<p>I was looking into civil engineering with a concentration in Advanced Infrastructure Systems. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a superb program, but it probably wasn't the best fit for me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I understand your point, though I wasn't thinking the same way you were. The way I saw it, the fewer engineering requirements meant fewer opportunities to take the classes that were interesting to me. That doesn't mean those who take the extra courses are more prepared for post-academia life though. It just means that non-Ivys cater more towards those who enjoy engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, there's an important difference between requirements and opportunities. Requirements are not opportunities, if anything requirements are the opposite of opportunities, because requirements, by definition, are classes you must take, which may include topics you may not like and will never use, therefore reducing your opportunity to take classes on topics that you do like and will use. </p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Berkeley requires that its chemical engineers take an entire course on quantum chemistry over the objection of a great many ChemE students because, frankly, most of them don't care about quantum chemistry and will never use it. In fact, I distinctly remember on year in which many ChemE students wanted to take a class on semiconductor fabrication, as many of them were looking to be hired into the chip industry, but they couldn't because that class overlapped with the required quantum chemistry course, and since those courses were only taught once a year (and both courses were senior-level courses), it basically meant that those students could never take their desired fab class at all. Hence, this was a clearcut case in which the engineering requirements clearly reduced the students' overall opportunity set. It saddens me to remember how they were forced to give up a class that they really wanted and could actually use in favor of a class they didn't want and won't use (but was required).</p>
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[quote]
Actually, Harvard is ranked a little bit lower than Columbia...
...Oh, hmm. I must have looked at a previous year's ranking, then.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, no, the rankings have been quite stable from year-to-year. </p>
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I look around my office here, and I see a whole boatload of engineers who decided to go into engineering and stayed in engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, given that you actually work in an engineering office, I would be quite surprised if you had found otherwise. </p>
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I think that as someone in business, you see many fewer examples of engineering retention than I do, and so your opinions are shaped by that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Which is why I tend to base my statements not on what I have seen personally, but rather on publicly available career data, particularly from the top schools. The fact that such a significant percentage of engineering students from top schools like MIT choose not to take engineering jobs as their first positions out of school, but instead take jobs in consulting or banking, is extremely telling to me. This ain't some scrub, no-name engineering school here. This is MIT. If even MIT engineering students don't really want to be engineers, well, that should tell you something.</p>
<p>Consider the following quote from a recent article in Time Magazine:</p>
<p>* "Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: "It's marketed as--I don't want to say dead end but sort of 'O.K., here's your role, here's your lab, here's what you're going to be working on.' Even if it's a really cool product, you're locked into it." Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. "If you're an M.I.T. grad and you're going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day--as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that--it seems like a no-brainer." *</p>
<p>Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? - TIME</p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like the current situation. I think the real problem is that too many engineering companies just don't really seem to be interested in improving their career offerings. They don't want to offer interesting projects, they don't want to offer strong career development/training, they don't want to offer opportunities for advancement, they don't want to offer better pay (but interestingly, these same firms seem to have no problem paying millions upon millions to consulting and banking firms). In short, these firms just don't want to offer more attractive opportunities, and then they act surprised to find that many of the best engineering graduates would rather not work in engineering at all, but would rather work in consulting or banking. But hey, what can I say? While I don't like it, it is what it is. </p>
<p>
[quote]
All I see is that it's possible to know what engineering is when you start out, and it's possible to have a real passion for that kind of thinking and choose engineering from the beginning of your college career for the <em>right</em> reasons and to end up sticking with the field and succeeding in it... For those people, choosing a school that has that rigor, and those facilities, is probably a good choice. In my experience, there are a lot of those sorts of people.</p>
