<p>
</p>
<p>Really? And exactly how many of them were undergrads, for which the supposed ‘top 10%’ rule applies?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I don’t know what the methodology is.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I was talking about your assertion that a certain percentage of undergrads
were unavailable because they headed off to graduate school. We hire those
with graduate degrees so your removal of them from the pool doesn’t make
sense. Perhaps I was unclear about that in the last round.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>We usually expect Phds to provide a presentation of their research in
addition to the usual interview process. We invite those with the MSCS
to do a presentation of their research work if it is indicated.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Non-issue.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>One could beat that with the opportunity to be set for life at a young
age.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Non-issue.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>The top undergraduates.</p>
<p>I was originally discussing undergrads as that was the topic of
conversation. You brought in the issue of graduates.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Well, I take them at face value unless I have reason to doubt them.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I don’t. HR does the screening.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>There are aspects of what we do that I have seen in other companies
but I’ve worked in my particular group since the mid-1980s and really
don’t know firsthand what other companies do. I have seen startups
with better packages than we have and worse too. I haven’t worked at
those places. I have seen arrangements at other companies that one
would consider sweetheart deals. I’ve seen them here too. We seem to
treat older employees well. I would expect a wide variety of
attributes at a wide variety of companies and tradeoffs for those
benefits.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It is my perception that the company is attractive to work for but I’m
in a satellite in a low-cost-of-living location. We are able to recruit
top grads from top schools and we doing very well in the profits and
stock price area so I think that it’s an attractive place to work.
We do lose people from time to time to other companies so it clearly
isn’t nirvana for some people.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>There are a wide variety of things that people want in an employer and
these vary by person, age, family status, etc. Something that’s fairly
important right now is job security and a company with a good record
of earnings is more likely to provide job stability than is a company
with a string of losses. In that measurement, it doesn’t matter whether
you’re working for a big company or a small company.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Three of them were in another group and I don’t know them.</p>
<p>One was a grad hire.</p>
<p>One was an undergrad hire.</p>
<p>I’m just thinking. The very fact that this is a valid point of debate goes to show that state universities and top universities actually do not have a hands down winner and to a certain extent all roads lead to Rome.</p>
<p>Top universities are expensive but are more intensive (I think). State universities can help avoid one from having to pay back loans later. So, doesn’t it all come down to a matter of personal choice and not one thing being better than the other?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You can get a great education at a state school but you have to know what you are doing or have great advice available. I feel that this advice would be external to the school as private schools typically have more resources in this area. In my particular case, I’m an expert in my son’s field and have former professors in the field available to me if I have questions on process and procedure. In our case, money wasn’t an issue but our son started taking college courses at a young age and wanted to stay where he was. There were also medical issues and location of the university was very important.</p>
<p>There are also multiple routes into engineering but they can take longer.</p>
<p>So if you had to give me advice for choosing a university, would you recommend a state school and save money or go for a private education but come out of it in debt head to toe?</p>
<p>Some of the state universities really seem great schools to be in. ABET-accredited Education, fun, and annual career fairs with around 25 big shot companies like Boeing. I think I’m looking at state universities which have a penchant for engineering (where engineering is the priority and everything else is almost sidelined).</p>
<p>Some state schools are great: Georgia Tech, Michigan, UIUC, Berkeley, UCLA, UT-Austin, Purdue, UCSD, etc. If my choice was in-state at Berkeley or Carnegie Mellon (+$35,000), and my goal was to be in traditional engineering, it’s an easy decision. </p>
<p>But keep in mind that different schools attract different recruiters. Even if I’m an Illinois resident and as great as UIUC is, if my goal in life is to go into VC it might be worth the $33,000 extra to go to Stanford. It’s going to be hard to get into VC from UIUC, but easy from Stanford (if, for no other reason, than because of location). Of course, this assumes that I have the means to come up with that money and I am comfortable taking on that debt load (otherwise, I’d attend UIUC and do my best to make it work).</p>
<p>Even for traditional engineering positions, keep in mind that different recruiters will come to different schools. And even if a recruiter goes to two schools, that doesn’t mean he’s hiring for the same position. In addition, your education is different at top schools and lower tier schools. The lower tier programs spend less time on fundamentals and more time on applications. Also, lower tier programs cover less material (a recent study on here using syllabi from EE programs showed as much as 33% less in some classes). </p>
<p>Are those differences worth the cost? That is up to you. But the mentality that a student at Stanford and a student at Louisville have the same opportunities and get the same education is completely false.</p>
<p>I am a very debt-averse person so I would recommend an approach which minimized debt.</p>
<p>There are other ways into very good companies, at least in the software area. We only recruit new grads from a small set of schools but we hire lots of people with experience. In those cases, the school that they went to doesn’t matter. We do have some engineers without a college degree and some with completely unrelated degrees.</p>
<p>Yes, I too am averse to debt.</p>
<p>If I can go to a top university in a state, do you think that I will be able to get recruited at least within that state? I ask this because I tend to believe that these states might have a slight preference to hire the students who completed the education at their own state’s flagship. I also tend to think that these local companies might not like to take the trouble to go to somewhere in Massachusetts and compete to hire an MIT graduate who will already have offers from dozens of other companies.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this sounds far-fetched.</p>
<p>I would certainly not let attending a state school make you feel that you may not land a job–or at least a job at a major company. The name of your school is not going to guarantee your success. Consider work experience either during the school year and/or summers. Consider ECs and any type of team/leadership ops you can garner. Sure, a big name may get you an interview–but we have found that work experience carries a lot of weight as well. And, in this economy, debt is a huge concern w/regards to education. Consider all of your options carefully!</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I think that it is hard to generalize about this due to the variety of conditions and in what employers are looking for. We’re also talking four years out.</p>
