please please honest answers on engineering

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>ok.. this is my dilemma and i would really appreciate any honest answers..</p>

<p>i know yale may not be the best school for engineering but it is an amazing school in general. i am pretty sure i would want yale to be my first choice AND i am pretty sure engineering (chemical) will be my major.</p>

<p>i know that many schools are better, but yale's name is not ignorable. truly, it isn't. i would much rather go to yale than cornell (based on previous forum).. and even though i would not choose a school solely for prestige, nobody can deny TRULY.. that prestige is an important factor.</p>

<p>mit is extremely prestigious, but TRULY not as prestigious at yale.. also, i can choose mit for grad. do you think yale engineering at undergrad would be decent compared to mit's.. or is mit INFINTELY better?</p>

<p>for graduate school, i'm planning to attend mit, but for undergrad, yale..
do you think i am making the right choice?
does anybody have comments on yale chem. engineering? please..</p>

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<p>You plan on going to Yale?</p>

<p>Truly, you meant to say you dream of going to Yale/MIT.</p>

<p>And I'd rather go to Cornell over Yale for engineering anyday. Going to Cornell would increase chances of getting into MIT.</p>

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<p>
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nobody can deny TRULY.. that prestige is an important factor. mit is extremely prestigious, but TRULY not as prestigious at yale..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're asking us to rationalize for you something completely irrational. And we can't really do that. I mean contained in the quote above are two fundamental errors (?... maybe just tried and failed approaches/assumptions) you are possibly making. Prestige should be a final consideration, not the primary focus of a college search. It's been beaten to the ground that fit is important- and looking around here and everywhere, nothing's truer- pure prestige-hunting leads to miserable undergrad years. Your second mistake is in putting too much stock in the "ivy league" name. Instead of hunting for best departments (you seem to believe MIT + Cornell chem E department to be superior to that of Yale's) you're hunting for best layman's recognition. Yep, Yale is probably more 'prestigious' than MIT/Cornell to the average person on the street, but more educated folk may have more trouble accepting that. Oh, and MIT grad is very hard to get into.</p>

<p>And to answer your questions: </p>

<p>I'm sad that you used the concept of "infinity" like that.
I have no clue if you're making the right choice. Think you'll be happier at Yale? Then sure, why not.
Yale is much stronger in the humanities than sciences (except for bio-related sciences and maybe chemistry but someone will have to look that up) and especially weak in engineering. But really, it's a great school and you'd have a decent education there no matter your major.</p>

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<p>frankly speaking if i may be allowed....i feel Yale is nothing now except for the name and Law school...but hey its your own call make it.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I have to admit I'm annoyed by all the people on this board who just automatically assume they'll be in contention for a top grad school in four years. It's really not all that easy.</p>

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<p>Campus visit may help.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>While I don't completely agree with this, vampiro's fundamental point is accurate. </p>

<p>Yale is great for law, government, international relations, pre-med, political science, and to a slightly lesser extent biology and business. </p>

<p>It is most certainly NOT an engineering school. Never has, and probably never will be. A school like Cornell is so much better in this particular department that it's not even close.</p>

<p>What "prestige" means for you, a grad school adcom, and a potential employer are three completely seperate things. </p>

<p>While going to Yale might seem more "prestigious" for you, it will be considered vastly inferior for engineering by the latter two. </p>

<p>Honestly, I've never really understood the point of "prestige". Is feeling a little better about yourself for a fleeting period of time worth getting a decidedly worse educational experience for?</p>

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<p>well see the point here is yale is good in engg since its ranked like 38or 39 which is waaaaaay better than many schools..but if u have the choice between MIT/Yale or Cornell/Yale its wise to not pick yale because the quality difference is not that big as the prestige difference...and just lemme tell u one thing with repect to MIT...Yale is known in the western world but as far as i know..and in this regard i know lots MIT is like popular here in asia too.</p>

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<p>The real issue here to me is that #1, a lot of people who want to major in engineering coming in will end up switching to some other major, and #2, even many of the people who get engineering degrees will end up taking non-engineering jobs. For example, I would continue to point to the strong popularity amongst MIT engineers to take jobs in investment banking and management consulting. Even the MIT EECS department reports that about 25% of its undergrads end up taking non-engineering jobs, like finance and consulting. And surely that's just talking about those people who got offers. Surely plenty of other MIT engineers tried to get into finance and consulting, but didn't get an offer.</p>

