<p>I just wanted to ask you guys about some degree programs like:
University of Washington at Bothell, rather than Seattle
University of Illinois at Chicago, instead of Urbana Champaign</p>
<p>I have looked into these programs and the courses are basically identical to the main campus, at least, on the surface. I mean, for undergrad education what’s the difference anyway? </p>
<p>I just wanted to ask: what are the job prospects for a student graduating from these universities, but from an “alternate” campus? And how about for graduate school?</p>
<p>When companies go recruiting, they may only have time or budget to visit a certain number of out of area campuses, although they may visit all of the local campuses.</p>
<p>For a major which UIUC is known for but UIC is not, an out of area company is more likely to show up at UIUC’s career center than UIC’s career center. UIC’s location in Chicago may compensate somewhat with respect to companies in Chicago.</p>
<p>For reputation and recruiting purposes, each campus of a state university system is considered a different school.</p>
<p>What percentage of graduating seniors get jobs from job fairs?
Because companies like Microsoft and Intel have job websites where you apply directly for a position online. In that case, would it really matter?</p>
<p>Or they would say, oh, this guy is from the Chicago campus so he must not be the real deal?</p>
<p>
cause everyone can toss their resume into that bin. and really, unless someone flags your resume, what makes you stand out?
so you need to network and get someone to say “hey, I met a person I like, lets look into hiring him”. </p>
<p>I’m sure other people have posted statistics that only 15% or so of people got their current job through HR/postings.</p>
<p>Most everyone I knew in college got their jobs from job fairs. It is much easier to stand out when a recruiter flags your resume or a hiring manager schedules you for an interview directly. You have a lot more control when you can meet with someone face-to-face rather than just dumping your resume into a computer database.</p>
<p>As far as the education itself goes, the branch campuses aren’t quite up to par either. Not that they are terrible, but they have an entirely different set of professors and a much smaller research portfolio. It isn’t always a perfect correlation, but learning a subject from one of the top minds in the field has some worth to it. I know sometimes the only reason a job is posted online is because of company policy, but the hiring manager has already made up their mind who gets the job based on what happened at a career fair.</p>
<p>Branch campuses such as UIC aren’t going to be terrible and are still going to be decent engineering schools if they can draw on the experience of their flagship schools, but they aren’t going to be up to the level of the flagship either. Like ucbalumnus said, the major way this is going to manifest itself is through the recruiting profile of companies who come to career fairs and actively seek employees from the school.</p>
<p>For all intents and purposes, attending a different campus is the same as attending a different university. No one will ever say “You went to UTEP? UT is a great school!” UT-El Paso and UT-Austin are different universities. Much like UC-Berkeley and UCSB, or UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Pembroke.</p>
<p>As far as finding a position, most people find jobs through their college’s career services department. Companies will post jobs just to that college’s students, and the students apply. If you go to UIC instead of UIUC, and the company posts at UIUC, you can’t apply.</p>
<p>Even if you apply for a job online, companies have target schools and non-target schools. Submit from a target school, and your resume goes into a pile with 200 others for review. Submit from a non-target school and it goes into a pile of 20,000. If you’re a good student in the target pile, you get an interview. You need to be absolutely exceptional to get an interview from the non-target pile.</p>
<p>You can attend alternate campuses but once again I would attend alternate campuses when you are going into an area/emphasis where supply/demand is in your favor and your do not have to really compete for jobs. Here in the DC area, if you have some Java experience, then going to Univ of Maryland-Baltimore County won’t hurt much because the employer needs a warm body coding in Java.</p>
<p>Now if you were majoring in say Chemical Engineering or Psychology, you would have to compete more (because of less jobs) so “school name” will factor in more.</p>
<p>All in all, my main point is that if one is not attending to “name brand” schools (which means so little as time goes on but that is another thread) that person better choose a major and do other things (obtain experience, certifications,etc) that reduces the impact of bigger name schools when competing for jobs.</p>