For a possible future engineer - Is it better to go to an overall higher ranked university or

[Anonymous]

The advice that follows may not hold for all engineering fields. I'm a happily productive electrical engineer from well-known and respected (but not great) undergrad and grad schools. It's a good career; while it's not for everyone, if you're good at what you do you will be in high demand. I also believe that this advice applies to those people who really know they want to an engineer; this is also only representative of my personal experience and may not reflect a larger universal truth.

1) Attend a small school with an engineering focus -- eg. Rose-Hulman (I'm not associated with Rose-Hulman but have worked with a number of graduates). I did my grad work at a large graduate institution well-known for its research -- and here's who taught the undergraduate classes: TAs from Asia who barely spoke English. As a TA I cannot tell you how many students came to me after class and told me how thankful they were only to have someone who gave lectures they could understand. I went to a smaller engineering school for undergraduate work and had professors who would hand out their phone numbers and offer up time in the evening for one-on-one help with schoolwork. At graduate school I saw professors arguing over who would have to spend time with the undergraduates.

2) When you're ready to go to graduate school, take a very close look at the specializations within the field of engineering you want to study. I selected my graduate school based on its overall reputation for electrical engineering. After spending a year there it was clearly apparent that the faculty in my specialized area of interest were ... well, not wonderful. Turns out it would have been a great place to go if I were interested in semi-conductor study -- but average for my area of interest.

3) When you're ready to enter the work force, bias your search towards small companies of 100 people or less. Larger companies are likely to be a safer bet, and large companies will put a large emphasis on pedigree for new hires. However, larger companies tend to treat engineers as replaceable parts. Innovative minds tend to move on to other employment quickly, leaving behind mediocre management material and a hierarchy that make it difficult to take on more responsibility. Smaller companies can be riskier propositions and can be hotbeds of office politics, but the opportunities to take on more responsibility at an earlier stage in your career far outweighs the risks. Smaller companies typically have lower overhead rates -- and the smart ones make sure that the customer and the employees benefit from that. Smaller companies do tend to have less visibility than the larger ones, so it may be difficult to find the right opportunity directly after school. If you end up at a larger employer, take the chance to learn the tools required to do your work thoroughly, and keep an eye on potential opportunities to move on to another employer

4) Outside of the larger companies, educational background is not necessarily significant. A couple of the best engineers I've worked with are community college graduates. One doesn't have a degree. They all love, love, love what they do. They live and breathe engineering work. Experience and the ability to work well with others rules over any other factor. Ironically, I worked at a small firm that was acquired by a large engineering company. One of the best engineers there left shortly thereafter; he didn't have a college degree and didn't fit in any of the nicely defined boxes the large firm had set up to organize the employees by. The office closed 24 months later.

[Anonymous]

To 12:56 -- Thanks so much for your very thoughtful and detailed response!

[Anonymous]

I would go with the overall high ranked school because DC might chance his mind about his major later down the road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to law school after engineering and go into patent and trademark law.

Even that area took a hit when the industry tanked. Clients wised up and pay per application, not hours billed. I know several patent attorneys who were laid off and then were unemployed or underemployed. Patent prosecution is not what it used to be. The $ is still in patent litigation though. But you don't need a tech background for that. The best and the brightest are usually skilled litigators, articulate and persuasive. They are the ones who killed it in law school, clerking and summer associate positions.