvard grad engineering is more difficult than other grad engineering programs to get admitted.

[/quote]

This is why I asked earlier whether you have attended graduate study in engineering, i.e. to see if we have some common information about graduate schools in engineering. I couldn't give you much evidence, but the rumor is that while graduate school in engineering at Harvard is not as selective as the top four, it is more or less as selective as CMU or Michigan and more selective than say Purdue. If this is not the case than yes, they probably attend Harvard engineering as the best place they could get. But you see, regardless of the true reason, what matters is the perception. Well rumors have a lot to do with general perception unfortunately.

[quote]
But that doesn't give those people who do get in the right to laugh at those who don't. What kind of arrogant elitist world are we living in if the best students go around laughing at those who aren't as good?

[/quote]

I never said it is right; neither did I say that laughing at people studying Park and Recreation is a right thing. But let's face it, we live in a cynical world, and it happens.

[quote]
That's not fair either. The fairest way would be to compare the AVERAGE consulting/Ibanking job to the AVERAGE engineering job. The very top engineering jobs are very desirable, probably just as desirable as the top consulting and banking jobs. But the average engineering job does not compare well to the average consulting/banking job.

[/quote]

The thing is that consulting and banking jobs are much more limited compared to engineering in general. But again it's not fair to say that consulting/Ibanking is more desirable than engineering because the an average engineering job is worse than an average Ibanking job. In fact, based on your pragmatism, you must say that higher paid job with good enviroment is better than the lower paid job, i.e. people may not choose Ibanking if they are offered engineering jobs with similar rewards. The twist here is that once people get into Ibanking, most of them would lose their engineering skill and hence couldn't make a comeback into engineering fields.

[quote]
Oh no. No, no, no. While I would exclude Google for the time-being, which is a strange exception, I can definitely speak for Microsoft, Intel, General Electric, and companies like that,

[/quote]

No you don't, at least for Microsoft, because well it has paid me and some of my friend very well previously. But that would be biased as well. The fact is that the salary (using salary/hour metric, tax and living cost) given by those companies, e.g. Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, AMD, Yahoo, etc (except GE in which I agree with you, GE sucks, which is already known among engineers) may be better than what you can obtain working in consulting/Ibanking.

[quote]
What I suspect is really happening is that any laughter is really a case of "nervous laughter".

[/quote]

Would you think those who laugh from Berkeley and Stanford have this nervous laughter as well? As you said, they may be arrogant (if they're from M/C/S/B or jealous (if they're from lesser schools) or cynical (if they're from CMU/Cornell/Michigan). But as I said, regardless whether it is right or wrong (let's not talk philosophy here), it is there.

sakky · October 6, 2005, 11:46pm

[quote]
But you see, regardless of the true reason, what matters is the perception...I never said it is right; neither did I say that laughing at people studying Park and Recreation is a right thing. But let's face it, we live in a cynical world, and it happens...

[/quote]

What you seem to be really saying is that the world is full of jerks who enjoy putting people down. If that's the case, then I cannot argue with you on that one. Obviously the world is full of jerks. But just because the world is full of jerks doesn't mean that we should behave like jerks.

Besides, I would again ask, if the guy is getting an engineering degree from Harvard, what do you care? It has nothing to do with you. So why go around putting him down? If your degree truly is better, then you are bound to win, so why can't you be content with that? That is, of course, unless you're a jerk.

sakky · October 6, 2005, 11:47pm

[quote]
but the rumor is that while graduate school in engineering at Harvard is not as selective as the top four, it is more or less as selective as CMU or Michigan and more selective than say Purdue. If this is not the case than yes, they probably attend Harvard engineering as the best place they could get.

[/quote]

For this, I would like to see the evidence. I think it would be very interesting to see, especially the cross-yield data.

In any case, I come back to what I said before. If you as an engineer think that Purdue is better than Harvard, and you can get into both, then you should go to Purdue over Harvard and not worry about what other people are doing. If you truly believe that the Harvard namebrand might be better for you, then you should choose Harvard over Purdue. If you don't, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. And if it's really true that Harvard engineering is more selective than Purdue engineering, such that you get into Purdue but not Harvard, then once again, you have nobody to blame but yourself. You should have worked harder.

