<p>Would going to graduate school such as UMAA; UIUC; Berkeley; or Cornell be just as good as going to MIT?</p>
<p>One of the cc members has asked a very similar question but has posted it another thread but I don't think it'll be getting many hits and I've decided this question deserves a thread of its own so I've created this one.</p>
<p>MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and Caltech are widely seen as having the best engineering schools in the United States (and the world). MIT probably has "first among equals" status, but at this level the distinction is meaningless.</p>
<p>Michigan, Cornell, UIUC and several other universities also have excellent engineering schools. While they aren't quite as renowed as the ones at MIT/Berkeley/Stanford/Caltech, they are still widely seen as among the best centers of technical scholarship in the world. Of course, each school has its stronger and weaker departments; for example, UIUC's electrical engineering department is widely seen equal in stature to the EE departments at MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford, while Caltech's EE department is a little less prominent. (An even more extreme example of this is that the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities's chemical engineering department is widely seen as one of the best, if not the best, in the world, but that the rest of Minnesota's engineering school, while still very good, is not nearly as prominent.)</p>
<p>In reality the name on the diploma isn't tremendously important at this level; what really matters is the perceived strength of work done in the program. The student who takes 8 years to produce a second rate (relatively speaking; anyone who can get a Ph.D, especially at a prominent school, is doing excellent work) Ph.D thesis at MIT is going to have a much tougher time than the hotshot genius who finishes his groundbreaking Ph.D thesis in 3 years at Michigan.</p>
<p>Yeah, it's also more important to go to a school that has faculty doing research you're interested in than necessarily going to the #1 department in your field.</p>
<p>I agree completely with the last statement.</p>
<p>What benefit does having a P.H.D. in engineering have other than the having ability to work in academia? I mean can your get cooler jobs?</p>
<p>In my opinion, the only point of doing a PhD in Engineering is to go into academia or start a company. If you go into industry, you'll never recover the income you lost by getting the PhD, although you will be eligible for the hardcore research jobs.</p>
<p>I have heard of companies sponsoring their employees to get their doctorates. And I mean true sponsorship - in the sense that you not only keep your job position, but you also get paid a salary while you're getting your PhD (although that means that you are still an employee and so you are still responsible for attending company meetings and completing other work that the company may want you to do). And of course you are obligated to return to the company to work for X number of years after you graduate. However, depending on the details, and whether you enjoy working at that company, it could work out to be a very good deal. For example, Merck used to have (and may still have) a sponsorship agreement with Rutgers where employees could study for their doctorates fulltime while still getting a salary from Merck.</p>
<p>The problem with such sponsorship agreements is that you are severely limited in your choice of graduate programs. Most often, your only choice is the unknown local program, and getting a PhD from there isn't worth it if you have better options.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know if I would categorically declare that these deals aren't worth it. I think that depends on the individual People have to make the determination for themselves whether it's worth it or not, depending on their personal circumstances. The guys that I was referring to basically made the decision that they know they want to be Merck researchers, and have no interest in doing something else, like becoming college professors. Obviously if they wanted to become profs, then taking the sponsorship would be a bad choice for, among other reasons, they are obligated to go back to Merck. </p>
<p>So let's look at the relevant situation. You're a college senior. You just got admitted to the best doctoral program in the country. On the other hand, you also got a job offer at Merck, and Merck has also declared that they are willing to sponsor you for your doctorate, with salary, at some no-name school. What do you choose? Well, that depends on what you want to do. If you think you might want to work at Merck after you finish your doctorate, then I definitely could see that taking the sponsorship deal could be better. Why not? You'd be getting a solid paycheck while getting your doctorate, unlike other doctoral students who are living on Ramen. Yeah, your doctorate will be from a no-name school, which would hurt you if you wanted to go into academia, but since you're going back to Merck anyway, who cares? And the fact is, after you've worked for awhile (say ~3-5 years, which is about the time that the Merck sponsorship locks you up), nobody in the corporate world will care about what school you went to. The only thing they will care about is what your job performance was. </p>