<p>Take a look at the kinds of jobs taken by the MIT bachelor's degree engineers (page 6 of the following PDf). While obviously there are plenty of engineering companies, there are also companies like Goldman Sachs, Ciigroup, Lehman Brothers, Accenture, Ernst and Young, Deloitte, Citadel, AT Kearney, Mercer Oliver Wyman, Morgan Stanley, Booz Allen Hamilton, UBS, and plenty of other companies like that. These positions are not exactly engineering positions, trust me. Yet these are MIT engineers who are taking these jobs. What that tells me is that even many of the people who get MIT engineering degrees are not exactly wedded to engineering. After all, if you really liked engineering so much, why would you take a job with Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley?</p>

<p>So the point is, MIT is the best engineering school in the country, and yet even there, many of the engineering students apparently don't really want to work as engineers, but instead would rather be consultants and bankers. You would think that if any school in the country had lots of dedicated engineering students, it would be MIT. So if plenty of engineering students even at MIT don't really want to be engineers, just imagine what must be happening at other schools. </p>

<p>So the question to me is not whether Yale's engineering is as good as MIT's or Cornell's. We can all agree that it is not. The question is, how dedicated are you to engineering? If you don't really intend to work as an engineer, and you just want an engineering degree just for the sake of the knowledge, or because you want a backup career, then I see nothing at all wrong with choosing Yale over Cornell. Sure, I agree that if you are absolutely sure that you want to work as an engineer, then take Cornell over Yale, but like I said, even plenty of MIT engineers don't want to work as engineers.</p>

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<p>Anyone in the engineering world (employers, co-workers, bazzillionaire contractors, etc.) will see MIT as the more prestigious school. Yale may be considered a 'better' school in general, but engineers will just brush it off as being a good school for 'fluffy stuff,' or something of that sort, and make the same argument that people are making here: Yale is not for engineers.</p>

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<p>And again, it comes down to whether you really intend to work in the engineering world. As shown by the MIT data, plenty of engineering students have no intention of actually working as engineers. </p>

<p>Besides, as vampiro said, Yale is ranked somewhere in the 30's or 40's for engineering. That is a great rating, when you consider the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of engineering programs out there. So if you say that Yale is not for engineers, then what does that say about all of those hundreds of engineering programs that are ranked even lower than Yale?</p>

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<p>I wasn't trying to put down those other programs... It's just that if someone had been accepted to Yale, I'd be willing to bed that he/she would not have had problems getting into some of the higher ranked engineering schools. This doesn't necessarily include MIT, but there are several schools that are very highly ranked in engineering, and also looked at in a more favorable light than Yale (by engineers). If the choice is between MIT and Yale, as originally proposed, and the student was a 'genuine' engineer, then I don't see a reason to choose Yale. The whole 'layperson prestige' argument just doesn't make sense to me. If you want to be an engineer, and you're going to be working for/with other engineers, MIT <em>is</em> the more prestigious school. Truly.</p>

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<p>um yea, for engineering, MIT is more prestigious than Yale btw.</p>

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<p>sorry sakky, I don't buy that line of argument. Pointing out the fact that MIT engineers go onto other extremely well-paid and sought-after jobs (even if not specifically in the engineering field) after graduation only serves to point out the value of an engineering degree from MIT. Studying engineering isn't necessarily about becoming an engineer, but about learning to think critically, learning to problem solve, etc etc. Most physics majors do not go on to become physicists, either, but their ability for abstract thought is a valuable asset to any field. MIT graduates are generally held in high regard because of the base level of quality. That trust is earned through a more rigorous education.</p>

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<p>Actually, pebbles, I think what it really shows is that a lot of engineering students, even at MIT, are not really interested in engineering, and are just doing it for reasons of prestige or to get a backup career in case they can't get their first choice. </p>

<p>I do not agree with the premise that 'trust' is earned through a highly rigorous education. If that was true, then why is it that these consulting firms and banks are also willing to hire graduates from creampuff majors at the elite schools? For example, I know a guy who got hired at Goldman Sachs who majored in American Studies at Berkeley. American Studies is widely derided at Berkeley as being a 'football player' major. Heck, I would argue that a physics or engineering program at even a no-name school is probably more rigorous than a creampuff major at an Ivy. So why don't these companies just recruit out of these no-name physics/engineering programs? </p>