<p>It kind of sounds like in your experience, people chose to major in engineering not because it was their passion, but because a major in engineering had certain advantages... Being marketable, being a good foundation for doing what they really want to do, because it sounded good and they weren't really certain what they wanted to do with their lives... for those people, then yes, an ivy would afford them a certain advantage.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think it's more accurate to say that most high school seniors don't really know what they will be passionate about. This is particularly true of engineering. Like I said, I don't know about others here, but my high school certainly didn't teach me a darn thing about engineering, and I think my high school was actually above-average. But the fact remains that my high school had precisely zero engineering classes. None of the teachers were former engineers. I think this is rather typical of most American high schools; they just don't give you much exposure to what engineering really is. </p>
<p>Nor do I come from a family of engineers. In fact, nobody in my family was an engineer. Nor is this particularly surprising: the Census has shown that, every year, only about 5% of all US bachelor's degrees conferred are engineering degrees, and only 27% of all Americans age 25+ are college graduates anyway. Hence, the vast majority of Americans, myself included, do not have anybody in their family with which they can talk to about what engineering really is. </p>
<p>Hence, while I can certainly agree that, theoretically, it is possible for some people to always have known that they were passionate about engineering and then to choose a college based on that fact, from a practical matter, it's impossible for most people to know*that before you have to make the choice about where to go to school. What makes the choice so stark is the fact that it is *irrevocable. You can't just decide to turn down Harvard in favor of Georgia Tech because you think you're passionate about engineering, then later find out that you actually are not that passionate and so decide you'd like to go to Harvard after all. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Harvard is not going to keep their admission offer open for you just because you got in before. Once you turn it down, the offer is rescinded. You would have to apply all over again but this time as a transfer, which is harder than getting in as a freshman. </p>
<p>I harken back to my memories of how so many incoming college freshmen claimed to be passionate about majoring in one topic, only to end up majoring in something else entirely; they either found something else more interesting, or they simply got bored with their original topic of study (or found out that they weren't very good at it). In many cases, these were topics like a science or a humanity that they had actually studied in high school, and so they actually had some experience in that topic. Yet even so, many of them ended up switching majors anyway. {Or in the case of some Berkeley students, trying to switch majors and then finding out that their desired major wouldn't take them and hence being forced to major in a topic that they don't really want.} </p>
<p>Hence, if even these students switched around, how can others be so sure about engineering? </p>
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It kind of boggles my mind that you'd recommend choosing an ivy because it's easier to not flunk out of it...!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Risk aversion is what it's about. Whether we like it or not, in this day and age, in order to get any decent job, you increasingly need to have a college degree. That degree can be in something, anything. But you need that degree. Employers are increasingly looking to see whether you have a bachelor's degree of some sort. If you don't, you may not even get an interview, not even for a secretarial job. </p>
<p>Hence, I don't see why it would boggle anybody's mind for me to recommend an Ivy precisely because they are easier. With the possible exception of Cornell, safety is precisely what the Ivies are selling. You go to an Ivy, and you basically are assured that, as long as you do the minimum of work, you are going to get a degree. Maybe not with top grades, but you're going to get the degree. Some highly rigorous schools, i.e. Caltech, clearly offer no such assurance. My brother went to Caltech, and he did well, but he also knows some people who flunked out and he freely admits that those people would have been far better off if they had just gone to an Ivy instead. Sure, perhaps they wouldn't have gotten top grades, but at least they would have graduated. That's a heck of a lot better than flunking out of college entirely. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I think if I went up to our HR department right now and told them that I thought we needed to recruit at Harvard and Yale, they'd look at me all funny. We don't consult US News and check out whether Harvard and Yale rank well, we just know that they don't have engineering schools
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Come on now. Harvard and Yale have highly respectable engineering programs that are actually ranked in the top 50. Sure, they don't have standalone engineering schools, but I hardly see how that matters. After all, Caltech doesn't have a standalone engineering school either.</p>
<p>From what I've seen, Columbia's curriculum requirements is weighted towards non-engineering courses. That would still prevent one from taking the classes one wants to take, regardless of the type of requirements. If you're advocating that schools take a more flexible approach to graduation requirements, then I completely agree.</p>
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Actually, no, the rankings have been quite stable from year-to-year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I was looking at GRE Guide's rankings, which <em>claim</em> to be the US News rankings from some unspecified year.</p>
<p>Yeah, a lot of MIT people go into consulting or finance these days, but there are still quite a lot going into science and engineering as well.</p>
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[quote]
Harvard and Yale have highly respectable engineering programs that are actually ranked in the top 50. Sure, they don't have standalone engineering schools, but I hardly see how that matters.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, Harvard does have a School of Engineering - as of last year.</p>
