<p>Timmy…</p>
<p>Do you live in an area where there aren’t any jobs? If so, you may need to relocate. You may need to send your resume to areas that do have jobs and, if hired, they will pay to relocate you.</p>
<p>What are your degrees and where did you go to college?</p>
<p>Companies that want specific schools work through those schools’ placement offices.</p>
<p>But many employers will consider any accredited program.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I assume you are responding to my post. If so, I never said XTXN is a liar. As adults we are more cautious, but Timmy is a lot younger without as much experience. I’ve had young people PM me with their private information because they thought I may be able to help them in some ways. At times, I have been surprised of information provided. I was just cautioning Timmy to be careful, not to be too trusting on the internet just because someone said they are CEO of a major company, especially since Calmom implied it maybe a good networking opportunity.</p>
<p>I also do not disagree with many things XTXN have said on this thread. He made some very good points.</p>
<p>Not meant to offend anyone.</p>
<p>^^^
Okay. Valid point.</p>
<p>
Are you talking entry level?
You mean that mid career engineers go back to their alma mater’s placement office looking for work? Because that just seems so weird to me. Most of my colleagues have built networks, and are contacted by executive and industry headhunters frequently. </p>
<p>I can’t get this scenario out of my head-
Manager: Well Joe, last year you were consistently behind deadline, you lost a lot of money for us, as well as several contracts. Frank brought in a lot of business, and improved the bottom line significantly, and completed several projects ahead of schedule. While designing 5 patentable inventions. </p>
<p>Joe: Perhaps you didn’t see I graduated from Stanford.</p>
<p>Manager: Why the heck didn’t you say so? Welcoime to the executive team!</p>
<p>“They may be able to do the math – but they assume that things will work out or be easier, because they haven’t had the life experience of paying bills every month and making sure it all works out in the end.”</p>
<p>Or they don’t know what the inputs are in the math problem. All the solving skills in the world don’t help if you don’t know what questions to ask.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Right! My nearly 21 year old still has a hard time realizing all the regular monthly expenses that go on…home, utilities, cable, internet, cell phone, etc…in addition to car maintenance, food, clothing, etc, etc, etc…</p>
<p>Honestly, many kids think they will get to keep all of their paycheck (taxes? what are those?), and that all they need to allow for is maybe rent.</p>
<p>Ok … last post on this: This series of posts started out as a discussion whether or not it was a good idea to go $200K in debt to go to a brand name private institution or to a “lesser” state program and graduate debt free.</p>
<p>To give a longer term perspective about this decision, I started this by outlining a realtime hiring decision at the VP level, to point out the dynamics around getting hiring after you have been in for workforce for 10 years. I noted that out of 20 resumes the headhunter sent me from people that went to “lesser” and big name programs 10 years ago, I am likely to offer the job to someone from U of Missouri. This is not a commentary about U of Missouri versus elite brand name programs. This was to illustrate that the hiring decision 10 years out is about what you have done, what companies you worked for, the specifics of what you have been working on, and importantly attitude and fit with the team. </p>
<p>Timmy2 … sorry you are having a tough time finding employement that fully utilizes your skills. Unfortunately you find yourself entering the workforce in one of the most severe unemployement environment in our lifetimes. Your observation is spot on. You do have to excel in this environment regardless of where you got your degree and I agree it is harder coming from areas that are not tech industry centric. CalMom has very good advice on her post and the only thing i would add is to do your best and excel at the contract software job you are performing now and build yourself a world class reference. Personally, after I got my first job out of college, without exception, every opportunity I have received has come from a personal reference.</p>
<p>Bovertine has clearly been in the workforce and gets it so I would listen to his commentary as well. The observation POIH made that “SJ State engineers are 5 years behind UCB grads” and “always get bigger raises” and “cant work in the R&D dept” is absurd and just reveals a “brand image” bias. Don’t listen to cheerleaders and promoters of brand image. There are many paths to success. Note that John Chambers - CEO of Cisco went to law school at University of West Virginia which is a school looked down upon by most of the brand image crowd on CC ( he later on got a business degree at Indiana) … his first job at IBM is what put him on the path to where he is today.</p>
<p>SJ State is a great example of a state school that consistently produces high quality engineering graduates. I didn’t go to SJ State but it is well know in Silicon Valley that their eng grads are just as productive as the 2 big name programs in town and don’t suffer from the “prima donna” attitude problem. Is SJ State even close to Stanford/UCB in prestige? Not even close and not worthy of discussion. You can’t compare them at all. But, I can tell you that our number 2 engineering exec is from SJ State and he manages a team of about 100 that includes graduates from these programs as well as other well known and lesser programs.</p>
<p>OldFort … no offense taken. I could be a complete poser and make anything up about my background. I guess you have to look at the comments and see if they ring true.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids
Then perhaps parents of today need to teach them other wise.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was referring to this discussion:</p>
<p>Manager: Both Jack and Jill out performed everyone else on the team.
Director: We can only promote one. What about their background?
Manager: Jack went to SJSU and have worked with us for 4 years. Jill is from UCB and also worked in the team for 4 years.
Director: Can you afford to loose any one of them?
Manager: No, I would prefer to keep both.