In any case, it still has to do with what you are doing, not about what other people are doing. If you think some dude is being foolish for choosing Harvard over Purdue, hey, that's his life, not yours. So why concern yourself with him?

[quote]
But again it's not fair to say that consulting/Ibanking is more desirable than engineering because the an average engineering job is worse than an average Ibanking job. In fact, based on your pragmatism, you must say that higher paid job with good enviroment is better than the lower paid job, i.e. people may not choose Ibanking if they are offered engineering jobs with similar rewards.

[/quote]

No, what I really am saying is that people are going to make choices to help them get to where they want to be. And the fact is, many people, even those with engineering degrees, often times see consulting/banking as a better choice than engineering. That's why even people with MIT and Stanford engineering doctorates will sometimes run off to consulting/banking.

What the engineering companies need to do is make their jobs BETTER such that less people will leave engineering. A few companies, notably Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, are doing that. But many others are not. I've heard representatives from Intel, Dell, GE, HP, Microsoft and the like complain that they've been making job offers to highly promising people only to get turned down for McKinsey and BCG and Bain. And I would turn the situation around and say that if they if had made better offers and if their companies provided better opportunities in the first place, then they wouldn't be losing these people. So on the one hand, these companies complain that they lose people to consulting. On the other hand, they refuse to provide the kinds of opportunities that the consulting companies do. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this isn't going to work.

[quote]
No you don't, at least for Microsoft, because well it has paid me and some of my friend very well previously. But that would be biased as well. The fact is that the salary (using salary/hour metric, tax and living cost) given by those companies, e.g. Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, AMD, Yahoo, etc (except GE in which I agree with you, GE sucks, which is already known among engineers) may be better than what you can obtain working in consulting/Ibanking.

[/quote]

Oh I'm afraid not. In fact I have to emphatically disagree. These companies cannot compare in pay, on average, to consulting and (especially) banking.

Now don't get me wrong. I never said the salaries were bad at those companies. They are good in the sense that engineering salaries in general are good. But not tremendously so. Consider these quotes:

"[Microsoft] Newbies work for comfortable but not overly generous wages..."

"...the staff is paid at market rates."

<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952001.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952001.htm</a>

Look, it is widely understood that you don't work as an engineer, even at Microsoft, if you just want to make a high salary. You do it for the prestige and the training and for the chance to move up. But if all you want is upfront pay, you go to Wall Street.

[quote]
The twist here is that once people get into Ibanking, most of them would lose their engineering skill and hence couldn't make a comeback into engineering fields.

[/quote]

I doubt that that's a twist at all because a lot of these guys don't really WANT to come back as engineers. They just want to have an engineering degree in order to show that they have technical chops. But it was never really their intent to work as engineers at all, but rather to work as tech VC's or managers or the like.

Furthermore, a lot of working engineers don't really want to be engineers, at least not for long. That's why MBA's are so popular for engineers (something like 25% of the students at the top US MBA programs have engineering undergrad degrees, an amazing stat when you realize that only 5% of all US bachelor's degrees are engineering degrees). An extremely common career path for an ambitious engineer is to work for a few years as an engineer, and then go to HBS, Stanford, Wharton, MITSloan, or Kellogg and get their MBA's. After they get their MBA's, they're not going to go back to engineering. If they don't go for consulting/banking post-MBA, they're going to take jobs on the management track. You really think a guy with an elite MBA is going to want to go back in the trenches as an engineer?

The last 2 MBA programs I mentioned (MITSloan and Kellogg) actually run special dual MBA/MS-Engineering programs, called the LFM and the MMM programs respectively. Yet of the graduates of these programs, the number who go back to work as engineers is about zero. These programs create people who are ready to become managers at engineering companies, but not engineers.

The point is, these people aren't worried about losing their engineering skills. They're ready to get on the management track. Even a guy who finished LFM (and hence got an elite MS in engineering from MIT, along with his MBA), doesn't care about losing his engineering skills. He wants to move up the management ranks, which necessarily means losing your engineering skills.

So if even the LFM guys don't care about losing their engineering skills, then why would a guy who went to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs fresh out of college care about losing his engineering skills? So he loses them, so what? He's got bigger fish to fry.