<p>Come on, Im_blue, you gotta admit, for some people, these sponsorship deals are a great deal. Why take the vow of doctoral-student poverty if you don't have to?</p>
<p>So I'm not too familiar with the exact details of these programs. Let's say you graduate with your BS in Engineering, and market salary is about 50-60k. Is Merck going to pay you 50-60k for the 5-6 years it takes to get your PhD, or does your salary get bumped up after you get your MS, or what? Also, since a PhD program is certainly a full-time job and then some, what are your responsibilities during this time, if any? In other words, are you working two full time jobs, or are they paying you simply so they can lock you up for 3-5 years for below-market salaries? Why wouldn't it be in Merck's interest to just hire fresh PhDs from top schools? There must be something in it for the company.</p>
<p>Well, you could ask the same question about any such sponsorship programs run by any companies. Plenty of companies sponsor people to get their full-time MBA's, and you could easily ask why. Heck, I know quite a few people who are right now getting fully sponsored (with full tuition, living costs, and salary) to get their MBA's from Harvard and MITSloan, and one could wonder why their companies would do that. It's a really really sweet deal if you know you want to go back to the company. </p>
<p>I only know how the Merck program used to be run in the old days, I don't know if it's still run that way (or even if it's being run at all anymore). The way it was run, as far as I can recall, is that Merck and certain participating schools have a pre-existing understanding where the school will get paid for every student that Merck sends them. These students are given up to 4 years of Merck stipend and partial salary (I think something like 75% of their normal salary), and Merck also pays the school for tuition and the like. Because of that, the students are freed from any TA/RA responsibilities, because the school is already getting paid by Merck, so the school doesn't have to extract any compensatory cheap labor from the student directly. And as we both know, it is the TA/RA responsibilities that tend to soak up a whole lot of time on a doctoral student's calendar. </p>
<p>Generally, the Merck work responsibilities tend to be quite light - like maybe one day every couple of weeks or every month you would be expected to show up to the Rahway office for meetings. You might be expected to be "on-call" to answer questions about your research if it pertains to anything that Merck is interested in. But generally, it's a whole lot less onerous than the standard RA/TA responsibilities that normal doctoral students have to undertake. Hence, for the most part, the student can dedicate himself to the basic blocking&tackling of the doctoral process - meaning coursework, quals, and thesis, without having to worry about a lot of extraneous stuff. </p>
<p>As far as getting locked up at a below-market salary after graduation, yeah, I think that probably happens. However, I think when you weigh that below-market salary against the fact that you are still getting a near-full salary during those years that you're getting your doctorate, I think you can't help but conclude that you are coming out ahead overall financially. You will get a salary bump after graduation. You may not get the kind of salary that some unsponsored "free agent" would be getting, true. But it's still good enough that I think you can't help but come out ahead financially. </p>
<p>Come on, these Merck employees aren't stupid. If they knew they weren't coming out ahead financially, I'm fairly certain they wouldn't go through with the program. It's an optional program, you know. You are perfectly free to take a leave-of-absence from Merck to get your PhD sans sponsorship, and then return to Merck as an unsponsored free agent. The fact that a lot of employees would rather get sponsored means to me that either those employees calculate that they come out ahead by doing so, or else they're stupid. I don't think they're stupid.</p>
<p>As far as what Merck will get out of it, obviously the biggest thing they get is that they get to lock up strong talent. It's the same reason why companies offer perks like company gyms or company cars or pay for people to get their MBA's - it's a way to retain talent. I don't believe that everybody in Merck is eligible for the sponsorship, only certain people identified as top talent, and it's a way to keep this top talent from bolting to Pfizer or Glaxo or Amgen. It is through programs like this that companies can burnish their reputations as top-choice employers and hence get top people. </p>
<p>You ask why doesn't Merck just hire fresh PhD's from other schools, and of course they do. Plenty of them. But the sponsorship program gives them some certainty about what employees they have. Merck can make all these job offers to free agents, and have them all spurned. Yet through the sponsorship program, they get a guarantee that they are going to at least have some new PhDs coming into the company. Hence, you can see it as a "human capital risk arbitrage" maneuver. Merck pays upfront money to get some certainty about their future research staffing. </p>