<p>I do think that attending a university near an area with companies that do what you are interested in can be helpful. There may be many businesses nearby that don’t want to spend a lot of time and effort recruiting outside their geographical area that would look to the local state university for recruits. I’ve seen a lot of this with my son.</p>
<p>There are remote opportunities too for areas where that is easy to do today.</p>
<p>I spoke with an intern last year about his plans after graduating and he said that he wanted to work remotely from Paris (his parents lived there) telecommuting to California doing software engineering.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You don’t get offers from dozens of companies. If you are, then you are doing something wrong.</p>
<p>Our interviews take one to two days and sometimes there is travel involved. Other companies that aren’t as thorough might only take half a day. There is some prep time for interviewing - you should do some research on the company and the division for the job. You should also take a look at the prerequisites and spend a little time learning a bit about them if possible. You also need to have some decent clothes available. Doing this a few dozen times in your senior year is not a good use of time.</p>
<p>A minor comment on interviews: spend a little time studying on how to do interviews and do at least one mock interview. You can be completely qualified for the job and make an offhand comment that’s a ding against you. Two could get you tossed off the candidate list. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how high your GPA - a few poor interview points can get you tossed.</p>
<p>Yes, I concur with you, notre dame AL. I think the very existence of state universities goes to show that going there is not tantamount to failure.</p>
<p>Thousands of kids go to state universities. There has to be something after 4 years in these places, right?</p>
<p>From what I understood BCEagle91, that as long as one works very hard, regardless of the institution that they attend, there is a possibility of doing well.</p>
<p>So do you agree that state universities are not void of possibilities in the job market?</p>
<p>Having good interviewing skills seems to be very important too.</p>
<p>Also, could going to a state university in the top tier for researching help too, as I could use that research to impress employers?</p>
<p>^^-our student has found that employers seem to be less impressed with research and more interested in work experience. That is not to say that the research can help–just offering what our student has indicated thru various job interviews. Research would be more imp to grad school.</p>
<p>I see a lot of local job opportunities come through my son’s email and he’s attending a second or third tier state university. These are internships, coops and permanent positions.</p>
<p>Some companies like research experience. Some companies place more emphasis on immediate skills. Some companies do cutting-edge stuff where you invent things where theory may be welcome. Other companies take existing tools and build from them in a fairly straightforward way. We generally prefer recruits with research experience.</p>
<p>That’s pretty new news for me, notre dame AL. But I think that even at these research universities, it will be more than possible for me to just eschew the research opportunities, right?</p>
<p>However, judging by what BCEagle91 said, I think I might as well indulge in some of these research opportunities because I doubt its going to be adverse to my application. Please correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>BCEagle91, are you generally recruiting undergraduates or post-graduates? Your son received these offers as an undergraduate or post-graduate?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Both. We hire undergraduates for entry-level positions. We hire others but we expect them to have additional graduate courses in our area of specialty or significant research in our specialty area. We hire college professors too. My manager’s manager was a math professor at a California University - I think that we hired him when he was in his 50s and he’s in his 60s now.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>These aren’t offers, they are job postings. He’s in his third year but he has a 3.9+ GPA and that GPA alone gets him interviews for internships, coops and on-campus jobs. He had a nice research position as the preferred candidate but the funding fell through on the project. It was just as well as he has a heavy courseload this semester and he already has a job tutoring. He had an interview for a job (during the semester) this past Monday writing device drivers and he’s waiting to hear back on that one. They need several students and it’s an on-campus job.</p>
<p>feder-don’t midjudge what I posted about research exp–as BC mentioned, perhaps it is the type of position one might be interviewing for that may dictate interest in research from the employer. This has just been our student’s experience–at this economic time, we feel that the work experience, internships have boded well for interviews. Grades and ECs have certainly played a huge role as well. A well-rounded resume including research experience should open many doors for most students.</p>
<p>BCEagle91 : It’s great to hear that despite the economic turmoil there are numerous opportunities for your son. It seems like going to a second/third tier of universities is a good decision. </p>
<p>A good GPA at a state university does seem to attract jobs, right? Good luck to your son for the result of his interview.</p>
<p>notre dame AL: I’m sorry I misjudged the statement. Yes, research universities do seem like a lucrative offer.</p>
<p>Which is the best university for engineering in the Northwest?</p>
<p>For my money, go to the best school you can get into and pay for without going more than XXX dollars into debt.</p>
<p>The XXX will depend on a variety of factors, but for me it would be low… under $40,000 and probably closer to $20,000.</p>
<p>I don’t see a lot of utility in going to a top school and putting yourself through the meat grinder for mediocre results, but then again, I don’t see the utility in going to a low-ranked school that doesn’t offer enough opportunities or challenge you. I think you need to strike a balance… most people aren’t worried about making it to the top of their field, and with good reason. It’s risk versus reward, or perhaps more appropriately, you reap what you sow.</p>
<p>Naturally, if you can go to MIT, do well, and not incur much debt, you would be an idiot not to go. That’s clear. But if you’re talking about $50,000 of debt, maybe an extra year or semester to graduate, and a lower GPA with higher stress levels for your undergraduate tenure… that’s the point where I would say it’s not worth it. Where you go to college is an important decision, and important decisions involve tradeoffs. I can go into details for my situation, and talk about the pros and cons. I’m probably a little low on risk/reward curve. I’m sure there are others who frequent this forum who are higher on the curve and can talk about their experiences.</p>
<p>I do think the OP started this thread for validation rather than advice, though. If that’s the case… nobody likes having their time wasted.</p>
<p>OP, which school/s do u consider “top school” for engineering?</p>