Incidentally, I would point out, who is the current CEO of Dell? It's Kevin Rollins. Did he get promoted up the engineering ranks? Nope - he was a former partner at Bain. Or how about Oracle? Is Oracle really run by engineers? I don't think so. CEO Larry Ellison doesn't have an engineering degree (in fact, he has no degree at all). How about Oracle President Charles Phillips? Did he rise out of engineering? Nope - he came out of Wall Street investment banking, having been the former managing director at Morgan Stanley. How about CFO Greg Maffei? His background started in investment banking and venture capital, ultimately at Citicorp Venture Capital, then he was CFO at Microsoft, then he was CEO of 360Networks, then Oracle. How about Safra Catz? Was she an engineer? I think not. She was former Managing Director at DLJ, which is now part of Credit Suisse First Boston. Or how about Intel. Intel used to be a heavily engineering oriented company. But now take the top 3 executives at Intel - Paul Otellini, Sean Maloney, and Andy Bryant. None of these guys has an engineering degree or rose through the ranks of engineering, instead rising through either sales/marketing (Otellini and Maloney) or finance (Bryant).

The point is, people see that and they realize that if they want to get to the top of a company, even an engineering company, it's hard to get there via the engineering track. How do you think the engineers at Dell felt when they saw that their new CEO is a former consultant? How do you think the engineers at Oracle feel when they see that Ellison promotes all these former investment bankers to work under him? How do you think it makes the engineers at Intel feel to know that the power of the company lies in the hands of people who came up from sales, marketing, or finance, but not engineering?

You said it yourself when you said that perceptions and rumors shape things. The strong perception at Oracle is that you need to have a background in banking to get ahead. The perception at Dell is that you need to have a consulting background to get to the top. The perception at Intel is that engineering is not the best way to get to the top.

And that's a problem, at least of perception. If these companies want people to work as engineers, they have to prove that the engineering track can get you places, or at least better than the other career paths can. Otherwise people are going to make the rational choice that they are better off being consultants/bankers if they want to make it to the top.

[quote]
Would you think those who laugh from Berkeley and Stanford have this nervous laughter as well?

[/quote]

Yep, because like I said, if you are confident in yourself, then you shouldn't feel the need to put other people down.

rtkysg · October 7, 2005, 3:29am

[quote]
What you seem to be really saying is that the world is full of jerks who enjoy putting people down. If that's the case, then I cannot argue with you on that one. Obviously the world is full of jerks. But just because the world is full of jerks doesn't mean that we should behave like jerks. ...

In any case, it still has to do with what you are doing, not about what other people are doing. If you think some dude is being foolish for choosing Harvard over Purdue, hey, that's his life, not yours. So why concern yourself with him?

[/quote]

Ahem...Hope those words are not intended for me, I'm just stating the fact, I am saying that choosing Harvard over CMU or Cornell for engineering would probably be laughable. Since we live in the society, we need to face its positive and negative effects and I don't see anything wrong by saying that.

[quote]
And the fact is, many people, even those with engineering degrees, often times see consulting/banking as a better choice than engineering. That's why even people with MIT and Stanford engineering doctorates will sometimes run off to consulting/banking.

[/quote]

Why not, in fact those who have PhD in engineering rarely work as engineers. The problem with PhD in engineering is that it would be very hard to move from one engineering dept. to another and hence it's not flexible. Consequently, it's rather hard to get into management position with a PhD. Finally, frankly speaking it's quite hard to get an engineering job with PhD. If they can get the Ibanking job, what's the problem. But yet I would argue that there're no enough evidence to say that consulting/banking is more desirable than engineering.

[quote]
Oh I'm afraid not. In fact I have to emphatically disagree. These companies cannot compare in pay, on average, to consulting and (especially) banking.

Now don't get me wrong. I never said the salaries were bad at those companies. They are good in the sense that engineering salaries in general are good. But not tremendously so. Consider these quotes:

"[Microsoft] Newbies work for comfortable but not overly generous wages..."

"...the staff is paid at market rates."

[/quote]

Well, the thing is that most Ibanking jobs are in the East coast, and their working hours is much longer. (I have worked in two tech companies, but never in Ibanking, this info is from my MIT friend who works for Citicorp). The tax in the East Coast is higher than the one in the West Coast. When you use the metric accordingly, I doubt Ibanking would be more rewarding.

