ivy league or public school for engineering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is a junior looking at engineering schools. I noticed there are many public schools ranked higher than ivy league schools. What makes these public schools ranked higher than private schools? Does Berkeley, Univ of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Perdue and UIUC offer that much better of an engineering education than Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Univ Penn and Cornell?

You don’t even need to go to these bolded schools (nor MIT/CalTech). Most engineers in my company went to “affordable state university” programs. You would definitely get more respect for any of the bolded schools than for the Ivy programs. It’s not worth paying the Ivy premium for engineering.

Agree Ivy programs and top schools aren’t worth the cost. My DH has a PhD is electrical engineering in a very specialized field and owns a company. He is a huge fan of state schools for recruiting engineers because they’re typically better rounded (better soft skills), harder working, and often more creative. The folks he has hired from top schools seemed to have huge entitlement problems or are overly confident and a nightmare on teams. Some of his best hires are people who don’t have engineering or computer science degrees but are familiar with coding because they are extremely creative in development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does he really know he likes engineering? I’m a lot of ways it’s repetitive process driven work and it generally pays much less than other professional careers. I’m work for Air Force civilian — my 12 year old self loves it, my DW likes it a lot less since I don’t make much and often work 12 hour shifts during mission op

Obv CS/engineering at a FAANG is (or was) a good option. But CS doesn’t have the natural gate keepers of med/law nor the obsession with pedigree and class that finance has that prevented an oversupply of talent.

Good engineering schools are MIT CalTech, Harvey Mudd, CMU, GT, Mich, Purdue, etc. but if he has the chance to go to an Ivy, go there as if he changes his mind for career he will have a wealth of good options. Many engineering classmates switched to law or finance mid-program — engineering school is its own special slog.

Certain classes have become gate keeper classes for CS due to the over abundance of student wanting to major in it. Colleges aren't letting them all do it. DS's school reports a third of his class failed one of the gatekeeper classes and almost everyone else got a C.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

Engineering students from Ivy become quants on Wall Street

All of them? No. And quants also come from other schools as well. If you want to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our civil and structural engineers where I work all went to State U or community college and then transferred to State U.

They all have their State U diplomas on the walls at work.

We get EIT's from State U.

Interesting. The credits all transferred? Didn’t throw off the thing of prerequisites? Seems tough to transfer after two years.

[Anonymous]

A fairly large %age of Ivy league engineering graduates don't end up working as engineers. They are heavily recruited by consulting, Ibanking, VC, quant trading, etc.

There are certain State Us like Berkeley, Michigan, UIUC where these kinds of alternative pathways are also more easily identified.

If you really want to work in engineering, I would agree there is no real benefit from an Ivy vs. State U. However, more optionality with top flagships and Ivies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our civil and structural engineers where I work all went to State U or community college and then transferred to State U.

They all have their State U diplomas on the walls at work.

We get EIT's from State U.

Interesting. The credits all transferred? Didn’t throw off the thing of prerequisites? Seems tough to transfer after two years.

Community colleges are aligned to their state Us and have programs designed to support this kind of transfer. Here's the NVCC one: https://www.nvcc.edu/academics/pathways/mathematics-engineering/engineering/index.html

https://www.nvcc.edu/academics/pathways/mathematics-engineering/engineering/about.html

[Anonymous]

Aren’t the Ivy League school connections better than state schools or does that not apply to engineering?

[Anonymous]

Ivies are liberal arts schools. Harvard wasn't meant to be a technology school. The state of Massachusetts decided to build MIT for this reason. The rest of the ivies are based on the same liberal arts foundation. Even in Columbia with it's engineering school, I don't know what percentage actually works in engineering. They are more likely to go to work in wall street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

Engineering students from Ivy become quants on Wall Street

All of them? No. And quants also come from other schools as well. If you want to do that.

In my engineering class 20% went Quants, 20% patent lawyers, 20% consulting, 20% BigTech, 10% academia, and maybe 10% “engineering” ie aerospace, legacy electronics, automotive, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t the Ivy League school connections better than state schools or does that not apply to engineering?

Penn State has a larger network than any Ivy. I'll bet most flagships can say the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ivies are liberal arts schools. Harvard wasn't meant to be a technology school. The state of Massachusetts decided to build MIT for this reason. The rest of the ivies are based on the same liberal arts foundation. Even in Columbia with its engineering school, I don't know what percentage actually works in engineering. They are more likely to go to work in wall street.

I don't think that's true. DD went to Columbia and dated a kid in engineering who is actually doing engineering now.

[Anonymous]

OP, I am a civil engineer. Just choose the state flagship. Paying to go OOS to a “fancier” school like Michigan of Cal isn’t worth it for undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

Engineering students from Ivy become quants on Wall Street

All of them? No. And quants also come from other schools as well. If you want to do that.

In my engineering class 20% went Quants, 20% patent lawyers, 20% consulting, 20% BigTech, 10% academia, and maybe 10% “engineering” ie aerospace, legacy electronics, automotive, etc.

Curious, do you mind saying which engineering school you attended?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our civil and structural engineers where I work all went to State U or community college and then transferred to State U.

They all have their State U diplomas on the walls at work.

We get EIT's from State U.

This is true, too. You don't have to go to a "prestigious" school to be an employed engineer. Getting through an engineering program is impressive in and of itself. Co-ops and internships help as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

Engineering students from Ivy become quants on Wall Street

All of them? No. And quants also come from other schools as well. If you want to do that.

In my engineering class 20% went Quants, 20% patent lawyers, 20% consulting, 20% BigTech, 10% academia, and maybe 10% “engineering” ie aerospace, legacy electronics, automotive, etc.

I am actually surprised that 20% of the engineers in your class went on to law school.