If the student wants to become an sociologist, definitely!
4 Likes
Agreed or if the student decides to switch career paths and go into virtually anything else the Harvard name and network will help opening other doors.
2 Likes
There simply is NO data to support this. As an anecdote, my father went to MIT (BS/MS) and my uncle went to Wyoming (BS) and Stanford (PhD). My dad said his Wyoming preparation was every bit as good as his at MIT. My uncle, who’d been on the faculty at Stanford, said Iowa State was a better school than Stanford for producing practicing engineers. He said the Stanford students didn’t get enough practical application of theory, so had to learn more to adapt to the field. People confidently declare these types of things all the time with no real knowledge than what they’re parroting from USNWR. If this were true MIT (insert elite here) would dominate the elite engineering teams. They simply don’t.
11 Likes
This is not evidenced in the salary data. Just look up mechanical engineering on college scorecard and filter to schools where grads make over $95k. There are multiple public’s where grads make as much or more than MIT.
This is in no way to disparage a great school like MIT, but rather to say, and every MIT alum out here will confirm, it is not some magical golden ticket ghat will guarantee a rainbow filled future.
5 Likes
We argue this every three months or so.
6 Likes
The top engineering/CS/Math students at MIT and its peers have several options beyond working in engineering teams. Here are what I consider their top 3 options after undergrad:
- A subsistence living as a PhD student in a top-5 program.
- Making top 1% money at age 22 in a finance company
- Creating a startup that they hope will be very successful, often dropping out to do so
Two of my son’s roommates are having a hard time choosing between options 1 & 2 (not joking here). A couple of his friends are choosing option 3.
In other words, they are not looking to work at a FAANG (unless in their research labs, like Google Brain) or a normal engineering role in a place like NASA and Lockheed. The students ending up in those roles, for the most part, are from a different part of the talent distribution at those colleges.
1 Like
Yep, my kid didn’t apply to any elite universities, even though they would have offered enough need-based aid to be within budget. He didn’t feel like they’d be a good fit. He even chose a school that’s pretty low ranked in his field over a top 10 school in his field – both cost about the same but he liked the fit at the other one better 
2 Likes
This gets brought up constantly, and it is 100% accurate, but so many people just can’t come to terms with this reality.
Someone on this site once linked to an article (I think) of a guy who got his undergrad degree at Stanford and then a Masters at USC. He said everyone at USC was talking about working for the top tier of corporations. Everyone at Stanford was talking about starting their own company.
4 Likes
Not necessarily true. Students end up where they want to be based on many factors.
My son chose to join the top dog team at his company, because they do cutting edge work, but never get cut. That team walks on water in the company compared to the rest. The special projects teams can be here today gone tomorrow, because they don’t make anything profitable.
Smarts has little to do with it. Contrary to popular belief, as my son says, they’re all smart.
2 Likes
Having been in this site since dinosaurs roamed the earth, I can promise you this same topic comes around and gets beaten to death at LEAST every three months, ad nauseum.
14 Likes
Like Theranos and Juicero 
1 Like
More anecdotes- only one of my kids close friends is an actual, practicing engineer right now (more than a decade out of college).
One is a serial tech entrepreneur (had the lowest GPA in the fraternity but was the first to get VC funding on a tech enabled device), several evaluate technology for funders (banks, VC, PE) for which their engineering background is crucial but they are not in fact working in ABET type engineering roles, several are academics-- tenure AND tenure track, at universities you’ve heard of, and one actual engineer who is career military (ROTC and then PhD).
It would be great if the facts matched the narrative (MIT trains crappy or at least average engineers) but reality is that our economy is a tad more complicated than it was at the turn of the 20th century when people who trained as engineers actually went on to design bridges. And therefore- there are many more opportunities for a professionally trained engineer than JUST designing bridges (or aircraft engines, or fill in the blank).
But yes, this argument gets revived every few months so we can hear about someone’s uncle or nephew who went to MIT and is living in the basement eating nachos.
5 Likes
But there are also a few others I believe
2 Likes
Sure. You absolutely could have the most brilliant student at MIT choosing to work for NASA because of their love of space since childhood.
Or more likely, after joining MIT, they become aware of other interesting career paths they didn’t know about beforehand, and choose one of those instead. As a result, the yield to NASA among these students will be low.
3 Likes
Ditto, for mor anecdotal examples. Both of my s’s are engineers (one chemical, one mechanical) and at one point both worked in the same group. Both are now senior technical program managers, so while their engineering training remains relevant, they are now managing programs, not doing hands on engineering stuff (AFAIK).
1 Like
How old is your son? If he’s close to college age that makes sense. If he’s 45 it’s kinda weird.
4 Likes
My 2 cents…I don’t believe they’re worth it at all. Employers generally hire locally and regionally, including the east/west coast, because it’s cost effective. This means employers in any local/state economy can hire more than enough talent to fill jobs, both entry-level and experienced professionals, and depending on the jobs skills they have, can live quite comfortably. Smart talented people succeed because they’re smart and talented. A university name really doesn’t mean anything.
1 Like
I don’t doubt this one bit. It’s in Stanford’s DNA and that of The Bay. That said, there are plenty of worthless things that get large funding, to the point that it’s almost a parity of itself.
Did you mean parody?
1 Like
No one ever said that. What I said, and know for a fact, it that there are other schools, sometimes ones we never speak of that also train good engineers. Every MIT alum out here will tell you they work alongside very bright engineers that trained at random schools.
2 Likes