<p>Harvard</a> School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - About Us</p>
<p>Our name change in 2007 from "Division" to "School", approved by members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and ratified by the Harvard Corporation and Board of Overseers, is a celebration of the renewal and growth engineering and applied sciences has experienced in recent years at Harvard. At the same time, the new name reflects our progenitor, the Lawrence Scientific School. Founded in 1847, the Lawrence School was Harvard's first major effort to provide a formal, advanced education in science and engineering.</p>
<p>
[quote]
From what I've seen, Columbia's curriculum requirements is weighted towards non-engineering courses. That would still prevent one from taking the classes one wants to take, regardless of the type of requirements. If you're advocating that schools take a more flexible approach to graduation requirements, then I completely agree.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As a case in point, I just took a gander at the requirements for ChemE at Columbia and compared them to Berkeley. They are basically the same with one notable difference: no quantum chemistry required at Columbia. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Yeah, a lot of MIT people go into consulting or finance these days, but there are still quite a lot going into science and engineering as well. [/quote[</p>
<p>I would suspect that even more MIT engineering grads want to go to consulting or banking, but just didn't get an offer. Not too many people who get an offer from McKinsey will turn it down for some engineering job instead. </p>
<p>But more importantly, I would surmise that the percentage of MIT engineering students who actually go into engineering as a career is almost certainly lower than the percentage from lower-ranked schools. In other words, the #200 ranked engineering school probably sends only a tiny fraction of its graduates to consulting or banking. The simple explanation for this is that it is a matter of opportunity: those students at the #200 ranked eng school just aren't given the opportunity to get consulting or banking offers. They still want them if they could get them, they just can't get them. </p>
<p>What this all boils down to is the simple question of why are consulting/banking careers so (relatively) more desirable, or, conversely, why can't engineering careers be made to be more desirable? To be fair, there are some engineering firms (like aibarr's current employer) who offer strong opportunities, but then there are plenty of others (like apparently aibarr's former employer) who don't. I'm sure those engineering firms will proffer the excuse that they can't afford to offer better salaries, they can't offer better training, can't offer this, can't offer that, but that just begs the question of why consulting/banking firms can do it. </p>
<p>But in any case, that was a digression. Returning to the main point, the major advantage that the Ivies offer over many engineering-oriented schools is career flexibility, and in this day and age when you just don't know what career path you will take, that sort of flexibility is priceless. This is particularly important when you're young: you don't want to get locked into a particular field before you even have a chance to find out what else is available.</p>
<p>So I finally sat down and examined closely my undergrad's curriculum and Columbia's undergrad curriculum for civil engineering. In general, they're pretty similar, but there were some surprises for me. Perhaps it's just me, but the liberal arts that Columbia likes to emphasize... isn't emphasized as much as I thought it would be. I'm sure the quality of these courses are better than what I had in undergrad, but in terms of credits, it's not that much. </p>
<p>As for the courses in major, Columbia has degree tracks within civil, so it's pretty specialized. I didn't have that as an undergrad... my program took more of a breadth approach, so I was exposed to more areas of civil engineering. Which is better? Probably depends who you ask. One could say a breadth approach would force one to take courses that aren't interesting to them. For someone who is interested in a career in civil engineering, but unsure about what aspect of it to go into may be at a disadvantage though.</p>
<p>The number of electives required were very similar for both programs (+/- 3 credits). </p>
<p>by the way, I just checked Cornell's program for the heck of it and found that it's more similar to my undergrad than it is to Columbia, so I really shouldn't generalize Columbia's program to Ivy's in general (in terms of curricula).</p>
<p>Anyway, back to the original question... if you're pretty sure that engineering is the career you want to go into, then I think the non-Ivys are generally better because of the alumni connections. As sakky has been saying, more Ivy league graduates go into fields other than engineering, so if you do want an engineering position, it may be slightly more difficult to get your foot in the door. A few of my friends from my undergrad days got jobs through connections via industry contacts that professors have or alumni. I've yet to hear of anything similar happening at Columbia. If you're unsure about your career plans though, Ivys may be the way to go for the reasons sakky stated.</p>
<p>So basically, there's a tradeoff between the number of engineering job offers and flexibility in your career. Some people are certain about what they want very early on, while others are not. Figure out which one you are, and then you can decide on what type of school is best for you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sure those engineering firms will proffer the excuse that they can't afford to offer better salaries, they can't offer better training, can't offer this, can't offer that, but that just begs the question of why consulting/banking firms can do it.