<p>To give you a case in point, I know a number of LFM grads who have just taken offers at McKinsey. For those who don't know, LFM is the dual-degree MBA/SM-Engineering program at MIT. These guys freely admit that they are really not as intelligent or as hard-working as, say, the MIT PhD students in engineering or physics. So then why is it that McKinsey eagerly recruits them and less of those PHD students? Is McKinsey being stupid? After all, if McKinsey was looking for true rigor, then why even bother interviewing MBA's at the Sloan School at all? It is widely understood that MBA programs in general, even at the Sloan School or HBS, are not as rigorous or as difficult as doctoral programs in the sciences or engineering (the doctoral programs at Sloan or HBS are a different story). So why do these firms choose to recruit at the "less rigorous" program?</p>

<p>The point is, I see no tight correlation between the rigor of the program and the popularity amongst consulting/banking firms. Stanford, for example, has a reputation for heavy grade inflation, but attracts the best consulting and banking firms anyway. Even Harvard and Yale are somewhat grade inflated, yet obviously attracts the very best employers. After all, George W Bush, John Kerry, the Kennedys, and Al Gore all managed to graduate from Harvard or Yale despite being terrible college students. Bush has publicly poked fun at his own academic ineptitude, Al Gore's past shows that he was at best a lackluster student and John Kerry admitted that he was more interested in learning how to fly than in studying. Yet they managed to graduate, which proves that it can't be the education at Harvard or Yale can't be that rigorous. Yet these schools attract the elite consulting/banking firms anyway. Are these firms being stupid?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I wasn't trying to put down those other programs... It's just that if someone had been accepted to Yale, I'd be willing to bed that he/she would not have had problems getting into some of the higher ranked engineering schools. This doesn't necessarily include MIT, but there are several schools that are very highly ranked in engineering, and also looked at in a more favorable light than Yale (by engineers). If the choice is between MIT and Yale, as originally proposed, and the student was a 'genuine' engineer, then I don't see a reason to choose Yale. The whole 'layperson prestige' argument just doesn't make sense to me. If you want to be an engineer, and you're going to be working for/with other engineers, MIT <em>is</em> the more prestigious school. Truly.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nobody is disputing that MIT is a better engineering school than Yale is. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is just how important that distinction really is. As I have shown, a lot of engineering students don't really intend to work as engineers. For these people, what do they care about impressing other engineers? They don't intend to work in the engineering world anyway.</p>

<p>The truth is, there are a lot of engineering students, whether at MIT or anywhere else, that only treat engineering as a 'backup career'. It's something to do in case if all else fails and they can't get anything better. I have shown in other posts (which you can search for) that demonstrate that even those people who graduate from no-name engineering programs still end up with quite decent engineering jobs. Yale is not as good as MIT in engineering, but it is clearly better than those no-name programs. So if those no-name grads are getting decent engineering jobs, I can't imagine that the Yale engineer would do that badly. </p>

<p>As a case in point, consider the following salaries for the engineers at Kansas State University (look under the College of Engineering). These guys are getting pretty good salaries. So if even the KSU engineers are doing OK for themselves, then I can't imagine that the Yale engineers are doing that bad. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.k-state.edu/ces/employer/salary.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.k-state.edu/ces/employer/salary.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You also have to remember that every college degree is 'exploding' in the sense that after you've been working for a few years, nobody is going to care about what degrees you hold and where you got them. The only thing that will matter is what jobs you've held and how well you've done in them.</p>

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<p>Why do you care if Yale's name is better than Cornell's? Cornell is a better school for engineering, anyone who matters knows this. Also, anyone that matters will know that where you went to school isn't what's important ;)</p>

<p>A good engineer will shine no matter where they went.</p>

<p>EDIT: What gave you any indication that MIT has less prestige than Yale?</p>

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<p>Quite frankly, I didn't even know about Yale until two years back or so. :p</p>

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<p>Well, going to Yale because it will be more fun for four years sounds like a good reason. MIT is rumored to be pretty intense.</p>

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<p>To the OP--Is this a hypothetical, as I suspect, or have you been actually accepted to both?</p>