<p>And I believe Merck also has a strong intellectual property covenant with the participating universities, such that Merck owns any and all rights to the research that the students produce. I think that's perfectly fair, after all, you generated that research while you were an employee at Merck, getting paid an almost-full salary to go to school to do that research, so I think it's fair that Merck would own that research. It may also be the case that Merck won't agree to sponsor you unless they think you are going to research a topic that will be of commercial value to Merck. I don't think Merck would sponsor somebody to get their doctorate in Art History. </p>
<p>The point is, I see it as a complete win-win on both sides, provided that certain conditions are true, in particular, the condition that you want to work for Merck for awhile after graduation. The way I see it is, if you know you want to work for them anyway, why wouldn't you take this deal? For those people, you gotta admit, it's an amazing deal. </p>
<p>Nor do I think that Merck is alone in doing this. I heard that Eastman Kodak used to have a similar deal where employees would complete doctorates at the University of Rochester, although the deal no longer exists today. Yet it's not dissimilar to those companies who sponsor employees to get their MBA's.</p>
<p>The reason I brought this point up is that getting your doctorate does not necessarily have to be a losing financial proposition. There are ways for you to complete your doctorate and still come out ahead financially. Obviously you would need to compromise in other areas, in particular, giving up your chances of entering academia. But if you don't care about that anyway, then there is no loss in giving it up.</p>
<p>Aren't you restricted to many kinds of jobs when you overqualify yourself by receiving P.H.D. though? I mean your mostly only good for academia. Sure, a PHD in aerospace will land you a job in NASA but for the most part, PHD's lead almost always to teaching jobs right? Also, many companies don't allow doctorates to research on broader areas. They restrict their research to the prime interests of the company (naturally). As a result of this, many PHD's prefer to work in large universities so they can do research without having to face the constraints pinned on them by the companies. </p>
<p>Gee, is a PHD really worth it?</p>
<p>According to this</a> article, maybe not. ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Aren't you restricted to many kinds of jobs when you overqualify yourself by receiving P.H.D. though? I mean your mostly only good for academia. Sure, a PHD in aerospace will land you a job in NASA but for the most part, PHD's lead almost always to teaching jobs right?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, yes, but I think that has more to do with what people want. The fact is, a lot of people who get PHD's are doing so precisely because they want to get teaching jobs and they don't want to get a 'regular' job in industry. </p>
<p>Also, as far as the notion of overqualification in the sense that companies won't hire you because you have a PhD (and so they think you will not be happy with a regular job and hence you will leave and so the company will then have to spend money finding somebody to replace you), one simple way to combat that is to simply omit your PhD on your resume. There's no rule that says that you have to name every single academic qualification you have. I know one guy who has a PhD in computer science and is looking for a high-level research job with a big software company like Microsoft or Oracle, but right now is tiding himself over with short (but highly lucrative) contracts computer database design work. So he has 2 resumes - one where he lists his doctorate, and another where he doesn't. I wouldn't feel sorry for him, for he makes well over $125 an hour doing his database work, and that's obviously not too shabby. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, many companies don't allow doctorates to research on broader areas. They restrict their research to the prime interests of the company (naturally). As a result of this, many PHD's prefer to work in large universities so they can do research without having to face the constraints pinned on them by the companies. </p>
<p>Gee, is a PHD really worth it?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I do agree with your general premise that nobody should take the PhD lightly. Without a doubt, it is a major commitment and is, often times, a losing financial investment. If all you want is money, then you should bag the PhD and just go get your MBA and become an investment banker. You should go for the PhD because you are so interested in the subject that you could envision spending your whole life in an academic/research setting, not just for the money.</p>
