Most prestigious job/company in high-tech

[noimagination]

<p>

But that doesn’t speak to the issue of the fact that many engineering students - at least at the top schools - choose not to work as engineers.

You were remarking on the fact that there is greater movement from engineering to finance than vice versa. I believe my response gives a fairly credible explanation.

Let’s be perfectly honest: Purdue would like to be more like MIT, but MIT does not want to be more like Purdue. Whether you think a big difference in engineering reputation exists between MIT and Purdue, there is a perception that a gulf exists. Tony Stark, for example, didn’t (fictionally) graduate from Purdue. Will Hunting did not (fictionally) complete astounding feats of mathematics while mopping the hallways at Purdue. MIT is well established as a metaphor around the world as the archetype for excellence in science and technology. For example, I know one woman from Portugal who said that her undergrad school is known as the “MIT of Portugal”. I doubt that any school in Portugal would be deemed the “Purdue of Portugal”. </p>

<p>To be clear, I am not saying that the difference in perception between MIT and Purdue is necessarily deserved. But you can’t deny that it exists.

I don’t think there is a measurable difference in curriculum or engineering-related (ie, not finance/consulting) student outcomes between the two. And that’s all that is relevant here. Your sky-is-falling rhetoric about a lack of qualified engineers is overblown simply because the true workhorses of engineering education - the Purdues, A&Ms, Illinoises, etc. - produce far more engineering grads than the MITs or Princetons.

Whether engineers or financiers offer advantages for society is beside the point. What is clearly suboptimal is the mismatch of educational resources. MIT has arguably the best engineering educational resources in the world, which are then wasted upon students who don’t actually become engineers. Surely it would be better to reserve those resources for students who are actually going to work as engineers, no?

See above. The real, tangible impacts just aren’t that large.

Eh? I’m afraid you continue to make the same mistake, which is to assume that the number of jobs in any particular field is static. On the contrary, they aredynamic. If Facebook, Boeing, or the electric utility aren’t able to hire (presumably) top engineering talent, then they may choose to hire nobody at all. The number of people to be hired is a dynamic variable that is determined by the health of the firm and its strategy - and that is itself determined by the quality of the people they hire…

Here’s an interesting question for you: has there been a significant reduction in the number of real engineering companies recruiting at MIT? If so, then I’d argue that MIT is no longer the best place for a student truly interested in engineering and resources have begun to shift to more productive uses. If not, then by your own logic those companies must be having some success recruiting at MIT and the whole thing is a non-issue.</p>