who will get a better job an ivy engineer or an engineer from engineering colleges

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>
[quote]
Pardon me, I meant Dartmouth engineering program in my post above, not as a college. I really don't know if Dartmouth engineering degree is perceived to be as good as, let's say UCSD's or even Penn State's.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I know what you meant, but look at it this way. I think that Dartmouth engineering is ranked somewhere in the 50's or so. Hey, that's a LOT better than many of the hundreds of other programs out there.<br>

[quote]
Again, I don't know about this, a bunch of Stanford Art history grads may be employed in many government services or perhaps in journalistic field. I really doubt that Fresno State EE grads would beat Stanford history grads for starting salary. Com'on, Stanford is Stanford, a certificate for excellence, embolden employability even if the degree doesn't exactly fit the job.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't have the salary figures of Stanford humanities majors or Fresno State engineers on me, so if somebody can find them, that would be great. </p>

<p>But let me put it to you this way. I think that we would agree that Stanford and Princeton are highly comparable schools. Princeton teaches Art History as part of its Art and Archaeology Department, as shown here. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ArtandArchaeology/ugprog/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ArtandArchaeology/ugprog/index.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Yet according to this, the average salary of Princeton Art and Archaeology students in 2005 was 32k. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Yet according to CNN, the average starting salaries of chemical engineers (from all schools) in 2005 was 54k, for EE's was 52k, for CompE was 51.5k, for CS was 51.3k, for ME was 51k. Now of course some of that is due to guys coming out of elite schools like MIT and making big salaries. But again, keep in mind that the vast majority of engineering students do not go to elite schools. Most go to no-name schools. Hence, the presence of a small fraction of guys from elite schools are not going to affect the average that much. </p>

<p>But you said that Stanford is Stanford. Well, by the same logic, Princeton is Princeton. So why don't the Princeton Art and Archaeology students get paid more?</p>

22

<p>
[quote]
Yet according to CNN, the average starting salaries of chemical engineers (from all schools) in 2005 was 54k, for EE's was 52k, for CompE was 51.5k, for CS was 51.3k, for ME was 51k. Now of course some of that is due to guys coming out of elite schools like MIT and making big salaries. But again, keep in mind that the vast majority of engineering students do not go to elite schools. Most go to no-name schools. Hence, the presence of a small fraction of guys from elite schools are not going to affect the average that much

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is where I have a big doubt. Do you really think these engineers from no-name schools are the ones that constitute the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN. If you take the number of engineers graduating from the top 50 schools, excluding the no-name schools, it might be large enough to embody the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN, whereas those engineers from no-name schools constitute only the menial tech jobs not counted into the average chemical enginerring jobs quoted by CNN.</p>

23

<p>The one who will get the job will be the one with the best interpersonal skills, who has demonstrated diligence and reliability at work, probably in a coop or internship setting. Someone who is not a prima donna, shows enthusiasm and initiative and is a utility player. What school you attended is low on the evaluation list.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
The one who will get the job will be the one with the best interpersonal skills, who has demonstrated diligence and reliability at work, probably in a coop or internship setting. Someone who is not a prima donna, shows enthusiasm and initiative and is a utility player. What school you attended is low on the evaluation list

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</p>

<p>Unfortunately, not so for many tech companies. The school you attended somehow talks about your capability and become a very important decision especially when interviewing a fresh grad from school.</p>

25

<p>This is where graduates of Dartmouth's Engineering Program have gone to work:</p>

<p><a href="http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/%7Ecareer/employers/employer_hires.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~career/employers/employer_hires.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>
[quote]
This is where I have a big doubt. Do you really think these engineers from no-name schools are the ones that constitute the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN. If you take the number of engineers graduating from the top 50 schools, excluding the no-name schools, it might be large enough to embody the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN, whereas those engineers from no-name schools constitute only the menial tech jobs not counted into the average chemical enginerring jobs quoted by CNN.

