<p>From Yahoo's front page.
What do you guys think of this?</p>
<p>I think it is a misleading headline. The article clearly states “reputation and connections” but implies only reputation in the headline. On top of that, they are asking the actual employees, who are (A) likely to inflate the reputation of their own school or (B) inflate its importance in order to feed their ego. Does everyone do that? No. But it is still likely a real source of skew. In addition, there are different forms of reputation. It could be reputation with just a specific company, which is common even among small, unknown schools. That is how you end up with schools like Tennessee Tech being actively recruited by large companies by Rolls-Royce. They hardly have a great national reputation, but they have a good reputation with that specific company. In that case, reputation surely matters.</p>
<p>Bottom line: it was a bad question with a bad headline.</p>
<p>It’s funny to see Environmental, civil, chemical, and then there is “engineering” with its own calculation.
This kind of data representation is poor. Either you list all the engineering, or just in one categories. If the survey conducted receives fewer candidates from certain areas of engineering, either you make another chart for that, or you simply states other engineering. </p>
<p>The article itself uses the word “engineering” too often which is ambiguous.</p>
<p>As a student I agree that school reputation does play a major role in any personal communication. It’s the first impression that employers and “strangers” get. But people will only be interested in you if you can continue to impress them with your personal skills - your characters and skills.</p>
<p>Here in CUNY we don’t have a lot of great resources. If you want to establish a software development labs like some famous engineering schools do, you have to propose it and get enough people to be interested in that. Funding is difficult to get but one can do it as long as the plan sounds. </p>
<p>That’s the something that you don’t get from the big school - so many things have been well-established. All you have to do is fill out the form, or go there and ask for it.</p>
<p>I saw this article yesterday too. I agree, somewhat, but don’t feel you should over analyze it, especially if we’re talking undergrad school. Better to find a school that is a good “fit” for you where you think you will be successful vs. slogging through a program at a school you don’t really like. </p>
<p>Right out of school, it’s the school’s placement department and its record of success that will make the biggest difference. As the article state, the relationships with employers that the college establishes are critical to getting its graduates placed. </p>
<p>Later in life, the name recognition becomes more important. When someone in California doesn’t know a thing about the school you attended in Arkansas, it could be a negative. </p>
<p>You can always go for a graduate degree at a big name school, of course. That’s where I’d absolutely spend the money for a university with name recognition and big research grants.</p>
<p>“Later in life,” name recognition won’t matter much at all. Once you’ve established your career, it’s unlikely anyone will even ask where you went to school, except out of curiosity. It’s what you have or have not accomplished that will matter.</p>
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<p>LOL…I thought the same thing myself. Then I knew that this article was pretty much misleading.</p>