ken285

I understand your point, though I wasn't thinking the same way you were. The way I saw it, the fewer engineering requirements meant fewer opportunities to take the classes that were interesting to me. That doesn't mean those who take the extra courses are more prepared for post-academia life though. It just means that non-Ivys cater more towards those who enjoy engineering.

jessiehl

Oh, hmm. I must have looked at a previous year's ranking, then.

I don't follow your logic. You could just take the interesting non-required classes as electives. In fact, with fewer requirements, a pure-engineering type will have more choice in *which* interesting upper-level engineering classes they take as electives. Or are you saying that since they aren't required, they will be offered less often (I'm not sure that's always true)?

ken285

From what I've seen, fewer engineering requirements meant more non-engineering requirements, or perhaps this is only specific to Columbia.

aibarr

Definitely agree.

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...
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.

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.

...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.

RacinReaver

ken285, if you don't mind, could you say which field you were looking at? I'm a CMU alum, so it would hurt me if you turned down materials.

First, people that don't do well in engineering that didn't want to stick it out in the first place are usually made fun of by the rest of us. It's kinda like how chem and bio majors don't like premeds in their classes since they're just there to get as high a grade as possible and not because they have any sort of interest in the courses.

Everyone I knew that really had a passion for engineering was able to get through their classes without too much of a problem. While they didn't necessarily love their homework, they were able to enjoy the problems they were solving and see what was interesting and exciting about what they were doing.

And, really, a highly motivated person should be able to do well no matter what field they're in. And if they wind up sucking nut in engineering, they'd probably find that out freshman year and be able to switch out to some other field to keep their GPA high.

And it's true that those that switch to business majors might make more money, but I don't know how much more you'd have to pay me to give me the job satisfaction I get doing engineering.

ken285

I was looking into civil engineering with a concentration in Advanced Infrastructure Systems. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a superb program, but it probably wasn't the best fit for me.

sakky

Uh, there's an important difference between requirements and opportunities. Requirements are not opportunities, if anything requirements are the opposite of opportunities, because requirements, by definition, are classes you must take, which may include topics you may not like and will never use, therefore reducing your opportunity to take classes on topics that you do like and will use.

Let me give you an example. Berkeley requires that its chemical engineers take an entire course on quantum chemistry over the objection of a great many ChemE students because, frankly, most of them don't care about quantum chemistry and will never use it. In fact, I distinctly remember on year in which many ChemE students wanted to take a class on semiconductor fabrication, as many of them were looking to be hired into the chip industry, but they couldn't because that class overlapped with the required quantum chemistry course, and since those courses were only taught once a year (and both courses were senior-level courses), it basically meant that those students could never take their desired fab class at all. Hence, this was a clearcut case in which the engineering requirements clearly reduced the students' overall opportunity set. It saddens me to remember how they were forced to give up a class that they really wanted and could actually use in favor of a class they didn't want and won't use (but was required).

Actually, no, the rankings have been quite stable from year-to-year.

Well, given that you actually work in an engineering office, I would be quite surprised if you had found otherwise.

Which is why I tend to base my statements not on what I have seen personally, but rather on publicly available career data, particularly from the top schools. The fact that such a significant percentage of engineering students from top schools like MIT choose not to take engineering jobs as their first positions out of school, but instead take jobs in consulting or banking, is extremely telling to me. This ain't some scrub, no-name engineering school here. This is MIT. If even MIT engineering students don't really want to be engineers, well, that should tell you something.

Consider the following quote from a recent article in Time Magazine:

"Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: "It's marketed as--I don't want to say dead end but sort of 'O.K., here's your role, here's your lab, here's what you're going to be working on.' Even if it's a really cool product, you're locked into it." Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. "If you're an M.I.T. grad and you're going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day--as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that--it seems like a no-brainer."

Are We Losing Our Edge? - TIME

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like the current situation. I think the real problem is that too many engineering companies just don't really seem to be interested in improving their career offerings. They don't want to offer interesting projects, they don't want to offer strong career development/training, they don't want to offer opportunities for advancement, they don't want to offer better pay (but interestingly, these same firms seem to have no problem paying millions upon millions to consulting and banking firms). In short, these firms just don't want to offer more attractive opportunities, and then they act surprised to find that many of the best engineering graduates would rather not work in engineering at all, but would rather work in consulting or banking. But hey, what can I say? While I don't like it, it is what it is.

