I am a sophomore at a community college with a gpa of 3.4, and I plan to transfer on fall 2017. I am planning to major in Engineering, not sure yet what field but my top picks are Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Engineering. I live in the gurnee are in Illinois and I’ve talked to my instructors and also I’ve visited some universities as well. Most of my friends tell me to go to Northwestern, UIC and IIT( Illinois Institute Of Technology) for Engineering. I took a tour for IIT and they told me that they are ranked 8th in the state and high ranked median wage after graduation, is that really true? Also does it matter what school you go to when getting a job? Do firms or companies actually look at what school you went to? Lastly, what school from these three do you recommend on going for Any field on Engineering and why?
I am not sure what they were telling you about being ranked 8th in the state. For what? Engineering? Overall? for just national universities or regional included? These numbers are somewhat meaningless. As a longtime physics professor at Illinois Tech and the parent of an Engineering graduate, I can verify that our engineering majors have little trouble getting very good jobs and the income is high on average because we have so many STEM graduates and those graduates generally have higher paying jobs.
As for whether it matters what school you graduate from, if the engineering is ABET accredited then companies will definitely consider you for employment because the accreditation means a lot.
You should choose based on whether the school has the major you want; whether the “fit” is right with the school and class size and environment; and whether it is affordable. You can get an excellent engineering degree from any of the schools you list.
Good Luck and feel free to ask me more questions if you like.
Thank you for that information xraymancs, when they mention that IIT was ranked 8th it was in the state in engineering programs in national university. I like the three schools but some of my friends tell me that the reputation of the school matters on getting a job. I plan to get my masters degree in engineering just still not sure on what field yet. This is an example of what my friends said to me and some instructors as well. For example if a student graduates from UIC with a GPA of 3.5 and another student graduated with a GPA of 3.2 from Northwestern or IIT they are more likely to take the student that graduated with the 3.2 because of the university that they went to that is more prestigious. Is that really true? Another thing I wanted to ask what are the chances after graduating with a masters degree in any engineering field to gets job?
Are there even 8 engineering programs in the state of Illinois? If so, IIT is certainly not 8th. They’re better than that. I feel like wires got crossed in the message somewhere.
EDIT: it looks like there are 12.
I’m curious why UIUC isn’t on the list.
Could you pay for these schools?
Sounds like the OP wants to stay in Chicagoland, thus the lack of UIUC. If that’s not an issue then it would seem to be an egregious omission.
4kidsdad
I would be able to pay for them because I got a full scholarship plus financial aid so I wouldn’t have to worry for any cost, that’s why I am undecided what school to go to from those 3. I didn’t include UIUC because it’s really far and I’ll rather stay close to the city. What schools in your guys opinion do you guys recommend for engineering? Boneh3ad eyemgh
Honestly, I think you are doing yourself a little bit of a disservice by saying you want to stay in Chicagoland. UIUC is not “really far”. It is 3.5 hours or so from the Northwest Suburbs. Wisconsin is similarly close, as is Purdue. Those are three outstanding nearby engineering schools that you aren’t even considering.
That said, I really don’t think you’ll have much of an issue with any of the three schools you seem to be considering. I think I would personally put IIT and Northwestern above UIC, but that’s just me.
Boneh3ad
Yea I understand what you are saying but going to consider UIUC but I’ll think about that one. From Northwestern and IIT which one would you recommend in your honest opinion?
Do you think that it matters what school you go to after graduation my teachers say it does and I should really look into a great school
As you can probably see by searching the myriad threads on the topic, it sort of matters. For you it probably doesn’t matter all that much because you sound like you want to stay in Chicago and each of those schools has a perfectly good reputation in the area.
Northwestern is pretty much impossible to get into. They reject many students with much higher GPA from other top-30 schools. Definitely focus on getting into IIT.
I’m with @boneh3ad, UIUC. It’s a pretty big step above the rest in national and international reputation. More importantly, getting out of the city will expand you as a person in ways that are hard to appreciate.
Of the ones on your list, they’re the same on the whole, each with their strengths and shortcomings. Pick the one you like the best.
@steve0533 - This is why I hate rankings. As a professional academic in Illinois, and having a degree from UIUC in physics (from engineering college), I would say that UIUC is definitely the strongest engineering program in the state. After that, you can probably flip a coin between UIC, Northwestern and Illinois Tech as far as undergraduate engineering. Each of them has their strengths. The other 8 (one of them is only Engineering Technology and several only have general engineering degrees) are probably not as strong but if the program is ABET accredited, there is some certainty that if you put the effort in, you can get a good engineering education.
As I said before, this is really a matter of personal preference and finances. See where you fit in best. UIC is a large state university (~30,000 students overall) with an engineering program. Most of the students on campus are not engineering. It is more of a commuter school than the other two. Northwestern is a medium-large (~20,000 students overall) private university with a relatively small engineering program (that is, the engineering program is about the same size as Illinois Tech’s) so most of the students on campus are not engineers. Most students live on campus or in local housing. Illinois Tech is the smallest of the three (~7,500 students overall, ~3,000 undergraduates) which is dominated by engineering and science students. The feel is more like Carnegie Mellon, RPI, or Case Western which are also AITU schools. All three are research universities which have PhD programs in their engineering programs.
My guess is that you are living in Illinois so you can visit all three campuses and see what you like best.
“As I said before, this is really a matter of personal preference and finances. See where you fit in best” - That is excellent advise!
thank you @xraymancs
The only school that I haven’t checked out is UIUC, ill try to do a tour after my summer classes, another thing I wanted to mention is that I just left my job this summer where I used to work for AON, maybe you might be familiar with that company, they had told me if my fit wasn’t engineering to look into Actuarial Science (Actuary) what do you think about that?
Northwestern is ranked HIGHER than UIUC in biomedical, industrial, and material engineering. The average starting salary for both is roughly the same (64k for UIUC vs 66k for NU). Both of you seemed to imply UIUC is way better than Northwestern and Northwestern is just at the same level at IIT, which I completely disagree.
@IWannaHelp @xraymancs @eyemgh
When I went to IIT tour they gave me the salary for engineers and it said that IIT has the highest median salary for them in Illinois. Do you believe that is true?
What is the best engineering field to pursue for the future? I want to get a masters degree as well.
Rankings, rankings, rankings… Let go of the rankings. They’re both great schools and you can’t go wrong at either. Just leave it at that.
@boneh3ad
What engineering do you think is best to major in and why?