Does where you go for undergrad matter...

ucbalumnus
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:17:24 +0000

For engineering, a higher profile university for the specific major will tend to attract more non-local recruiters to its career center, which can make it easier to look for internships or your first job at graduation. Local recruiters will go to whichever university is conveniently local to them.

Curriculum-wise, if it is ABET-accredited, it meets a fairly high minimum standard (and ABET accreditation is very helpful for Professional Engineer licensing which is common in civil engineering), though some schools may have more major electives in areas where their faculty specialize in, and more selective schools may pack more material into the same number of courses or credit units (allowing for more elective space in your schedule if you can handle the faster pace). Smaller schools may have more limited course offerings than larger schools, and may offer some courses only once per year or once every two years instead of every semester.