Most prestigious job/company in high-tech

[sakky]

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1. I’m actually not so sure that many engineers enter the finance industry through graduate school.

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<p>Look, not many people in any major* enter the finance industry through graduate school. </p>

<p>But what is clear is that a disproportionate percentage of engineers do become financiers. Former engineering undergrads at the top MBA programs generally represent around 1/3 of the class (and nearly half in the MBA program at the MIT Sloan School), despite representing only 5-10% of all conferred undergraduate degrees nationwide. And the vast majority of graduates from the top MBA programs do not take general management positions, but rather take jobs in finance or consulting. </p>

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On the other hand, an engineering degree easily and frequently translates into an MBA. Thus, a student with interests in both engineering and finance is probably far more likely to major in engineering as an undergrad and then switch via grad school instead of getting a bachelor’s in finance.

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<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. </p>

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2. Let’s not overemphasize the issue. You’ve mentioned MIT and Stanford. Princeton and Northwestern fit the same classification. But if you look at the top 25 engineering programs (USNews or NRC '95, take your pick) I suspect that the vast and overwhelming majority of graduates pursue engineering careers. Not finance, engineering. Last year, Purdue graduated more engineers than MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Northwestern combined.</p>

<p>I’m not aware of ever having argued that a significant difference exists between Purdue and MIT in terms of engineering reputation.

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<p>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. </p>

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But, as you have pointed out, companies aren’t likely to prefer schools where they cannot hire anyone. Thus, if top engineering programs do indeed confer hiring benefits for engineering jobs, we can conclude that many students at these schools do in fact pursue careers as engineers.

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<p>And by the exact same argument, if programs such as MIT and Stanford do indeed confer hiring benefits for non-engineering jobs such as finance or consulting - and it is hard to argue that they do not - then we must also conclude that many students at those programs pursue non-engineering careers. </p>

<p>The upshot is that a far lower percentage of engineering students at MIT or Stanford actually take jobs as engineers, compared to the percentage of engineering students at the average school. That is ironic. </p>

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But even if I think attending MIT over Idaho State confers some advantages for the student, I have never argued that it offers advantages for society as a whole. And you’ve never proven that it does, either.

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<p>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? </p>

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You can look to what I - and you - said above. If Facebook were incapable of getting the engineers they need at MIT, then they will get them elsewhere. The fact that this isn’t occurring clearly signals that they are successfully getting people at MIT.</p>

<p>If a problem does in fact exist, it will solve itself as firms recruit engineers slightly further down the rankings because they can’t get MIT grads.

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Eh? I don’t really see how this matters. Let’s try an example: John from MIT gets a degree in mechanical engineering but chooses to work at McKinsey. The job he might have taken at Boeing gets filled by Jane from UIUC, and the electric utility that would have employed Jane now hires Jerry from Idaho State.</p>

<p>Now, you have previously claimed that John ends up working as part of a team at McKinsey that produces poor results. I’m wondering why we should want him working as an engineer instead of Jerry.

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<p>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. </p>

<p>Let me give you an example. Much of the early Google search engine was built by old Stanford engineering friends of Sergey and Larry who they chose to hire. It was precisely because of the talent of those engineers that caused Google to grow, thereby allowing them to hire still more engineers. If the first version of Google had flopped, then the company would never have succeeded, and the 25,000 people that Google currently employs would not have those jobs. </p>

<p>The same is true for any company. Job slots are not static, to be dealt out to whoever happens to be next in their desirability queue, like orders in a deli. Many (almost certainly most) companies will simply choose not to hire anybody at all rather than hire somebody who they don’t think fulfills their demands (however defined). Companies are almost never in the position where they absolutely must hire X number of people. Rather, they have wide flexibility to decide how many people to hire in any given year, and that range might include zero. </p>

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I’m going to ask you a simple question: are there currently more entry-level engineering job openings than entry-level engineers capable of doing them?

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<p>That’s a nonsequitur, for the reasons stated above. There is no such thing as a fixed number of job openings - entry level or otherwise. Rather, the number of job openings is dynamically determined.</p>