<p>I’m interested in buying a new car. I recently got three speeding tickets in my old car, and I decided that the cops must give a lot of speeding tickets to people that drive that make and model. I had better upgrade to a car cops don’t give speeding tickets to. I looked up different cars and see how many speeding tickets are issued to people that drive a particular make and model. Here is what I find:</p>
<p>Well, clearly it looks like cops don’t give many speeding tickets to Ford Explorer drivers. So I go down, I buy one, and I drive 90 on the way home. I get promptly pulled over and a cop gives me a speeding ticket. What the heck? I just carefully researched a car and bought one that rarely gets issued speeding tickets? What happened?!?!</p>
<p>Well, clearly the driver is the key thing when it comes to speeding tickets. In this example, likely lead footed hotrod drivers buy BMW Z4s and Ferraris while people who drive the speed limit drive Ford Explorers. While some makes/models of cars might catch the eye of a cop a little more, how the person drives is a much much bigger factor in whether or not a speeding ticket is issued.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the same holds true for salary after graduation. Companies aren’t hiring the school (just like cops don’t give the speeding ticket to the car). They are hiring the individual. The opportunities you have will be based on your goals and drive as an individual, not based on which college you went to school at. Sure, a fast car might be easier to speed in, but if you choose to drive the speed limit, you won’t get speeding tickets in any cars.</p>
<p>No, the opportunities you have ARE influenced by the school. Not all schools have all opportunities. Some schools have more access to research, some have more companies come to their job fairs, etc.</p>
<p>You’re right that you’re better off being an incredibly motivated student at a mediocre school than a slacker at a great school, but the school you go to DOES have bearing on what opportunities you get.</p>
<p>Sure, your opportunity to get a speeding ticket is also slightly influenced by the car you drive. If you drive a Model T, you won’t get a speeding ticket on the freeway in all likelyhood. If you drive a Ferrari, it’s going to be hard to resist the temptation to drive as fast.</p>
<p>But I’m also talking about over your career as an engineer, which extends more than summers and 2 years after graduation. Over your 35 or 40 year career as an engineer, the opportunities you have will be generally up to the employee. If you are satisfied with the first job you land, and it’s a mediocre job, you may never leave it regardless what you school you graduated from. (The level of quality of your first job will have a lot more to do with the economy. Even MIT/Caltech/Purdue civil engineering grads have found slim pickins for jobs during the recent economic downturn.) But if you want better, you can get it.</p>
<p>It’s a poor analogy because all cars are driving on the same road with the same number of cops.</p>
<p>To make the analogy work, you have to add some artificiality to it: If you buy a Ferrari, you get to drive on a road with 1 cop every 50 miles. If you buy an Explorer, you get to drive on a road with 1 cop every mile.</p>
<p>Going to a better school gives you more opportunities. Does that mean you’ll succeed? No. A lazy student will fail no matter where he goes to school. Does that mean that going to a worse school will doom you to failure? No. A genius will succeed no matter where he goes to college. But a typical student will have more opportunities and will be better off at a better college.</p>
<p>I agree with G.P., but wouldn’t engineers have some sort of gizmo that would make the cops think they were going the speed limit whether they were, or not?</p>