<p>Your undergraduate college is the first of many (key word -- many) things that will come to define you professionally. And it can't be changed nor erased.</p>
<p>didn't Rice like graduate cum laude at the age of 19, though? That's pretty impressive by itself. Then she went on for her grad at some better known place... notre dame, maybe?... and then her doctorate. Hmmm... I can remember reading this a while ago. </p>
<p>But anyway, IMHO, a BA in the humanities would need an extra boost to get a decent job. No technical skills involved... and I kinda doubt how much employers care about critical thinking skills versus practical job experience.</p>
<p>bump........</p>
<p>Rice got her PhD and BA from the Univ. of Denver and yes she did get her MA fr. Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Colin Powell went to CCNY.</p>
<p>you mean CUNY?</p>
<p>yeah
CUNY - City College of New York</p>
<p>david letterman went to ball state university... i just remembered because i'm watching his show right now lol</p>
<p>i'm still wondering about this topic so i figured i'd bump it lol</p>
<p>Actually for accountants, the school does matter. If you want to work for a Big Four, you will get more leeway for a lower GPA if you went to a top 25 school than a tier 3 school. </p>
<p>Fortune 500 companies hire CPAs as well. Companies care about the applicants' colleges during the interview process.</p>
<p>If you want to establish your own private practice, your degree matters a little bit. A CPA who graduated from UCLA will impress his clients more than a CPA who graduated from Cal State LA. If everything else was equal, would you personally choose a CPA with a UCLA degree or a CPA with a Cal State LA degree as your accountant?</p>
<p>Now of course you don't need to go to a top school to be successful in life. However, that's not the topic of this thread. The topic is if one's school matters for a particular major.</p>
<p>ok fine this thread seems to not be working because everyone keeps finding the smallest advantages of a degree from a top school... so let's change the question to "majors in which school prestige matters very little."</p>
<p>Many people major in Political Science/International Relations to become a diplomat. But no matter what you major in, to be in the foreign service, you just have to pass the foreign service exam, which is administered to anyone interested. You could major in glass-blowing at a the worst college in America, and with great scores on the FS exam, you'd be on your way to stamping passports in Beijing. And all while language fluency is a plus, the FS <em>does</em> train all of its officers in the languages required if you don't know it.</p>
<p>so anyone can be in the foreign service... do they get paid well?</p>
<p>Not anyone. You have to be in good physical and mental health, pass a security check, have American citizenship, etc. There are lots of requirements. But a bachelor's from Harvard isn't one of them. </p>
<p>I'm sure there is a correlation between education and the foreign service, because you could make the argument that the better university you go to, the higher score you will get. Georgetown SFS prepares its students specifically for the test, so they get high scores, obviously. But there's no reason someone with plenty of time to study and enough committment couldn't earn a high enough score. Besides, the FS exam is like the SAT -- there are books and study guides for it, classes, etc.</p>
<p>Here's some information about being in the Foreign Service: <a href="http://www.careers.state.gov/officer/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.careers.state.gov/officer/index.html</a> . </p>
<p>"The entry-level salary for Foreign Service Officers ranges from the mid-thirty to the high-sixty thousand dollar range, depending on education level and prior work experience." Education level concerns whether you have a bachelor's, master's, juris doctorate, etc. Work experience is your prior work experience obviously, but mostly how long you've been in the FS (you get a raise every year). </p>
<p>Here's another useful link: <a href="http://www.careers.state.gov/officer/faqs/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.careers.state.gov/officer/faqs/index.html</a></p>
<p>The foreign service is one of the very few places left on the face of the earth with a serious annuity pension system. Foreign Service officers can retire at about 56 while theri private sector friends toil ever onward trying to cobble together enough cash to retire.</p>
<p>To anyone who might know this: are the security and, particularly, the health clearances for foreign service workers (entry level) similiar to the military's? More/less lenient?</p>
<p>"You can argue education all you want, but to get to the highest point possible, i'll take my top private university degree any day."</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> is it hard to breathe up there so high on your horse?</p>
<p>Some of the most humble, knowledgeable people I know learned everything for themselves, without the luxury of having a Nobel Prize winner teach them the tricks of the trade. Just because I can put up with four years of ******** from a Tier 1 school studying technology (which I am, currently) doesn't make me any more qualified than the 40 year old unix programmer with 15 years of real-world experience. Your degree is valuable until you land your first job, from that point on the institution you recieved it from is worth something of nil.</p>
<p>People who brag about having degrees are really saying "look at me, I have nothing else to prove my worthiness but this piece of paper! Approve of me!!!!1111"</p>
<p>i have a masters from an ivy, and it was a joke- the biggest waste of time/money. give me a degree from a CC that is actually helpful any day of the week.</p>
<p>^which degree/ivy?</p>
<p>As an old guy, now in his second career, my experience is that your undergrad school doesn't matter once you are into your career. Experience, your ability to do the job, and your reputation count more than where you spent 4-years several decades ago. Moreover, location matter. A degree from Iowa State may count for much more in Iowa than one from Harvard or some LAC, like Middlebury, than no one in that part of the country has ever heard of.</p>