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So basically my point is that as a general rule, non-Ivys are better, but there are certainly exceptions.
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Definitely agree.
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Let's use Berkeley as an example, since you brought it up.
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I suppose that was a lousy example, and I apologize. At Rice, for a better example, you can switch in and out of majors as you see fit. I'm certain that there are other universities that are like this that have excellent engineering facilities *and* stellar non-engineering departments... I really think that one of those schools would be a better choice for undecided folks.
As for those of us who *are* decided...
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Furthermore, the truth is, even if you do start off with a career that is directly related to your major, odds are, you won't stay with such a career.
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I look around my office here, and I see a whole boatload of engineers who decided to go into engineering and stayed in engineering. We love what we do, we do amazingly challenging and rewarding work, and for us and many like us, engineering is a rewarding and wonderful career.
I think that as someone in business, you see many fewer examples of engineering retention than I do, and so your opinions are shaped by that. My opinions are, of course, shaped by the idea that of the many engineers that I went to school with, only a handful of them aren't working as engineers anymore. In fact, I've got a great picture from my wedding... It's a photo of ten or so people who were all presidents of our high school engineering club, spanning nearly eight years of the club's existence. One of those people was also an officer on the debate team, and she ended up in law school, as she'd always intended, but the rest of us are all engineers (well, two of us are scientists).
All I see is that it's possible to know what engineering is when you start out, and it's possible to have a real passion for that kind of thinking and choose engineering from the beginning of your college career for the *right* reasons and to end up sticking with the field and succeeding in it... For those people, choosing a school that has that rigor, and those facilities, is probably a good choice. In my experience, there are a lot of those sorts of people.
It kind of sounds like in your experience, people chose to major in engineering not because it was their passion, but because a major in engineering had certain advantages... Being marketable, being a good foundation for doing what they really want to do, because it sounded good and they weren't really certain what they wanted to do with their lives... for those people, then yes, an ivy would afford them a certain advantage.
But for those of us who have discovered that engineering, particularly practical engineering, is our passion... and there *are* a lot of us, and I think there are many more than you're seeing... I just don't think it's in our best interest to choose an ivy. I just found out a couple of weeks ago that Cornell structural engineering has decided to close their lab and go fully-theoretical. No more concrete smashing, no more steel beam breaking, no more shake tables... and that's *Cornell*, the engineering ivy. Harvard and Yale didn't have those to begin with. For me, the experimental part is a *big* reason of why I'm in engineering, and why a lot of other people are in engineering. For people like me, an ivy doesn't make sense.
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The upshot is that those rigorous schools are often times unnecessarily difficult and painful which makes them outright dangerous for you as a student to choose to go to them... There is absolutely no glory whatsoever in choosing a rigorous school, only to flunk out.
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It kind of boggles my mind that you'd recommend choosing an ivy because it's easier to not flunk out of it...! I don't think glory is why I chose to go into engineering, or why I chose a rigorous field and rigorous programs.
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And what is ironic is that many of them will actually end up making more money than will the engineers.
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...and money definitely is not why I chose to go into engineering.
Ivy is a good choice for many people, but there *are* many students who *do* know that they want to go into engineering. Even for those of us who stay in engineering for only a few years and burn out after half a decade at a highly prestigious firm, we *got* to that highly prestigious firm because we went to a highly rigorous engineering school... I think if I went up to our HR department right now and told them that I thought we needed to recruit at Harvard and Yale, they'd look at me all funny. We don't consult US News and check out whether Harvard and Yale rank well, we just know that they don't have engineering schools and we choose to recruit elsewhere. We're not the only ones who do this.
OP, bottom line, there are a lot of opinions about this, and they differ a lot. I personally think that if you really, really know you want to go into engineering, a school that is highly respected as an engineering school is going to likely carry more weight with typical engineering employers than an ivy league school. If you know you want to go into engineering and you choose an ivy league school that's not known for engineering programs, you'll need to have a good reason for it, even if you're just making up a reason, which is fine. Within the field, we know what a respected engineering school is going to teach you, and we'll be much more comfortable with hiring you.
If you don't fit into the category of "I have a passion for engineering and want to pursue that passion," though, then you might want to look at other schools that will offer a better fit and more options. I think there are plenty of non-ivy schools that offer good reputations in several disciplines, engineering included, and that surely one of those would fit the bill (may I recommend Rice?), but if you're interested in something else entirely, go ahead and look at an ivy.