[/quote]
Government bailouts, etc.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But in any case, that was a digression. Returning to the main point, the major advantage that the Ivies offer over many engineering-oriented schools is career flexibility, and in this day and age when you just don't know what career path you will take, that sort of flexibility is priceless. This is particularly important when you're young: you don't want to get locked into a particular field before you even have a chance to find out what else is available.
[/quote]
Data?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Government bailouts, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And engineering firms don't get bailouts? Chrysler? </p>
<p>Besides, even if it was true that banking firms benefit from bailouts, it simply begs the question of why engineering firms can't do the same. </p>
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[quote]
Data?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Data for what? Are you denying the simple logic that Ivies provide a superior overall brand name compared to schools like, say, Georgia Tech?</p>
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Data for what?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think hes asking you to back up your claim with stats and numbers</p>
<p>Yeah, it was pretty obvious what I was asking for.</p>
<p>You're asking for statistics about how many college students switch majors during college and numbers showing that Harvard is more well respected in more fields than Georgia Tech?</p>
<p>For MC/IB, I have no doubt all of the Ivies are better than GaTech. Other than that...I have no idea. I need data to convince me that equal intelligence candidates from both schools would have distinctly varying job prospects. Harvard is one case.....Brown is also another.</p>
<p>This is actually good. The more engineers goes into IB the better it is for the future engies. Once companies cant find any more engies to do their job I am certain that they will beg to hire even the not-so-smart engies.</p>
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I need data to convince me that equal intelligence candidates from both schools would have distinctly varying job prospects. Harvard is one case.....Brown is also another.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's entirely the wrong way to look at the situation. What matters is not whether the candidates have equal intelligence. What matters is whether employers think the candidates have equal intelligence. After all, what does it matter if you're just as smart as somebody else if you have no way to show that to employers, or more importantly, if you can't even talk to them in the first place? </p>
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[quote]
For MC/IB, I have no doubt all of the Ivies are better than GaTech. Other than that...I have no idea.
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</p>
<p>There you go; you just answered your own question. You said it yourself: for MC/IB, the Ivies are better. Hence, right there you just conceded the point that, overall, Ivy students have better job prospects. Let's face it. A large chunk of college graduates, especially from the top schools, prefer to go to IB/MC. As I've said, a significant fraction of even engineering students from MIT prefer IB/MC over engineering jobs.</p>
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[quote]
This is actually good. The more engineers goes into IB the better it is for the future engies. Once companies cant find any more engies to do their job I am certain that they will beg to hire even the not-so-smart engies.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Either that, or those investment bankers or (especially) the consultants will simply convince companies to outsource their engineering work overseas. Or to not even bother with engineering anything at all and just become marketing companies that slap their brand name on products that are actually designed and manufactured by somebody else.</p>
<p>It makes me way too uncomfortable with how easily I can see what you just suggested becoming a reality, sakky. :(</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's entirely the wrong way to look at the situation. What matters is not whether the candidates have equal intelligence. What matters is whether employers think the candidates have equal intelligence. After all, what does it matter if you're just as smart as somebody else if you have no way to show that to employers, or more importantly, if you can't even talk to them in the first place?
[/quote]
I'm thinking about it correctly, don't worry. I'm just saying that intelligence should be held constant between students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
There you go; you just answered your own question. You said it yourself: for MC/IB, the Ivies are better. Hence, right there you just conceded the point that, overall, Ivy students have better job prospects. Let's face it. A large chunk of college graduates, especially from the top schools, prefer to go to IB/MC. As I've said, a significant fraction of even engineering students from MIT prefer IB/MC over engineering jobs.
[/quote]
No. You still need to look at possible areas where GaTech is <em>better</em> than Ivies.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Either that, or those investment bankers or (especially) the consultants will simply convince companies to outsource their engineering work overseas. Or to not even bother with engineering anything at all and just become marketing companies that slap their brand name on products that are actually designed and manufactured by somebody else.
[/quote]
Ah yes, the long term path for success.</p>
<p>Why don't you choose a school with a good engineering and a good overall reputation? that way, you can do whatever you want when you graduate, hence MIT, Stanford, Caltech...etc There must be a reason why're you're interested in the ivy leagues. I assume that you think the overall reputation is very important.</p>