I think it's more accurate to say that most high school seniors don't really know what they will be passionate about. This is particularly true of engineering. Like I said, I don't know about others here, but my high school certainly didn't teach me a darn thing about engineering, and I think my high school was actually above-average. But the fact remains that my high school had precisely zero engineering classes. None of the teachers were former engineers. I think this is rather typical of most American high schools; they just don't give you much exposure to what engineering really is.

Nor do I come from a family of engineers. In fact, nobody in my family was an engineer. Nor is this particularly surprising: the Census has shown that, every year, only about 5% of all US bachelor's degrees conferred are engineering degrees, and only 27% of all Americans age 25+ are college graduates anyway. Hence, the vast majority of Americans, myself included, do not have anybody in their family with which they can talk to about what engineering really is.

Hence, while I can certainly agree that, theoretically, it is possible for some people to always have known that they were passionate about engineering and then to choose a college based on that fact, from a practical matter, it's impossible for most people to knowthat before you have to make the choice about where to go to school. What makes the choice so stark is the fact that it is irrevocable. You can't just decide to turn down Harvard in favor of Georgia Tech because you think you're passionate about engineering, then later find out that you actually are not that passionate and so decide you'd like to go to Harvard after all. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Harvard is not going to keep their admission offer open for you just because you got in before. Once you turn it down, the offer is rescinded. You would have to apply all over again but this time as a transfer, which is harder than getting in as a freshman.

I harken back to my memories of how so many incoming college freshmen claimed to be passionate about majoring in one topic, only to end up majoring in something else entirely; they either found something else more interesting, or they simply got bored with their original topic of study (or found out that they weren't very good at it). In many cases, these were topics like a science or a humanity that they had actually studied in high school, and so they actually had some experience in that topic. Yet even so, many of them ended up switching majors anyway. {Or in the case of some Berkeley students, trying to switch majors and then finding out that their desired major wouldn't take them and hence being forced to major in a topic that they don't really want.}

Hence, if even these students switched around, how can others be so sure about engineering?

Risk aversion is what it's about. Whether we like it or not, in this day and age, in order to get any decent job, you increasingly need to have a college degree. That degree can be in something, anything. But you need that degree. Employers are increasingly looking to see whether you have a bachelor's degree of some sort. If you don't, you may not even get an interview, not even for a secretarial job.

Hence, I don't see why it would boggle anybody's mind for me to recommend an Ivy precisely because they are easier. With the possible exception of Cornell, safety is precisely what the Ivies are selling. You go to an Ivy, and you basically are assured that, as long as you do the minimum of work, you are going to get a degree. Maybe not with top grades, but you're going to get the degree. Some highly rigorous schools, i.e. Caltech, clearly offer no such assurance. My brother went to Caltech, and he did well, but he also knows some people who flunked out and he freely admits that those people would have been far better off if they had just gone to an Ivy instead. Sure, perhaps they wouldn't have gotten top grades, but at least they would have graduated. That's a heck of a lot better than flunking out of college entirely.

Come on now. Harvard and Yale have highly respectable engineering programs that are actually ranked in the top 50. Sure, they don't have standalone engineering schools, but I hardly see how that matters. After all, Caltech doesn't have a standalone engineering school either.

ken285

From what I've seen, Columbia's curriculum requirements is weighted towards non-engineering courses. That would still prevent one from taking the classes one wants to take, regardless of the type of requirements. If you're advocating that schools take a more flexible approach to graduation requirements, then I completely agree.

jessiehl

I was looking at GRE Guide's rankings, which *claim* to be the US News rankings from some unspecified year.

Yeah, a lot of MIT people go into consulting or finance these days, but there are still quite a lot going into science and engineering as well.

pbleic

Actually, Harvard does have a School of Engineering - as of last year.