<p>Sakky: are you sure it's worth it go work for an i-bank after getting an MBA? I mean an MBA is good for management stuff. Wouldn't the banking companies start you off as an lowly analyst in the company? Or would they give you an automatic promotion and make you a direct associate in something like "Goldman Sachs" just because you've received your MBA from Harvard or MIT?</p>
<p>I guess what I'm trying to ask is, will i-banks start you off in higher position (like associate or M.Director) when you work for them coming in w/ an MBA from a top school? Or, will they make you start low like everyone else? What if that someone gets a financial engineering degree from ....Berkeley or Columbia? Would they start off with an above average position when they walk into the i-bank?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky: are you sure it's worth it go work for an i-bank after getting an MBA?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You ask whether it is worth it to go work for an Ibank after getting an MBA. Well, I'll put it to you this way. After you get your MBA, is there another choice out there that is more lucrative? What's the alternative? </p>
<p>The bottom line is that after you get your MBA, Ibanking is probably your most lucrative choice. Note, I didn't necessarily say the best choice, because Ibanking is clearly not for everybody. In particular, if you don't like working stress-filled 90 hour weeks with plenty of all-nighters, then it's not for you. But I think that nobody seriously disputes that that path makes a lot of money. It is the fastest way, on average, to get a return on your investment on your MBA. It may not be the easiest and least stressful way, but it is the fastest way. </p>
<p>Now let me be clear. When I say "Ibanking", I am actually referring to all jobs in high finance, like sales/trading, hedge funds, private equity, arbitrage, etc. I'm not restricting myself to the strictest definition of Ib. What I am really talking about is "Ib-ish" jobs. Purists would say that sales/trading is not really IB and, strictly speaking, they are correct, but for the purposes of this discussion, the differences are unimportant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wouldn't the banking companies start you off as an lowly analyst in the company? Or would they give you an automatic promotion and make you a direct associate in something like "Goldman Sachs" just because you've received your MBA from Harvard or MIT?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is generally understood that any IB would hire you for an associate position if you are graduating from a reputable MBA program. Analyst jobs are reserved for people fresh out of undergrad or who otherwise have little experience. That is the generally understood career path of banking: right out of undergrad (or out of a MA or MS program), you get an analyst job. Right out of an MBA program (or, less commonly, out of a law school or a doctoral program), and you get placed in the associate position. </p>
<p>So it is true that you would get the same associate position if you graduated from an average MBA program as you would have coming from a top program. However, that shouldn't lead you to thinking that there is no value in graduating from a top program. A top program would make it easier for you to get that associate job in the first place. For example, a bank might choose to hire 10 people from a top school, but only 1 person from an average school. Now, if you happen to be that 1 guy from the average school who gets hired, then you obviously did very well for yourself. However, your odds are better if you go to a top school. </p>
<p>However, it is rare indeed to be hired right out of an MBA program into anything higher than an associate position, and certainly not a director's role. </p>
<p>The only exception would be those people who have already attained high management in banking, then go back to get their MBA's. Then obviously when they return, they would expect to get a position that was at least as good as their previous position, if not better. So if somebody had already been promoted to the director's position in a bank, went to school, he would expect to come back as a director. I know people who've done that - had very successful banking careers, decided to get their Executive MBA's, then went back and picked up where they left off. But that's not really a function of the MBA, that's a function of their impressive body of work.</p>
<p>The point is, you could say that for the most part, a MBA program would make you start at the same level as everybody else, if by 'everyone else', you mean other MBA's. </p>
<p>As far as the FE programs, what I would say is that they can be considered something like a "specialized-MBA" in that they are obviously useful to get you into the research departments of banks. However, you should keep in mind that they, by themselves, are not perfect substitutes for MBA's. In particular, plenty of people who get these FE degrees have comparable work experience to people who get their MBA's. For example, the average FE student at Berkeley has 4 years of work experience. And as the Columbia program states, the kind of job you will get upon graduation depends strongly on what previous work experience you had. If you didn't have any, you should not expect to get the same kinds of jobs as the people who do have experience. The point is, you should not see FE programs as a way to "cut in line" and skip over having to get work experience. </p>