[quote]
Furthermore, a lot of working engineers don't really want to be engineers, at least not for long. That's why MBA's are so popular for engineers (something like 25% of the students at the top US MBA programs have engineering undergrad degrees, an amazing stat when you realize that only 5% of all US bachelor's degrees are engineering degrees).

[/quote]

Ah MBA, yes, every engineer would like to sit on management position. They take MBA to become manajer or director, but it's not necessarily related to Ibanking/consulting jobs.

[quote]
Incidentally, I would point out, who is the current CEO of Dell? It's Kevin Rollins. Did he get promoted up the engineering ranks? Nope - he was a former partner at Bain. Or how about Oracle? Is Oracle really run by engineers? I don't think so. CEO Larry Ellison doesn't have an engineering degree (in fact, he has no degree at all). How about Oracle President Charles Phillips? Did he rise out of engineering? Nope - he came out of Wall Street investment banking, having been the former managing director at Morgan Stanley. How about CFO Greg Maffei? His background started in investment banking and venture capital, ultimately at Citicorp Venture Capital, then he was CFO at Microsoft, then he was CEO of 360Networks, then Oracle. How about Safra Catz? Was she an engineer? I think not. She was former Managing Director at DLJ, which is now part of Credit Suisse First Boston. Or how about Intel. Intel used to be a heavily engineering oriented company. But now take the top 3 executives at Intel - Paul Otellini, Sean Maloney, and Andy Bryant. None of these guys has an engineering degree or rose through the ranks of engineering, instead rising through either sales/marketing (Otellini and Maloney) or finance (Bryant).

[/quote]

Ah Oracle, another company I'm familiar with; So you expect Greg Maffei who got into Oracle two months ago as CFO would come from an engineering background? C'mon, for this people, what matters is their capability to manage, not engineering, not Ibanking/finance, but their amazing capability to perceive company's condition and how to manage/direct their subordinates. Take Rozwat of Oracle who takes care of the database technology for example, he's of no engineering wizard (in fact his background is in finance) but he could spot the functionality of software which would create a demand for market. This has nothing to do with Ibanking or engineering job. This is his capability to see business idea and how he manage his people. This is not Ibanking or engineering job, this is a MANAGEMENT job.

[quote]
And that's a problem, at least of perception. If these companies want people to work as engineers, they have to prove that the engineering track can get you places, or at least better than the other career paths can. Otherwise people are going to make the rational choice that they are better off being consultants/bankers if they want to make it to the top.

[/quote]

No, no, no, you have to be smart to make it to the top, how to play politics in the company, etc etc. It doesn't matter what background you come from. To get to the top you need to get into management position first (either from finance or engineering) and then make your way to the top.

sakky · October 7, 2005, 4:42am

[quote]
I'm just stating the fact, I am saying that choosing Harvard over CMU or Cornell for engineering would probably be laughable. Since we live in the society, we need to face its positive and negative effects and I don't see anything wrong by saying that.

[/quote]

And if I may re-interpret what you said, you are basically saying that there are jerks in the world who like to meddle in other people's business. Yes, I agree that it happens. But I think we can also agree that it should not happen. Just like I agree that war and murder and rape happen, but that it should not happen.

[quote]
Why not, in fact those who have PhD in engineering rarely work as engineers. The problem with PhD in engineering is that it would be very hard to move from one engineering dept. to another and hence it's not flexible. Consequently, it's rather hard to get into management position with a PhD. Finally, frankly speaking it's quite hard to get an engineering job with PhD. If they can get the Ibanking job, what's the problem. But yet I would argue that there're no enough evidence to say that consulting/banking is more desirable than engineering.

[/quote]

I think there is EMPHATICALLY more evidence, when even the PhD boys run off to it. Think about it. PhD guys obviously really love engineering. That is, after all, why they got their PhD's. Many of them want to take engineering related jobs, often times in academia, but if not that, then in R&D labs.

I don't see what's so particularly hard about getting an engineering job with a Phd. Why? If necessary, just omit the PhD from your resume. I know people who do that, to avoid the stigma of being 'overqualified'. I can't see that having a Phd would actually hurt you in getting an engineering job, if you can simply choose to omit it. I know people who do that.

