<p>Hi all,
To many people's surprise, I am actually struggling deciding between the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins and the Schreyer Honors College at Penn state.
My current problem in deciding between these schools is getting a job right after undergraduate. I have heard that Penn State is one of the most looked-at schools by recruiters, while at the same time the majority of Schreyer scholars do go on to graduate school. I hear Hopkins trains engineers for graduate schools and they aren't as trained in applied engineering. (I've heard JHU engineers aren't as successful at the Fundamentals of Engineering exam as engineers from state schools, but I am still unclear as to what that really means.)</p>
<p>I am most importantly interested in knowing about the Computer Science Departments at both of these schools.</p>
<p>One reason that recruiters like Penn State is that it is so big and diverse. A recruiter can go there and efficiently meet a whole lot of qualified prospects with a lot of different majors. But that doesn’t mean that each individual student is necessarily better prepared, or has a better chance of landing a good job .</p>
<p>JHU computer science majors are very, very employable. Probably Penn State cs majors are as well. I’d go to the university and program you prefer and not worry too much that you’re compromising your employment options. Or, if you are worried, you could always call each cs department and find out where their recent grads are getting jobs. But if you do, I think your fears will be allayed.</p>
<p>Good advice. I’ll be sure to contact the schools again, but I did send an email to them a couple days ago and I still have heard no reply. I have been doing A LOT of research on the web, and unfortunately there isn’t as much data out there as I had hoped Whenever I look at where students have gone afterward undergraduate, for graduate schools they can give a list, but not how many go to each of these graduate schools, and for jobs it’s the same situation. For example, both JHU and Schreyer graduates have gone onto MIT for grad school, but how many from each? I have no idea.
Do you know about the benefits that Schreyer scholars have held (any personal experience with them)?
This is a really tough decision! I feel bad for thinking about rejecting Hopkins, because of how difficult it is to get in there and how great a school it is overall. But Schreyer is also difficult to get into (maybe the kind of people applying to it are different), while the people there are different I think. I have a friend that got into Hopkins engineering but rejected from Schreyer. The system is wacky.
If you can think of any more information that could help a potential comp sci or MechE major, your help is much appreciated!</p>
<p>It is really you that counts. You can get a very good education from either school and can also be very employable. People really spend too much time worrying about the name of the school instead of putting the best effort forward. Congratulation to you for having good choices.</p>
<p>JHU will have better recruiting from the top companies, but networking from Penn State might be able to make up the difference. Of course your more average companies will send more recruiters to Penn State, but at JHU you’ll be competing with way fewer people - so I think they’re about even in the end. Engineering firms that recruit at JHU often have trouble getting a single person to apply, while at large state flagships they get hundreds of resumes (I imagine this applies to Penn State). </p>
<p>JHU’s strengths generally lie in the natural sciences. A lot of engineering students take up research positions at the medical school and a lot of the research institutes are very science oriented: </p>
<p>Maybe it’s worth it to look at those centers and contrast those with the ones available at Penn State, remembering that JHU has fewer undergrads so it might be easier to get more attention or a better position at one of the centers. I think that a student with a specialization in something like computer surgery or computer vision, which isn’t available at every single university, will be more employable than someone without an uncommon specialization - but I have no hard data on that. </p>
<p>If Penn State is cheaper and you want to work at an engineering firm, that might be the way to go. If you decide that you’d like a different career path, you can always get an MBA or another graduate degree. Good luck, I don’t think that you can go wrong.</p>
<p>Wow guys. That puts some things in new perspectives. It’s hard to get the quantitative numbers to support these things sometimes, but it looks right. I did lose track about how much personal determination matters. I think I’m starting to lean towards Hopkins now a bit. Even though Schreyer kids are pampered at Penn State, I still like the smaller community of a whole university. This helped plenty!</p>
Whenever I look at where students have gone afterward undergraduate, for graduate schools they can give a list, but not how many go to each of these graduate schools, and for jobs it’s the same situation. For example, both JHU and Schreyer graduates have gone onto MIT for grad school, but how many from each? I have no idea.