<p>"Depending on the person's prior work experience, graduates from the MSFE program will be hired as either analysts, associates, or vice presidents."</p>
<p>"Is work experience required? </p>
<p>No, but work experience is recommended. It is also a key component to finding a full time job after graduation from the MFE. Our 2005- 2006 class has an average of 4 years of work experience. "</p>
<p><a href="http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/MFE/faq17.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/MFE/faq17.html</a></p>
<p>So you ask whether they will get an above-average position when they walk into an Ibank. My response question is, how do you define "average"? Clearly you have a chance of getting a better job with the FE degree than you would without it. On the other hand, don't expect a miracle to happen.</p>
<p>Thanks Sakky. I have a few more questions.</p>
<p>What if someone had a master's degree in engineering from a top school like MIT? Let's say they get sick of engineering in future and decide to try banking for a change. Could they work for a top bank and start off at a position like an associate? </p>
<p>Or, would he/she have to go back to school and get an advanced degree like an MBA or a financial engineering degree before receiving a good position (i.e. starting off as an associate) for an i-bank?</p>
<p>
[quote]
What if someone had a master's degree in engineering from a top school like MIT? Let's say they get sick of engineering in future and decide to try banking for a change. Could they work for a top bank and start off at a position like an associate?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You could clearly switch over to banking coming out of MIT. Many MIT engineers do. In fact, banking happens to be one of the most popular career paths of MIT engineers (which puts the lie to the notion that all MIT engineering students are studying engineering because they actually like it - if they liked it, why would they choose to become bankers?). </p>
<p>However, it is extremely unlikely that they would be able to get an associate position without work experience. They woul probably start off as an analyst. Only an MBA (or to a lesser extent those with law degrees or PhD's) and/or those with some work experience have a reasonable chance at starting off as an associate. </p>
<p>Besides, what's so bad about becoming an analyst right after undergrad? You're making good money. Not as good as an associate, but still pretty good - and obviously far far more money than you would make as a graduate student. More importantly, you get to see the industry. It is in the analyst years that a lot of people find out that they hate banking. So you do it for a year or 2, make good money, find out that you hate banking, so you quit. Well, at least you know that you don't want to go back, your wallet is full, and you have some strong and prestigious work experience on your resume. So now you can go back to school and get whatever graduate degree you might feel you need, or, if not, switch careers to some other industry. Lots of former bankers do that. </p>
<p>The way I see it is, if you can get a banking analyst job right after undergrad, then unless you have something better to do or unless you already know that you will hate it, then you should probably take the job. What's the worst that can happen? If you find out you hate it, you can always quit. In my post #14 above, I made the assumption that you were not able to get a banking offer right after undergrad. In that case, you should probably wait until you get your MBA, and then try to get in. Or at least get an MBA summer internship. Again, if you find out that you hate it, you can always quit. </p>
<p>However, let me be clear, all of this presumes that you just want money. As I've always said, if all you care about is money, then forget about getting a doctorate, forget about getting a master's degree (except for the master's in business administration), forget about all that stuff. Just get a job in banking. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Or, would he/she have to go back to school and get an advanced degree like an MBA or a financial engineering degree before receiving a good position (i.e. starting off as an associate) for an i-bank?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, you seem unduly obsessed with starting off as an associate. What's so bad about being an analyst?</p>
<p>i just heard analysts get treated like trash and have a miserable workload...that's all. I also heard it's hard to get promoted to any associate and that not that many make it to that level.</p>
<p>Stanford and Harvard both have hugh grade inflation! MIT is tied with Cal but is the better of the two. Cal Tech, UICU, UMAA are probably tied for a close second. Stanford is probably third.</p>