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<p>Ok, then don't take the CNN figures. Just poke around the Internet and look at the salary figures for some no-name schools.</p>

<p>For example, I found the numbers for Montana Tech. I never even knew there was a school called Montana Tech before. Have you? But here I see some pretty decent salary numbers. Here are some snippets.</p>

<p>"Placement rates for the [Montana Tech] 2003 Graduating class were as follows:</p>

<p>General Engineering: 100% with an average starting salary of $47,154. Reported salaries range from $36,000 to $62,000.</p>

<p>Civil Engineering:100% with an average starting of $41,530. Reported salaries range from $31,650 to $50,100. </p>

<p>Electrical Engineering:100% with an average starting salary of $50,750. Reported salaries range from $45,000 to $55,000.</p>

<p>Mechanical Engineering:100% with an average starting salary of $45,989. Reported salaries range from $30,000 to $58,000.</p>

<p>Welding Engineering:100% with an average starting salary of $46,667. Reported salaries range from $38,000 to $52,000.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.mtech.edu/cf_prototypes/admission/programs.php?Program_ID=BSGE%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.mtech.edu/cf_prototypes/admission/programs.php?Program_ID=BSGE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or how about Kettering University? Ever heard of it? It's basically a small school that is highly engineering focused. But I think we can all agree that it is fairly "no-name". </p>

<p>"The starting salary for Kettering's 2002 class: Engineering graduates averaged $49,695. Overall the average starting salary for 2002 graduates was $49,224. Approximately 23 percent of graduates responding to a Kettering salary survey received a signing bonus in addition to salary-the average bonus for those receiving one was $5,444 with the range topping out at $20,000. The range of salary averages for 2002 graduates was $35,000-$62,000."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.kettering.edu/news/fastFacts.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kettering.edu/news/fastFacts.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or how about Iowa State? I think we can agree that it's not MIT. </p>

<p>"The average starting salary for the [Iowa State] engineering class of 2005 was more than $50,000..."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.eng.iastate.edu/surcharge/index.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eng.iastate.edu/surcharge/index.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And here's a survey of reported salary offers to Iowa State Chemical Engineers for fall, 2004. You gotta admit, they're pretty good.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.eng.iastate.edu/ecs/employers/ChESalaries04-05.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eng.iastate.edu/ecs/employers/ChESalaries04-05.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or how about Drexel University? Ever heard of it before? </p>

<p>"Graduates from the College of Engineering reported the second highest median starting salary at $49,400."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.drexel.edu/provost/ir/research/outcomes2004.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.drexel.edu/provost/ir/research/outcomes2004.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>But hey, look, if you don't believe me, you can go do the research yourself. You will see that even engineers at no-name schools report fairly highly decent starting salaries, certainly quite comparable if not higher than graduates of the elite schools but in less marketable majors. You should be able to convince yourself that this is true. </p>

<p>Hence, I would argue that an engineering degree is a a great way for a less qualified student to 'even the score' with somebody who was good enough to get into an elite school, but opted for a nontechnical major. Which gets to a point I made in another thread - for those people who are not stars (and hence can't make it into medicine or consulting or banking or law or whatever) , engineering is a pretty good deal. For a lot of people, engineering really is the best they can do.</p>

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<p>I'm not sure about the others, Drexel isn't a no-name school.</p>

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<p>drexel is a "name" school for flavian because he goes to penn, which is drexel's next door neighbor</p>

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<p>It all depends on the person and the situation. My brother got his ChemE degree from an Ivy League and couldn't get a job until 4 months after he graduated. He had been searching for jobs beginning in the Fall semester of his senior year. He had 5-10 interviews after his internship company rejected him. I, on the other hand, will graduate in May with a MechE degree from a much lower ranked school and have already accepted a job offer after interviewing with 5 companies. And the salary is higher than my brother's salary, even though the average salary for ChemEs is higher than MechEs. The salary is also a full $10,000 more than the salary from the company that rejected me. That recruiter told another candidate about the salary info. </p>

<p>From an academic POV, my brother's GPA was not very high in comparison to his peers and that hurt him when companies went to his campus to recruit. In my case, my GPA was among the highest in my class and my resume was good. That got me interviews with every company that came to my campus to recruit engineers. Another thing that gave me an advantage is that many of the top students didn't bother to give their resumes to career services and never got interviews with the companies. And some of these same students don't want to relocate and that erases a bunch of opportunities right there (most students are commuters).</p>