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - About Us

Our name change in 2007 from "Division" to "School", approved by members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and ratified by the Harvard Corporation and Board of Overseers, is a celebration of the renewal and growth engineering and applied sciences has experienced in recent years at Harvard. At the same time, the new name reflects our progenitor, the Lawrence Scientific School. Founded in 1847, the Lawrence School was Harvard's first major effort to provide a formal, advanced education in science and engineering.

sakky

As a case in point, I just took a gander at the requirements for ChemE at Columbia and compared them to Berkeley. They are basically the same with one notable difference: no quantum chemistry required at Columbia.

[quote]Yeah, a lot of MIT people go into consulting or finance these days, but there are still quite a lot going into science and engineering as well. [/quote[

I would suspect that even more MIT engineering grads want to go to consulting or banking, but just didn't get an offer. Not too many people who get an offer from McKinsey will turn it down for some engineering job instead.

But more importantly, I would surmise that the percentage of MIT engineering students who actually go into engineering as a career is almost certainly lower than the percentage from lower-ranked schools. In other words, the #200 ranked engineering school probably sends only a tiny fraction of its graduates to consulting or banking. The simple explanation for this is that it is a matter of opportunity: those students at the #200 ranked eng school just aren't given the opportunity to get consulting or banking offers. They still want them if they could get them, they just can't get them.

What this all boils down to is the simple question of why are consulting/banking careers so (relatively) more desirable, or, conversely, why can't engineering careers be made to be more desirable? To be fair, there are some engineering firms (like aibarr's current employer) who offer strong opportunities, but then there are plenty of others (like apparently aibarr's former employer) who don't. I'm sure those engineering firms will proffer the excuse that they can't afford to offer better salaries, they can't offer better training, can't offer this, can't offer that, but that just begs the question of why consulting/banking firms can do it.

But in any case, that was a digression. Returning to the main point, the major advantage that the Ivies offer over many engineering-oriented schools is career flexibility, and in this day and age when you just don't know what career path you will take, that sort of flexibility is priceless. This is particularly important when you're young: you don't want to get locked into a particular field before you even have a chance to find out what else is available.

ken285

So I finally sat down and examined closely my undergrad's curriculum and Columbia's undergrad curriculum for civil engineering. In general, they're pretty similar, but there were some surprises for me. Perhaps it's just me, but the liberal arts that Columbia likes to emphasize... isn't emphasized as much as I thought it would be. I'm sure the quality of these courses are better than what I had in undergrad, but in terms of credits, it's not that much.

As for the courses in major, Columbia has degree tracks within civil, so it's pretty specialized. I didn't have that as an undergrad... my program took more of a breadth approach, so I was exposed to more areas of civil engineering. Which is better? Probably depends who you ask. One could say a breadth approach would force one to take courses that aren't interesting to them. For someone who is interested in a career in civil engineering, but unsure about what aspect of it to go into may be at a disadvantage though.

The number of electives required were very similar for both programs (+/- 3 credits).

by the way, I just checked Cornell's program for the heck of it and found that it's more similar to my undergrad than it is to Columbia, so I really shouldn't generalize Columbia's program to Ivy's in general (in terms of curricula).

Anyway, back to the original question... if you're pretty sure that engineering is the career you want to go into, then I think the non-Ivys are generally better because of the alumni connections. As sakky has been saying, more Ivy league graduates go into fields other than engineering, so if you do want an engineering position, it may be slightly more difficult to get your foot in the door. A few of my friends from my undergrad days got jobs through connections via industry contacts that professors have or alumni. I've yet to hear of anything similar happening at Columbia. If you're unsure about your career plans though, Ivys may be the way to go for the reasons sakky stated.

So basically, there's a tradeoff between the number of engineering job offers and flexibility in your career. Some people are certain about what they want very early on, while others are not. Figure out which one you are, and then you can decide on what type of school is best for you.

Mr Payne

Government bailouts, etc.

Data?

sakky

And engineering firms don't get bailouts? Chrysler?

Besides, even if it was true that banking firms benefit from bailouts, it simply begs the question of why engineering firms can't do the same.

Data for what? Are you denying the simple logic that Ivies provide a superior overall brand name compared to schools like, say, Georgia Tech?

alipes07

I think hes asking you to back up your claim with stats and numbers