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This also means that E-R graduate may find a job at fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft industry, and possibly some research & development activities like in NASA or Air Force. But they will be hard pressed if they
try to find a job in academia or in roatary-wing industry (e.g., Boeing, Bell, Sikorsky). On the other hand, MIT graduates will come out ready to tackle any aero-job, be it fixed-wing or rotary-wing related.
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<p>I'm afraid this statement places far far too much weight on the importance of the specificity of the undergraduate degree. The truth is, all companies (yes, even Boeing, Bell, and Sikorsky) hire people fresh out of college who have studied things that are only tangentially related to the job at hand. A college degree is not a vocational degree. Most of the specific things you learn in college, you will never use. In addition, there are plenty of things you will need to know on the job that college won't teach you. What a college education is really supposed to do is teach you how to think logically and creatively. If you can do that, then you can quickly pick up what you need to know for your job.</p>
<p>Take Sikorsky. I know some people working or used to work as engineers at Sikorsky. Most of them don't even have an aero degree, instead having degrees in things like Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or General Engineering. Quite a few of them had never taken a formal aero class in their whole lives. Similarly, using an example from another industry, I know plenty of people who were hired to be software engineers at Oracle to work on the flagship Oracle database product despite the fact that they had never actually taken a formal Database Systems course. I know people who took jobs at Microsoft and were assigned to the Windows division despite never having taken an actual formal course on Operating Systems. </p>
<p>What companies are really looking for is talent and enthusiasm. If you can show that you know the industry well, that your knowledge-base is good, and that you like the industry, then you are going to be a very strong candidate. The fact is, if your engineering knowledge base is strong, it's not that hard to pick up the knowledge necessary for rotary-wing, in the same way that if your software engineering knowledge is strong, it's not that hard to pick up database or operating systems design.</p>
<p>Sakky: I am afraid that you have misconstrued my arguments. What I meant by losing relevance applies to graduate school which a student will attend and it did never mean to undergraduate school.</p>
<p>Put it more succinctly:</p>
<p>John Bloe graduated a (any) college with a BSAE. He is now looking to go graduate school for a better job (be it research-oriented or industry or academia). What I said was that it is in his best interest if he chooses to go a graduate school with the Ph.D program (like MIT or Berkeley or Stanford) than boutique-size graduate school, which only have a Master program (MSAE or MEAE).</p>
<p>With the Ph.D. program, professors tend to seek for outside grant funds to add breadth/depth into his research and also to support his graduate students. In addition, professors and his/her students would go into symposia (e.g., AIAA ASE, ASME) to present their work and share information and also get experienced face to face what other researchers are doing in their fields. As a net result, they tend to publish more, present more, collaborate more, and involve more, research more than just studying old-school books. This experience in state-of-the-art research is a very critical advantage for the graduate students for his/her future career!!!</p>
<p>Ok, that's different from what I thought you were saying. But I STILL disagree with it. Specifically, I disagree that state-of-the-art research is a critical advantage for somebody with just a master's degree going into industry. For somebody with a PhD who is trying to get a research job, sure, I agree. But the fact is, whether we like it or not, in the eyes of industry, master's degree engineering students are basically just bachelor's degree students on steroids. The vast majority of them will end up in line engineering or process engineering work that involves little research.</p>
<p>I'll give you an example. I happen to know personally know 3 people who are going to work at Boeing after having gotten their master's degrees at MIT. Did they get hired because of their great aerospace research work they did at MIT? Not really. Not a single one of them got a degree in aero/astro engineering. Instead, one got a degree in Engineering Systems (ESD), one in Mechanical Engineering, and the third in Materials Science. Furthermore, their research theses has NOTHING to do with the aerospace industry. The ESD girl's research was on warehouse and supply chain optimization. The ME guy's research was on lean manufacturing factory processes. The 3rd person's was on materials selection for manufacturing. They are now being hired for jobs that are only tangentially related to what they did their research on. </p>
<p>The truth is, companies often times hire people for jobs that have little or nothing to do with what they studied. That's why Art majors can get hired to become investment bankers. What companies are really hiring for is raw talent and work ethic. It's not that hard to learn what you need to know to do your job. Most job tasks really aren't that complicated. They're teachable. But you can't teach somebody to have more talent. You can't teach somebody to have a better work ethic. </p>
<p>Heck, look at the executive management ranks of Boeing. You will notice that many of them have educations that, honestly, have nothing to do with the aerospace industry specifically. CEO Jim McNerney is not an engineer. Heck, even James Jamieson, Senior VP of Engineering, Operations, and Technology, doesn't even hold an aerospace engineering degree (instead he has a master's degree in CHEMICAL engineering). </p>
<p>Sorry to backtrack a little, but I have a question regarding molliebatmit's post #2. She said MIT asks for above a 4.0 GPA. Is that 4.0 on the MIT scale out of 5.0, or is that 4.0 as in all A's?</p>
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Silly nonsense. That's what (good) education is.
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<p>To that, I would say that a lot of students, including some students at the top schools, are not getting a 'good' education, as you have defined it. I would point my finger specifically at certain students at HYPS and schools like that. Let's be honest. Some of the students there are not particularly interested in developing their talent or their work ethic. Yet upon graduation, they get hired for cushy jobs anyway. I will always remember guys who basically skated their way all through undergrad, doing the least possible work and basically enjoying a 4-year party, and then getting nice investment banking and consulting job offers.</p>
<p>I transferred out of ERAU after one year to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It was probably the best decision of my entire life. The department does great research, the profs are all brilliant (several with MIT backgrounds) and it has a vastly more interesting student body. ERAU didn't feel much more rigorous than high school to be honest.</p>
<p>Of course, U of Mich has one of the strongest eng. programs in the world. Especially, its graduate programs are very good and well respected in the world. I know world-famous Professor Friedmann who recently moved onto UMICH from UCLA.</p>
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ERAU didn't feel much more rigorous than high school to be honest.
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Well, let's not belittle other schools here. ER is a fine school :p</p>