“there are higher paying companies which preferentially recruit at MIT over NEU and WPI”
which, again, supports the belief that MIT/Caltech/HMC etc. graduates have the highest ROI, i.e., exceptional opportunities for employment and advancement at the companies & universities paying the highest salaries. It appears that graduates from less exalted STEM colleges either are not recruited for these top jobs at these top companies & universities, or have resumes that aren’t put on the top of stack of hiring managers.
Yes, that’s true. But only with a nuanced reading of the first statement. The problem is, it’s very easy to not read it with nuance, which soon leads to people saying “It doesn’t matter which school you go to”, which isn’t really accurate.
But are these higher paying companies mainly seeking people for engineering jobs, or are they seeking people for finance and consulting jobs (but willing to hire engineering graduates to them)?
For example, MIT appears to be heavily recruited by consulting companies. Perhaps that gives additional opportunities for engineering students interested in that type of work, but it is not helpful to those who want to work in more traditional engineering jobs after graduation.
@whatisyourquest please let us know what ABET accredited programs are producing engineers that don’t know what they are doing. I’m sure students and parents would like to know.
@“Erin’s Dad” All engineering programs are not equally rigorous. I really don’t understand why so many CC posters have such a tough time with this concept.
If you have the chops to be admitted to MIT/Caltech/HMC etc. and then “drink from the fire hose” for four years, you will emerge with a better grounding in the fundamentals of engineering and the know-how to solve very complicated technical problems.
I never said that “ABET accredited programs are producing engineers that don’t know what they are doing.” The issue is relativity. That is, are some programs better than others? I certainly think so.
As a super moderator, with 29k+ posts, I would hope that you would eschew hyperbole and snark.
Sorry if you felt that was snarky. It was a genuine question. So which engineering programs are not rigorous since that was the statement you were responding to?
Ah, no… You intentionally twisted my words and implied that I said that some engineers from ABET accredited programs “don’t know what they are doing.” Own it.
But if you want to go down this road, ok. I wager that CSU Chico is not rigorous. I also wager that UC Berkeley grads are better prepared than CSU Chico grads. Do you wish to challenge that?
So would a very rigorous engineering program be in your best interest? Engineering courses are by default difficult courses. If you emerged from an engineering program with a lower gpa, would the name of the school make up for that?
Wouldn’t it be better to have a higher gpa and lots of practical experience, that a school which offers a coop program and ABET accreditation would provide?
^ I think that it depends on the kid. Attending a very rigorous engineering program may be overwhelming.
I once read a review from a Caltech student that made a big impression on me. This reviewer said that 1/3 of the students at Caltech are in the perfect place because nowhere else would they experience such a rarified academic environment and access to such outstanding resources. The reviewer said that another 1/3 of the students struggle, muddle through, but ultimately wish that they had attended a different university. The final 1/3 are kids that are “crying in the bathroom” because the work load is simply too intense.
Everyone, please reread the title of this thread, which contains the word “most.” The title itself implies that there is relative strength among various engineering programs.
@mommdc, yep, it would depend a lot on the kid and the job.
Experience is always good, but don’t expect every employer to value a 3.9 GPA from No-name School over a 3.5 (or even 3.2) from MIT/Caltech, etc.
And that’s if they care about GPA. Most employers care more about how someone thinks.
That could also be a function of engineering as a course of study. Engineering schools are well known for high drop out rates. It may be at more well-rounded schools like Texas or Georgia Tech, the engineering students that “cry in the bathroom” move on to other majors or disciplines. However, CalTech has only minimal non-STEM coursework available, and the STEM majors that would have otherwise moved onto to something like accounting or finance feel that at CalTech, they have to stick it out.
That is the big advantage to going to an MIT or CalTech vs going to Purdue. If you really, really want to be a mechanical engineer, a Purdue degree will probably get you as far as an MIT degree. But if you want to do something different, MIT will open a whole world of opportunities not available in West Lafayette.
The son of a friend of mine was a CS major at an Ivy. After two summers of interships at Google and Facebook, he took a job at Goldman Sachs. Those kinds of opportunities would likely not have been available had he gone to the state flagship for CS (which is an CS excellent department).
This is usually associated with admission selectivity (where admission selectivity of the engineering majors or division, or entire school if it does not admit by division or major, is lower, the attrition is higher), although schools where enrolled students must face another competitive admission process to enter their majors may have additional attrition of intended engineering majors who are not admitted to their majors.
@Zinhead, Chicago trading firms (and some banks) hire UIUC CS majors for trading/strategy roles. They don’t from Purdue, however.
All the banks hire from the good CS schools for IT roles.
@ucbalumnus - There was a thread last year that compared CalTech’s Humanities department to those at other comparable tech schools. The conclusion was that it was primarily there to accommodate kids who changed their minds about a STEM degree, but did not want to leave CalTech without graduating. In contrast, strong STEM schools like MIT and UCB have equally strong non-STEM departments.
Contrary to popular belief around here, Google recruits widely among colleges and universities (including the University of Florida), since it has large needs and recruiting resources. However, its interview questioning is reputedly difficult, so the “top school bias” that some here may see may be due to the difficulty of such questions in relation to the strength of students at each school.
Investment banking, on the other hand, has a more school-elitist reputation in terms of recruiting.
Also, @Zinhead, yes, Cal is a full-fledged university. MIT is strong on STEM and the social sciences (I include business there as well) but is not exactly known for its humanities departments. GTech does have a b-school but really isn’t known for anything outside STEM and has a limited number of non-STEM majors. In that regard, it’s kind of like Caltech (where you may evidently pick up a business degree as well).
Based on CDS reporting, out of 228 graduates, Caltech had:
0 Humanities Majors
0 Arts Majors
1 Social Science Major (Econ)
2 Business/Managerial Economics Majors
12 Life Science Majors
Out Of 1099 graduates, MIT had:
9 Architecture Majors
11 Humanities Majors (5 Linguistics)
1 Arts Major (Music)
31 Social Science Majors (28 Econ)
18 Business Majors
6 Mass Communications Majors
83 Life Science Majors
I suspect that the lack of exposure to humanity at these schools (not rigor) might be what causes some students to wish they attended another university and causes other students to cry in the bathrooms…