Director: Promote Jill. If you promote Jack, Jill might leave. With UCB and 4 years of experience in our department it would be much easier for her to get an equivalent job. Jack might find it hard to find an equivalent job and won’t mind UCB grad moving ahead of him.</p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>The unintelligent statement was a reference to your theory that IQ yields a high innate earning potential. As to a purpose of discussion, I think it does a disservice to the high school and undergraduate students reading this forum to come away with the idea that a degree from a no name school in the middle of nowhere puts them on the fast track to success. I do read the other posters on this forum and take their input seriously.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Under these circumstance, with EVERYTHING being exactly equal, this might be a possibility. But performance is almost never exactly equal. And in companies that respect the bottom line, they might very well prefer to keep the cheaper employee, all other things being equal.</p>
<p>But this is ridiculous-
</p>
<p>I have never worked anywhere that a person didn’t mind an equivalent employee being promoted ahead of them, regardless of where they went to school. If I did have such an agreeable and easygoing employee, I might be tempted to keep him. OTOH, I might worry about his ambition level.</p>
<p>XTXN2CAL:
</p>
<p>I don’t like people twisting posts. What I was referring to was my experience in Silicon valley managing R&D teams as you were referring to your experience as CEO.</p>
<p>I still have to work with a graduate of SJSU. I’ve not come across any neither as my boss nor on any one of my R&D teams. </p>
<p>Does that mean it is not possible to make it into the R&D teams at the cutting edge of technology? No it is possible. I’ve done it without any degree from a US University. But I think it was due to my work in my home country. All my friends who actually came to lower tier universities for MS had hard time cracking that barrier into the cutting edge R&D teams. </p>
<p>The work on such R&D teams not only financially rewarding but mentally satisfactory too and if you pick such teams at any company in the silicon valley there is < 5% probability a student of SJSU will be on it without any other college degree but you will find grad of UCB without any other college on these teams.</p>
<p>
I don’t think anybody implied this. The whole discussion is about what level of debt is reasonable for a higher level school, and whether engineers from lower level schools can succeed period.</p>
<p>Obviously, if you truly believe the imprimatur of a top school is that critical, one option would be to apply to a top PhD program and ride out the recession for a couple more years. Even I will admit that might help your prospects. But there is some point at which there are diminishing returns for the investment of time and money.</p>
<p>I think if finances are the question, there is ample proof that debt is not a wise decision financially. Even the most generous interpretation of figures with MIT and Missouri State shows us this.</p>
<p>However, if finances are not a significant issue the enjoyment of a great school with great connections has its own rewards even if ten years down the pike earning potential is roughly equivalent.</p>
<p>Worth significant debt? No.</p>
<p>Would a SUNY have been a better bet for the girl in the article? Without a doubt.</p>
<p>And the idea some people have that an NYU degree is equal to a Harvard degree is just silly. In addition, at an Ivy this young woman would have gotten significant FA relief.</p>
<p>So, beyond the general fuzziness of financial realities that the NYU FA office did little to bring into focus, we can also say that NYU and the marketplace have each over promoted NYU. Because its location makes it very attractive, hence selective, does not suggest that its education is superior to SUNY Binghamton in any way. It may have been the best four years in the poster’s life, but I agree with all who would point out that ten years of debt is too high a price to pay for a four year NYC vacation.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m biased. As the mother of a Barnard grad, the uptown folks insist the downtown folks will be bagging their groceries.</p>
<p>Hey, I’m totally kidding. The same caveats would hold for a Barnard education. I am not suggesting that NYU is inferior. </p>
<p>However, I must say that Barnard was much more generous with its grant money and packaged it FA with the minimum of loans, just supported Staffords.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where in the world do you get this statistic? Is it an actual statistic, or did you just make it up?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If that is the case then most of the people I know would have been fired.</p>
<p>Also in one hand you say experience is important and not the degree and on the other hand you say companies pick cheaper employee. Seems contradictory.</p>
<p>It works in the QA or jobs that doesn’t depend on the experience to keep a cheaper employee as anyone can do the job.</p>
<p>This doesn’t apply to cutting edge R&D work where it might be beneficial to have a costly employee as hiring 5 unexperienced employee might not be able to do the same job.</p>
<p>What I learned @ my engineering school is this:
<p>That is what the costly employees are for. If companies get rid of them then that will remove their capabilities to spot those loose wires.</p>
<p>Yes, any employee can replace the loose wire but you can not run companies on that basis.</p>
<p>Bovertine: That is my guess, I don’t have the exact figure it is extrapolating my experience with such teams at multiple companies during the last 20+ years. I’ve not seen any SJSU undergrad with out any other college working on such team.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A responsible and sane manager will make the assessment who on the team can or can’t leave due to the review process. I’m not sure about the companies you have worked for but all the companies I’ve worked for has a fixed “X” amount to be distributed among the employees in any department. There is a perceived ranking of employees based on their performance and background. There are hard decision made taking into account which employee might be more prone to leave the company after the harsh decisions.</p>
<p>
Do you read other people’s posts? I said employees with equal experience. I repeat EXPERIENCE. Guess how much experience a fresh MIT/Caltech grad has - pretty close to zero. Experience and education - apples and oranges.</p>
<p>Nice consultant story that everybody has heard a thousand times. The point is that the consultant almost 100% learned which wire to connect ON THE JOB, and not at some school. </p>
<p>I’m done arguing this point. Your experience is completely different than mine, that’s all I can say.</p>