<p>@halfemptypockets</p>
<p>+1!</p>
<p>I graduated Rutgers U. with a BS Computer Science. I had a 2.8 GPA - certainly not a model student! Conventional wisdom from this forum would say, “You’re doomed! You’ll never measure up to the Ivy grads!” A year before I graduated, I branched Infantry commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army National Guard. That gave me a government security clearance as well as State Tuition Waiver so I was able to walk out of undergrad with exactly $0 in debt. Because I had a security clearance and a BS Computer Science, I was competing against no one in my graduating class for a career in the defense sector. (And I wasn’t about to give this up to compete in a field where those coming from Ivy League level schools would have a significant advantage in recruiting. The bottom line up front is that you don’t compete in a field where you start out handicapped if you have better options).</p>
<p>I applied to two jobs and they only required a 30 min phone interview for a software engineer position in a metro area with 1/3-1/2 the cost of living of NYC/CA. They emailed me an offer within 10 mins for $80,000/year, God’s health insurance, over 6 weeks of paid vacation per year (roll over 2x), tuition assistance for grad school, unlimited paid military leave (double dip), and 35 hour work weeks on average with flex-schedule. I ended up grossing ~ $105k that year (taking advantage of military leave policy) in a locale that would have been equivalent to me grossing $200+k in NYC with excellent work-life balance in my FIRST year as an entry level software engineer. I was dumping money (20-25% of income) into my 401k, Federal TSP, and stacking a military retirement all at the same time. I was living in a 1500 sq. ft. luxury condo with 2BR, 2BA, office, balcony, reserved parking, elevator access. </p>
<p>I was able to do all that because I wasn’t working in a field like finance/biglaw where you are working 70+ hours a week; amusingly enough, those are the fields that value the brand name/prestige of Ivy league level schools. When you’re working that many hours a week, you’re essentially putting all your eggs in one basket - going all in. Personally, I’m against giving a single employer that much control on where your career goes. My hedge became my Army career as well as the MS Computer Science degree that would make me more attractive to my employer’s competitors. In my field, a MS CS degree is equivalent to approximately 2 years of work experience. Because I was set to complete the MS CS in 4 years while working full time, I was eligible to advance/promote an equivalent of 6 years in an actual span of 4 years.</p>
<p>In addition to my full time career as a software engineer, my Army career was progressing in parallel. I was being sent to career development (required) courses years before I needed it for promotion. I found a unique environment where my advancement in either ladder (defense and military) improved your prospects in the other. There were scores of developers that were smarter than me and went to better schools than I did. But if you’re working in an organization whose client is the Army and you are the actual end-user (dual status individual - contractor and service member), you don’t have to be smarter or harder working than those prodigies - you just have to be good enough. It’s a rigged game. It’s a rigged game in my favor.</p>
<p>Many of my more ambitious (at the time) peers from high school went to Ivy League schools and went on to careers that were biased towards Ivy League name brands. But over the course of the years, most of them, by and large, burned out. Their bodies and their minds couldn’t take the brutal 80+ hour work weeks; they were living in a city where they just couldn’t save because of the high rents/housing, high taxes, no free time, etc. They were essentially working to make some rich guy even richer! Most of my peers were minorities of Asian descent. They were raised in an environment where their parents groomed them for medicine, academia, law, business, and engineering. Military service was cast in a dark light by these parents that emigrated from countries where military service was compulsory. This was the case with my parents. They were deathly opposed to me joining the service. And I did it anyways. Because if you want to stand out among the crowd you’re going to need the intestinal fortitude to say, “No. I hear your concerns. I’ve done the research. There’s risk. I accept that. I’ve planned for that. Now let me execute my plan.” You’re going to need to believe in yourself when others don’t, and you’re going to need to follow through on your course of action.</p>
<p>It almost became an obsession to prove the naysayers wrong. And I did. I took a path that was far less travelled, and I was more successful career wise, spiritually, and financially. I have a passion for what I do. The last question I had during that phone interview was, “Why would we choose you?” I answered, “While you have other candidates, none of them are the actual end user. None of them are going to pay the price when your system fails in theatre. My soldiers are going to pay the price. I’m going to pay the price.”</p>
<p>Tl;dr summary:</p>
<p>The Ivy League to Ivy League career is a brute force approach in a frontal assault direction. It’s a linear design with a single point of failure. It requires a high cost of entry – and people often forget the overall picture and overlook this cost. The REAL LIFE consequences are huge in overlooking cost in pursuit of prestige/brand name.</p>
<p>There are formulaic ways for what you would consider “average” students to excel beyond their Ivy League counterparts. You need a base level of intelligence, to have done the research, a level of controlled aggression, the ability to take risks, execute, and endure. You have the find the angles that no one else sees and plan for a multi-pronged approach in a field where you can harness and apply all your personal strengths.</p>