<p>I have been reading a lot on this forum about how Stanford and MIT grads get special job opportunities at start ups and other places that aren't considered straight up engineering, and that these usually pay well. What kind of opportunities does one get at a Stanford or MIT that they don't get at a UIUC or a Michigan. What types of jobs go specifically to grads of schools like that. Finally, I am planning on attending Cornell; would I have any of the "special" opportunities, or are they just for the S and M grads.</p>
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I have been reading a lot on this forum about how Stanford and MIT grads get special job opportunities at start ups and other places that aren't considered straight up engineering, and that these usually pay well. What kind of opportunities does one get at a Stanford or MIT that they don't get at a UIUC or a Michigan. Finally, I am planning on attending Cornell; would I have any of the "special" opportunities, or are they just for the S and M grads.
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<p>A prominent example would be venture capital, either working in it or obtaining funding from it. VC's rarely recruit actively, and much of the access to them is obtained through social networking. Certain schools, such as MIT and Stanford, have established connections to the VC community that the vast majority of other schools do not. MIT and Stanford even have VC senior partners working part-time on their faculties - for example, Pete Wendell of Sierra Ventures teaches at Stanford, and Noubar Afeyan of Flagship Ventures teaches at MIT - and that provides a gateway into the VC community. </p>
<p>I'm not going to say that you won't have any comparable opportunities at all at UIUC or Michigan, because you probably do. What I would say is that those opportunities are certainly fewer in number. Let's face it. Neither Ann Arbor, Ithaca, nor Urbana/Champaign are exactly hotbeds of technology entrepreneurship and venture financing, compared to the clear front-runner of Silicon Valley and the clear 2nd place locale of the Boston metro area.</p>
<p>What is venture capital?</p>
<p>Companies also recruit at top engineering schools for 'think tank' type developer jobs. I would think Cornell would be on their radar.</p>