Furthermore, I never said that it was a problem for them to get Ibanking jobs. Good for them. But the real issue is that these people obviously love engineering enough to get a doctorate, and so I find it sad that they can't find a means for them to use it, so they end up in banking. Remember, this is at a time when people are decrying the lack of science & engineering talent in the United States, and yet some of the best engineering talent we got (these PhD's from MIT) feel they are better off in banking.

[quote]
Well, the thing is that most Ibanking jobs are in the East coast, and their working hours is much longer. (I have worked in two tech companies, but never in Ibanking, this info is from my MIT friend who works for Citicorp). The tax in the East Coast is higher than the one in the West Coast. When you use the metric accordingly, I doubt Ibanking would be more rewarding.

[/quote]

Taxes are higher in the East Coast than in the West? I don't know about that. California state taxes are some of the highest taxes in the country. I think the tax rates are roughly the same between California and New York.

Now, I do agree with you that the working hours are much longer. But that's the price you pay, and evidently a lot of people are willing to pay it. Ibanking really is one of the few professions in the world where you actually have a legitimate shot at making millions per year without having to get lucky on stock options or other equity.

[quote]
Ah MBA, yes, every engineer would like to sit on management position. They take MBA to become manajer or director, but it's not necessarily related to Ibanking/consulting jobs.

[/quote]

Oh but it is. Generally, something like 50-60% of every elite MBA class takes jobs in consulting or banking. And that includes many people who formerly worked as engineers prior to B-school. I can't tell you how many former engineers (people who worked as engineers for several years) that I've met at HBS and MITSloan who want nothing more than to get offers at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey once they finish their MBA's. It's the only thing that many of them ever talk about it. Ask yourself, why is that?

[quote]
So you expect Greg Maffei who got into Oracle two months ago as CFO would come from an engineering background? C'mon, for this people, what matters is their capability to manage, not engineering, not Ibanking/finance, but their amazing capability to perceive company's condition and how to manage/direct their subordinates. Take Rozwat of Oracle who takes care of the database technology for example, he's of no engineering wizard (in fact his background is in finance) but he could spot the functionality of software which would create a demand for market. This has nothing to do with Ibanking or engineering job. This is his capability to see business idea and how he manage his people. This is not Ibanking or engineering job, this is a MANAGEMENT job.

[/quote]

But you completely missed the point. The question is, why is it that these former bankers are the ones that Ellison has picked for promotion, and not any of the Oracle engineers?

What is inescapable that the fact that Ellison has picked those 3 people (and not others) for the top management roles. You say that these people are picked for their ability to manage people, not to engineer. THAT'S EXACTLY THE POINT. It sends the message that if you want to get to the top, knowing how to engineer is not that important, instead, you should take jobs that help you develop the ability to manage people and perceive a company's condition. Hence, people see that and discover that they won't be able to develop those skills as engineers as they could as consultants or bankers.

The upshot of that is that people will be less inclined to become engineers. Look, a lot of people want to get to the top. If engineering is seen as a way to get there, then more people will take it. If not, then not. Is that surprising? Basically, Ellison is sending the message that he seems to be valuing particular skills that, 'coincidentally' are had by people who came from banking. People will see that and make the reasonable conclusion that if they want to get those skills in order to get to the top, they should go into banking.

[quote]
No, no, no, you have to be smart to make it to the top, how to play politics in the company, etc etc. It doesn't matter what background you come from. To get to the top you need to get into management position first (either from finance or engineering) and then make your way to the top

[/quote]

But again, the question comes up as to why is it that the engineers have difficulty making it to the top, and that they often times get elbowed aside by bankers and consultants? I agree that it's not about being smart, it's more about playing politics and all that stuff, and strictly speaking, it doesn't matter what your background is. But the question is then why is it that the engineers seem to be having problems in advancing? These are not congenital skills. These are things that you can LEARN. You can LEARN how to play politics, how to manage people, how to spot good business trends. The question then becomes, what kind of job function gives you the best opportunity to learn these things? From the evidence, it seems to be that engineering may not be the best way.

It's like this. Let's say that you want to drive from your house to work. Now obviously there are many ways to drive there. But some are better than others. For example, certain paths may always be congested. Some paths may always be slow. Hence, you quickly determine that while there are infinite ways to get there, certain ways are faster than others. So after trying out the various ways and figuring out which is faster, you end up preferring the fast route.

