Civil Engineering at Columbia University

AlRodriguez28
Fri, 21 Aug 2015 01:48:19 +0000

The civil engineering program in Columbia is great. As far as career opportunities and internship placement- the school has close ties to several leaders of the industry and some of the top-tier firms. Almost all firms recruit at Columbia. You can land a job in some of the most competitive firms. Plus, several adjunct professors are industry professionals from top companies and alumni .

However some of top programs in civil engineering are UC Berkeley, University of Illinois, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech etc. These schools have better programs and probably have a better acceptance rate than Columbia. And they are cheaper. If your goals are to be a civil engineer for the rest of your life you might be better off going to these schools! But these school don’t open as many doors.

They are two major benefits from attending an Ivy League like Columbia. First, at Columbia if you decide to switch majors most likely any other program are ranked just as high (economics, government and politics etc.) in the country. Which mean you can land a top notch job majoring in anything pretty much because of the brand of the school and its rigor. Try majoring in Economics in one the above mentioned schools and your career prospect is grim. Secondly, getting an engineering degree from an Ivy League is highly valued. It can open doors in different sectors such as management consulting, investment banking etc. And these careers are lofty ones with very high starting salaries. You won’t get that opportunities at those other schools.

Just something to think about when deciding between an Ivy or Top (non-Ivy) engineering school like Georgia Tech. Also, Columbia, Cornell, and Princeton has by far the best engineering programs amongst the Ivies.