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<p>This may be a bit off-topic, but what do you think the difference in difficulty of Engineering is between a prestigious university like Duke or Harvard and a more specialized school like Georgia Tech?</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
This is where I have a big doubt. Do you really think these engineers from no-name schools are the ones that constitute the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN. If you take the number of engineers graduating from the top 50 schools, excluding the no-name schools, it might be large enough to embody the 'chemical engineers' as defined by CNN, whereas those engineers from no-name schools constitute only the menial tech jobs not counted into the average chemical enginerring jobs quoted by CNN.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>To reinforce what I've been saying, I just found the data for Michigan Tech. No, not Montana Tech, this is Michigan Tech. Anybody ever heard of Michigan Tech?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.career.mtu.edu/general/salary/mtusalarydata.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.career.mtu.edu/general/salary/mtusalarydata.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or how about the engineering salaries at Kansas State University?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.k-state.edu/ces/employer/salary.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.k-state.edu/ces/employer/salary.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>How about Oakland University? I never heard of Oakland University before. Apparently, it's not actually in Oakland, CA, but rather is in Rochester, Michigan, and is part of the Michigan State system. Check out the engineering salaries.</p>

<p><a href="http://www2.oakland.edu/careerservices/GradSummary/stats.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www2.oakland.edu/careerservices/GradSummary/stats.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>How about the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech)? </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nmt.edu/about/facts/grad_salaries.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nmt.edu/about/facts/grad_salaries.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>How about the engineering salaries at Utah State University? </p>

<p><a href="http://www.usu.edu/career/PDF/Salary%20Report0203.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usu.edu/career/PDF/Salary%20Report0203.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Here's the University of Memphis.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.people.memphis.edu/%7Eunivplace/s_resources/res_gradsurveyresults.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.people.memphis.edu/~univplace/s_resources/res_gradsurveyresults.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Ok, I think I can stop now, because my point is proven. People who get engineering degrees from less-than-elite programs nevertheless seem to be doing quite well for themselves. And it's not, contrary to what justinmeche has implied, a simple matter of grades. These are average salaries we are talking about, which takes into account those who did well and those who didn't.</p>

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<p>What I was implying was that my brother's low GPA (just below 3.0) made him ineligible for many of the on-campus interviews that his classmates were able to get. His internship experience was good but just about every company interview on campus required a minimum 3.0 GPA and since most of the classmates met that requirement, the companies didn't bother looking at the students who didn't.</p>

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<p>I understand, but surely you must agree that those no-name engineering programs also have plenty of students who have low GPA's. Yet when it comes to compiling average starting salaries, those no-name programs look pretty darn good. </p>

<p>There is no doubt that GPA and internship experience play a role in determining what specific job a person can get on the micro level. However, what I am saying is that even on the macro level, looks like there is only a relatively small difference in salary between going to a elite and non-elite engineering program. Hence - salary compression.</p>

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<p>I see your point. I know a guy who went to Cornell (CompSci and Econ) and he said that his elite school name didn't have much power during his interviews and didn't lead to any great salary. My brother and I are good examples (I mentioned it in another post). My entry-level salary will be 2000 more than his, even though I went to a no-name school and my degree has a lower starting average salary than his.</p>

<p>The friend from Cornell said that the education really wasn't anybody that many other lower ranked schools. You learned the same material but were tested at a higher level. That in itself doesn't mean you received a better education.</p>

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<p>Sakky, what about salary trends after graduation? I think elite schools' engineer gets the better.</p>

<p>According to UIUC's data,
<a href="http://www.ge.uiuc.edu/placement/10yrrespsal.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ge.uiuc.edu/placement/10yrrespsal.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The average salary for a 10 year alum from UIUC's Eng school is about 78,000</p>

<p>According to Univ Penn's data
<a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/10-yrNEW.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/10-yrNEW.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The average salary for a 10 year alum from Penn's SEAS is 101,000. Furthermore, the 101k figure is for a class that graduated earlier than the class from UIUC. At that time, Penn was also the least selective Ivy league unlike how it is today.</p>

<p>So according to those two data, there is a difference in the overall schol salary of the schools from which you graduated in the long run. This is also despite the fact that according to USNEWS, UIUC's engineering program is much better than Penn's. I would assume that the schools you listed would have lower long-run salary figures than that of UIUC.</p>