Similarly, at any company, there are infinite ways to get to the top. But some seem to be faster than others. At places like Oracle, and increasingly at Intel and even Microsoft, people see that working as a grunt engineer may not be the fastest way to get to the top, and it may actually be faster to start off in banking or in consulting or other business functions.

The point is that people see what works and what doesn't. If lots of people make it to the top through a certain method, then more people will be attracted to that method. For example, maybe 200 years ago, it was basically understood that if you wanted to make it high society in Boston, you had to go to Harvard. That's because almost everybody in Boston high society studied at Harvard. So then obviously people in Boston who wanted to join high society tried to get into Harvard.

That's how it works. When people get promoted to the top, it sends a SIGNAL back to everybody else about what it takes to get to the top. The more that tech companies hire consultants and bankers for the top jobs, the more that people will conclude that that's the way to get to the top.

Rtkysg, I think our real conflict is that you seem to see engineering as an end in itself. From what I've seen, I believe it is far more of a means to an end. Very few people study engineering just for the sake of engineering. Most people do it because they see it as a way to get what they want, either a stable career, or a foothold into a company, or whatever. Hence, their real goal is not to be an engineer, but to advance their careers. Therefore it's a valid question as to whether engineering is really the best way to advance your career, or is something like consulting/banking better?

rtkysg · October 7, 2005, 1:16pm

[quote]
And if I may re-interpret what you said, you are basically saying that there are jerks in the world who like to meddle in other people's business. Yes, I agree that it happens. But I think we can also agree that it should not happen. Just like I agree that war and murder and rape happen, but that it should not happen.

[/quote]

Let's take it this way: if I said to my girl, hey, don't go out at night alone, it's dangerous, so many criminals around, better be safe at home. What's wrong with that? Those criminals shouldn't be there either, but they're there. Look what we can do in this life is to adopt and take a better measure. I simply said that going to Harvard instead of Cornell or CMU for engineering may get laughed at. Again what's wrong with that?

[quote]
Furthermore, I never said that it was a problem for them to get Ibanking jobs. Good for them. But the real issue is that these people obviously love engineering enough to get a doctorate, and so I find it sad that they can't find a means for them to use it, so they end up in banking.

[/quote]

Frankly speaking, it is not necessarily true for all. You'll be surprised to know that many MIT PhD students take graduate study because they don't know what they want to do next. As I said, for them, getting an engineering job may not be easier than getting Ibanking jobs, why? Because when they work for Ibanking/consulting, there's no premium added for their PhD. However, in engineering you're likely to be paid significantly higher if you hold a PhD. Hence many engineering companies don't want to employ them.

[quote]
Taxes are higher in the East Coast than in the West? I don't know about that. California state taxes are some of the highest taxes in the country. I think the tax rates are roughly the same between California and New York.

[/quote]

Yes, sorry I must've thought about Washington, anyway, I believe the cost of living in the East Coast is significantly higher than that in California.

[quote]
Oh but it is. Generally, something like 50-60% of every elite MBA class takes jobs in consulting or banking. And that includes many people who formerly worked as engineers prior to B-school.

[/quote]

You know why? Because fresh MBA grads normally are not employable in engineering companies (except if they do MBA under the endorsement of the companies). Of course they couldn't be possibly entering engineering companies and kick the incumbent managers out of the window. But working back as normal engineers doesn't really make sense, because there's no rise in pay and it's a waste of time, what they really want is to get to management hirearchy. Hence at this point, many of them working in Ibanking and consulting, the easiest fields to fill.

[quote]
What is inescapable that the fact that Ellison has picked those 3 people (and not others) for the top management roles. You say that these people are picked for their ability to manage people, not to engineer.

[/quote]

Look, their undergraduate background doesn't matter anymore; What Larry see from them is their performance in management in their previous jobs. There are tons of CEOs that come from engineering/science background, e.g. Google, GE, Apple & MSFT. I believe there are also many CEOs from non-tech companies that come from engineering background. At top level, it doesn't really matter whether you're from engineering or not. Furthermore, management capability doesn't depend on engineering or Ibanking/consulting background. The typical path from engineers to the top is: engineer->senior engineer->principal engineer->manajer->director->Vice President->...
Once you get into manager position, it's up to you to make your way to the top. And oh yeah, they LEARN politics along the way.

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