GraphicArchitect

Engineering is almost a "safe" career. It doesnt really matter if you went to Community College or a state school or MIT, everyone is basically going to end up getting the same job since it really isnt that competetive. It's not like Law school or an academic discipline or filmmaking where graduating from top private schools matters because of the competetion. People go into engineering because of the percieved "safety". Engineering as a profession isnt really all that competetive, so why does it matter?

JamieBrown

Take some time to review the success of students that have graduated from Princeton, Stanford, Cornell and MIT with "Engineering" degrees, then come back and ask the same question.

sumzup

Because top schools/departments have a lot more resources and connections with industry.

GLOBALTRAVELER

In a way, I can agree with the OP. At the same time, there will always be folks who thrive on the competition for the few elite/faster-progressive career path that a few engineering jobs and finance jobs may offer. PERSONALLY, I am not into all of that competition because I "work to live" not "live to work".

Yes, safety was one of my factors for going into software engineering (along with doing defense contract work). I rather KNOW that my paychecks are pretty much guaranteed than go for the riskier path and burn out and get nothing.

StanfordFuture

Hahaha @jamiebrown great answer and so true

sakky

Well, I'm not sure that I can agree with the premise of the question: how many people truly 'know' - at age 17-18 when they're high school seniors choosing their college - that they will want to work as engineers? Many engineering students - at least at the top schools such as MIT - apparently are not particularly sure as a large fraction of them do not end up taking engineering jobs upon graduation at all, but instead opting for careers in finance or consulting, or head for law or medical school. Perhaps the most egregious case would be those students who earn their bachelor's in engineering from MIT, stay at MIT to earn their engineering PhD's...only to then switch to a different field (such as the aforementioned consulting/banking).

And even many of those who do actually work as engineers do not stay in the industry for more than a few years, but instead will switch careers, with MBA programs being a common pathway. Numerous former MIT engineering undergraduates will later take MBA's at the MIT Sloan School or Harvard Business School with the express intent of switching to a different field.

But even if you were sure about working as an engineer, I would still argue that some reasons exist for preferring top engineering schools (albeit I agree that the argument is certainly weaker than that for top law schools). Many MIT engineering undergrads will eventually enter engineering academia, and like it or not, academia is arguably the #1 most prestige-conscious industry in the world. People in academia are constantly being judged by their university affiliation, to the point that it's become socially expected for them to list their degrees and current faculty positions as one of the very first bullet points on their CV (often times even before their pubs). MIT in particular is also notoriously incestuous, such that one popular saying is that by far the easiest way to get into MIT for grad school is to go there for undergrad and just stay there. Heck, MIT even has certain highly popular graduate programs such as the MEng EECS program which is specifically reserved for MIT undergrads only - outsiders can't even apply at all. {And note, MIT doesn't accept students for the MS EECS program but generally only awards that degree to students already in the PhD program.}

The other major engineering field in which status holds sway is entrepreneurship. MIT (and also obviously Stanford) is one of the main centers of tech entrepreneurship in the nation. And surely one of the major reasons for that is the highly elitist nature of venture capital. The truth is, if you don't have access to an elite university brand name and social network, you're probably not going to get a meeting with a VC firm. Like it or not, that's how VC works.

Even if you don't intend to become an entrepreneur yourself but would rather join a startup, you will find that many of the more famous ones are also notably elitist. For example, during its pre-IPO days, Google was notorious for considering only applicants from name-brand universities. Facebook does that today. And let's face it, it is before the IPO that is exactly the best time to join Google (or Facebook). Practically everybody at Google before its IPO is rich, but you're not going to become rich by joining Google now.

Nevertheless, I agree that if you're sure you want to be an engineer and don't really care about engineering academia nor about startups/entrepreneurship, then it probably doesn't really matter where you obtain your engineering degree.

Caruso707

I agree with you but in a different sense. There are a lot of smaller schools that have incredibly high engineering rankings. For example, Rowan University, in NJ, is just your average school, a 1150/1600 is the average SAT, but if you want the #16 in the nation Engineering (#3 in Chem Eng) then the average scores bump up to a 1450/1600. You don't need to go to MIT and pay 55k a year when you could go to Rowan for Chem Eng and get one of the best educations out there for half the price.