<p>Granted, there's the question of whether a person who got into MIT and went to a non-name engineering school would've done as well, but that's an entirely different question.</p>

<p>Justin, the fact that you graduated from a "no-name" school and got a decent job is worthy of congratulation. But in the overall picture, I don't think we can rely on specific cases. There are even Harvard MBAs who graduate unemployed.</p>

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<p>Flavian, the problem with this data is that the Illinois grads will live in geographic areas where salaries are lower whereas Penn grads will live in the east coast, and also, Penn grads are more likely than the Illinois grads to go into non-engineering fields such as ibanking wihch raise the average salary. If you strictly look at those working in engineering fields, then I think those numbers would be more similar.</p>

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<p>I would go to the better school overall, which would include Harvard Penn or Duke or whatever over a more specialized school like GA tech, just because I think having a broad set of offerings is beneficial</p>

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<p>Flavian, I have to agree with jma on what he said. Let's not also forget that Upenn students tend to come from richer socioeconomic backgrounds than UIUC grads and thus will probably get better jobs simply by better connections. </p>

<p>But don't get me wrong. I also completely agree with you, Flavian, that the average Upenn grad is probably better than the average UIUC grad, even if we're talking about engineering students, simply because Penn is a more selective school than is UIUC. Hence, I agree that by virtue of that fact alone, the Upenn grad may go farther than the UIUC grad.</p>

<p>But that only illustrates one of my basic points - which is that the actual prestige of the engineering program itself seems not to provide much of a salary boost. After all, the grads of a nonprestigious engineering program like New Mexico Tech get starting salaries that are almost as good as (and sometimes better than) the grads of highly prestigious engineering programs. After you've been working for a number of years, I agree that the better person will tend to make more money, but that's a function of the person himself, not where he went to school. Let's face it. After you've been working for awhile and it comes time for promotion or raises, nobody is going to care about where you graduated from. They're only going to care about how the quality of your work. </p>

<p>As a corollary, remember what I am trying to demonstrate here. I am demonstrating that there is a strong salary compression phenomena at work here when it comes to engineering - in other words, that engineering is pretty good for the people who are not stars, but not so good for those who are stars (because star engineers don't really get star pay). After all, look at the starting salaries of those no-name schools I mentioned. They're almost the same as the salaries of the prestige schools. I would argue that the average Cornell engineer is much better than the average New Mexico Tech or Montana Tech engineer, but that Cornell engineer is not getting a starting salary that is "much better". They're all getting approximately the same starting salary. Even later in life, let's say the Cornell engineer is making 100k and the New Mexico Tech engineer is making 75k. That's still not "much better". In other words, being a star engineer is not really that much better than just being a normal engineer. What that means is that the incentives for being a star engineer are weak. Why work hard to be a star engineer if the benefits aren't that good? </p>

<p>Basic economics dictate that the more incentives you give to people to do something, the more that those people will do that thing. The US seems to give very strong incentives for regular people to get 'average' engineering degrees. If you're just an average student (or maybe above average, but not a star student) in rural Western Montana, then going to Montana Tech and getting a 50k starting salary is a really sweet deal. After all, honestly, what else are you going to do? However, if you're a star, then you may be able to do better doing something else.</p>

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<p>There are many "levels" to address this question, so I don't think its necessary for me to contradict - I actually agree with what you write. I find this to be an interesting discussion, but I also want to make it clear that I don't intend to promote the arrogant notion that "elite schools are superior than the rest." I tend to agree that the person, not the school, is the factor for success, although I wouldn't entirely dismiss the school as having no effect. </p>

<p>So to come back to the original question: ** who will get a better job an ivy engineer or an engineer from engineering colleges?**, I think the clear way to answer it is to look at the ramifications:</p>

<ol>
<li>Is the "job" an engineering job or a non-engineering job? </li>
<li>Which is the variable in question? The school, the engineering program or the person?</li>
<li>What is meant by the "better job"? pure Salary?</li>
<li>...or whether the "better job" is the one closer to "best" job that a person of a certain aptitude can achieve. </li>
</ol>

<p>I think the posts above completely address those four questions, which in turn answer the original question, which will depend on which ramification is the one of interest.</p>