Engineering and nursing are two areas that if you don't go to a top school, it's okay..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nurses can graduate as an RN in 2 years from a community college.

No.

You can get an RN from a community college in two years. Totally true. Our daughter is nurse who went to a four year college and graduated this May with her BSN. She didn't become an RN until she passed her boards a few weeks later.
Her alma mater offers an RN to BSN program and there were plenty who graduated from that program at the same time as her. These are working nurses who went back to school while continuing to work. I would imagine there is a financial incentive in some hospitals to take on that extra two years of work, which in this case, was completed virtually.

[Anonymous]

The Top 4 or 5 Engineering Schools overall - MIT, Stanford, UC Berkely, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech have no trouble having their grads recruited for top engineering jobs and it does make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Top 4 or 5 Engineering Schools overall - MIT, Stanford, UC Berkely, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech have no trouble having their grads recruited for top engineering jobs and it does make a difference.

Nobody is disputing that attending a top 5 engineering school confers certain advantages in recruitment. However, I think the key distinction is that unlike fields such as law or investment banking, where it's nearly impossible to obtain certain prestigious positions without attending a top-tier or feeder school, engineering appears more open to merit based advancement. The field seems to allow people to prove their skills and work their way up to top-tier positions, even if their degree comes from a less prestigious college. The better schools are going to help get better internships, which is going to help getting the more sough after first jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check engineering reddits pleny of unemployed recent engineering grads. No career is guaranteed via degree.

Disagree. Especially for nursing. May not pay the highest or in the desired location, specialty etc but a nursing degree guarantees a job and same many healthcare affiliated fields. Same for teaching.

Same for accounting.

I agree. Accounting does not matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Top 4 or 5 Engineering Schools overall - MIT, Stanford, UC Berkely, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech have no trouble having their grads recruited for top engineering jobs and it does make a difference.

Nobody is disputing that attending a top 5 engineering school confers certain advantages in recruitment. However, I think the key distinction is that unlike fields such as law or investment banking, where it's nearly impossible to obtain certain prestigious positions without attending a top-tier or feeder school, engineering appears more open to merit based advancement. The field seems to allow people to prove their skills and work their way up to top-tier positions, even if their degree comes from a less prestigious college. The better schools are going to help get better internships, which is going to help getting the more sough after first jobs.

Agree 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nurses can graduate as an RN in 2 years from a community college.

No.

You can get an RN from a community college in two years. Totally true. Our daughter is nurse who went to a four year college and graduated this May with her BSN. She didn't become an RN until she passed her boards a few weeks later.
Her alma mater offers an RN to BSN program and there were plenty who graduated from that program at the same time as her. These are working nurses who went back to school while continuing to work. I would imagine there is a financial incentive in some hospitals to take on that extra two years of work, which in this case, was completed virtually.

💯

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top engineering firms only really actively recruit grads from the Top engineering schools. Not that other grads won’t eventually end up somewhere. They will just have a different path to get there.

Top tech companies are also actively recruiting from GMU and UMBC, not just UMCP and VT (or MIT and Caltech).

Why? The recruiters and interviewers only have 24 hours a day. They can’t interview everyone. Top tech firms use elite schools as a first filter.

As a hiring manager in STEM I am much more interested in which upper-level undergrad in-major electives were taken and in the applicant's specific skills. My experience is that the college they graduated from is not a significant variable of their success rate.

Examples.

In Computer Engineering I look for someone who took the OS class, the embedded systems/real-time class, and the Verilog/VHDL class -- and did well enough (B or better) in those harder classes.

For EEs, the equivalent hard courses might include the Advanced digital communications, the signal processing, and the E&M Fields. Again B or better.

Not engineering, but closely related is CS. I am looking for someone with OS internals experience (Linux, BSD, or other) which is usually the Advanced OS class, also the compilers class, the real-time/embedded systems class. Again, those are usually the harder courses. I am not so interested in someone who focused on web programming, which is much easier. Again B or better.

DCUM is addicted to perceived prestige. I can't fix that.

At the hiring time, I want to hire the students who chose the harder upper electives and got a B or better. I do not care which college they attended, though I will look for ABET accreditation if it is not one I know about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nurses can graduate as an RN in 2 years from a community college.

Common misconception. You do not GRADUATE as an RN. The RN is a license. You graduate from nursing school, ADN or BSN and they you are eligible, hopefully, to take the NCLEX and THEN if you pass, you're an RN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nurses can graduate as an RN in 2 years from a community college.

No.

Absolutely can. I'm an ADN RN, making the exact same salary as a BSN RN. In my area, the degree means nothing on payday. All RN's take the exact same exam for licensure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top engineering firms only really actively recruit grads from the Top engineering schools. Not that other grads won’t eventually end up somewhere. They will just have a different path to get there.

This. Prestige matters for engineering at the top levels. There are about 15 ivy/privates and 5 publics that are far above the rest

Yes but remember there are thousands of students at each of these top schools and top companies will not hire them all, only the top students. So the average Joes there will end up in the same places as students from other colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nurses can graduate as an RN in 2 years from a community college.

Or they can go to Penn and pay $400,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Top 4 or 5 Engineering Schools overall - MIT, Stanford, UC Berkely, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech have no trouble having their grads recruited for top engineering jobs and it does make a difference.

Nobody is disputing that attending a top 5 engineering school confers certain advantages in recruitment. However, I think the key distinction is that unlike fields such as law or investment banking, where it's nearly impossible to obtain certain prestigious positions without attending a top-tier or feeder school, engineering appears more open to merit based advancement. The field seems to allow people to prove their skills and work their way up to top-tier positions, even if their degree comes from a less prestigious college. The better schools are going to help get better internships, which is going to help getting the more sough after first jobs.

and better research with top-faculty connections is also an advantage of top private/ivy-level engineering and a few top publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top engineering firms only really actively recruit grads from the Top engineering schools. Not that other grads won’t eventually end up somewhere. They will just have a different path to get there.

This. Prestige matters for engineering at the top levels. There are about 15 ivy/privates and 5 publics that are far above the rest

Yes but remember there are thousands of students at each of these top schools and top companies will not hire them all, only the top students. So the average Joes there will end up in the same places as students from other colleges.

career outcomes at the 1and 5 yr mark as well as phd matriculation lists indicate the average joe engineer at stanford, princeton, penn, MIT, CMU UCB et al do much much better than the average joe at VT or NC state. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

you still need prerequisites for nursing at a community college so it's likely more like 3 years. More desirable jobs are likely to require a BSN (not in a nursing home or rehab center). RN- BSN programs are a great way to do this. you may not need to be at the best school, but a nursing school with a good reputation and high NCLEX pass rate is important. Getting a job as a student nurse or nursing assistant while you are in school is a big help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will find a job, correct? My know-it-all brother-in-law states this, he's in his 50's and doesn't except things have changed that requirements are more demanding. Other opinions?

There is a fundamental difference between nursing and engineering that you are minimizing…..
How many Nurses have you seen running a Fortune 1000 company?
I love Nurses, but please. By accepting to be a nurse you are be default accepting to be in a subservient position to others in your own health field (Doctors). This is not the case with Engineers.