8675309nc

My opinion (PhD mech engineer with 20+ years experience who hires a lot of engineers and scientists) is that if you go to one of the top few scehools that it will open doors that would not otherwise be opened for you. The more prestigous schools attract the higher-end companies for career fairs. However, I do agree with a lot of the original post in the sense that if your measure is ROI, it is hard to justify an MIT (and potentially lower GPA) at $55k/yr with a solid state school at < $20k/yr and potentially higher GPA.

sakky

Well, to be fair, MIT is one of the wealthiest universities in the world and can thereby provide an excellent education for poorer students for a cut-rate price. For example, I can think of plenty of people who found it cheaper to attend MIT than to attend their flagship state university.

But I agree that if you don't qualify for aid, and you're sure about working as an engineer (and don't care about those 'specialty' engineering career paths mentioned above), then you may want to attend a cheaper school. Perhaps better yet, you may want to attend Olin or Cooper Union that, as a matter of policy, offer partial/full tuition scholarships to every student.

JamieBrown

GlobeTraveler

The idea behind going to one of the top Engineering schools like Stanford/MIT/Princeton is to get a taste of other areas to see if you like them so much that you actually ENJOY your work and don't mind working the extra hours. The added bucks is just a benny to the equation.

regarding this comment by you:

"I rather KNOW that my paychecks are pretty much guaranteed than go for the riskier path and burn out and get nothing."

an engineering degreed investment banker or hedge funder that burns out, typically burns out with millions of dollars in the bank (sometimes tens of millions), which would be a lot more than the "average engineer" that you state is simply satisfied with his bi-weekly check.

lockn

The average investment banker who "burns out" probably makes less than a million dollars and has already spent most of it. Not a bad place to be, but hardly set for life.

sakky

True enough, many of those burnouts, while certainly far from poor, aren't quite set for life.

But I think more importantly, if nothing else, they leave after 2 years with a gold-plated brand-name on their resume that they can leverage to a wide variety of other careers or entree to a top business school. Sadly, no such comparable opportunities are available to somebody who just worked as a regular engineer for 2 years.

TomServo

You can participate in more interesting research, that's one good reason.

But I'd say the gap in resources between MIT and Big State University is smaller than it used to be, as far as an undergrad (even one who wants to plug into undergraduate research) is concerned.

I think once you reach a certain level it's not that huge a difference (there's a big difference between studying engineering at South Dakota State U. and Ohio State U., but less of a difference between Ohio State U. and MIT for undergrad, IMHO), unless there is something especially good about X university's program in Y engineering.

And, of course, if you plan to go to grad school, even "just" for a MS, your top undergrad school makes you a shoe-in for a top grad school.

GLOBALTRAVELER

While I understand the "bennys" of working in IB, it's the PROCESS of just getting into IB which did not make it attractive to me. I prefer a more "leisure" life where work is just a means to survive and I can make that work (and the process of obtaining work) as easy as possible. The image of "prestige" and "constant competition" did not drive me. I realize that for many so-called high-paying and/or prestigious positions, one has to pretty much eat and sleep it 24/7 (like IB). I wasn't a 3.999 student and I am not social enough to always "network".

Me?...I have to be downstairs in the "mancave" of my house on Saturdays and Sundays of the fall watching college and pro football....or taking 3-day getaways to the Caribbean for golf without thinking about a job. I wanted (and did) party hard in college. It was cool to know that just being a decent math/CS student at a halfway decent school pretty much got you hired. Now I don't make millions, but I have been 6 digits for now more than half of my career.

sumzup

One thing to keep in mind is that your department may be really good even if your actual school isn't at the very very top. Some departments are just a force of nature unto themselves.

Taking my own school (the University of Washington) as an example, biomedical engineering and computer science are both top 10 programs that are very well known within their respective fields and clearly much better than the university overall (not that it's bad; some departments just stand out).

My own experience in computer science has been access to a lot of fantastic professors as well as unbelievable industry connections. Tech talks + dinner sponsored by various companies happen all the time -- Amazon and Zillow were here just this week -- and interviews for internships and full-time jobs are thrown around like candy. We have career fairs every quarter where 40-50 companies come to our department to try and court us (also lots of free swag). Not to mention unbelievable internship salaries; some people have reported earnings in excess of $40/hour, although this is at the very high end of the spectrum (Google et al.).

Anyways, maybe this is just a CS thing, but prospects within my field have never looked better. I'm sure the general experience is much the same at many other CS departments. I'm not at all interested in going to Wall Street when there's so much great stuff going on within the tech industry.

tl;dr - Become a CS major!