<p>Earlier, I said that if you want to get a good job, you “MUST” go to an elite university.</p>
<p>I will modify that a bit.</p>
<p>If you don’t know what you want to do, go to an elite university. If you want to work in Wall Street (investment banking, management consulting) or go to graduate school, you definitely need to go Ivy/elite. </p>
<p>However, if you know you want to go to a more technical field (accounting, IT, computer science, etc.), the brand name of your degree matters less. That’s because in these technical fields, your job skills are more important than your fancy brand name diploma.</p>
<p>So I need to qualify what I’ve been saying lately.</p>
<p>An elite university degree will still open more doors though. Why one should go to an elite university is also because going to an elite university will provide you with a safety net. If you’re an English literature or Art History major from Harvard, you can still land a big time Wall Street gig. But if you went to a state university, you have to major in either a difficult subject (chemical engineering, biochemistry, etc.) or one that requires you to learn a lot of job skills (accounting, IT, etc.) in order to even get an interview for a DECENT job with benefits. </p>
<p>The reality is that a degree from a state university is useless unless you majored in an area that has real world importance. When you major in accounting, engineering, etc., your TTT degree will not hurt you if you have the right skills for the job. Most companies will overlook your TTT degree if you majored in a difficult subject and have lots of job skills.</p>
<p>On the other hand, at an elite university, you have absolutely no pressure to do well or earn any practical job skills because the BRAND NAME degree alone will open doors. So you can have the most useless major and take the most useless classes, and top investment banks and management consulting firms will still recruit you (they don’t care if you don’t have any job skills; they just want you to have the brand name degree since these top firms will train you with everything you need to know).</p>