Engineering: Columbia vs. Oxford

swingtime
Mon, 26 May 2014 17:06:27 +0000

Well, if you are going by what is said on CC, NOTHING is equivalent to HPYSM. However, the TRUTH is different. It matters NOT what the “man or woman on the street” knows about colleges, and when CCers talk about prestige they are usually talking about name recognition in a more general social context. In short, about “bragging rights.” CC as a guide to prestige is iffy, as it revolves around common knowledge and basic name recognition, rather than in-depth knowledge about the American higher educational system or about individual schools. Most of the folks who post here about prestige are HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, and to say their knowledge is limited is an understatement! The USNWR rankings are another barometer of prestige, which place Columbia at #4 among American universities, just behind Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, and ABOVE Stanford and MIT in its rankings. Columbia is also more selective than Princeton. So what the majority on CC thinks is utterly irrelevant. What matters is what graduate schools and employers – in short, what those who are informed about higher education - actually think. You will get where you want to go using either school as your “vehicle” of mobility!

So, if relative measures of prestige are your criteria for selecting a college, they are endlessly debatable and rather shallow criteria. The real issue is this: the educational experience at Oxford vs Columbia is going to be almost opposite. From Oxford you will receive an intensive four-year course in one subject. At Columbia you will receive an exceptionally well-rounded liberal arts component to your engineering degree. I am a proponent of the theory that different kinds of learning have cognitive value. A more flexible and imaginative intellect might emerge from a better rounded curriculum. Which flexibility and imagination may make you a more fluid and expansive thinker, and which capacity for fluid and expansive thinking could have cognitive benefits that translate into superior skills in your chosen field. The student bodies may differ as well, with Columbia having perhaps a higher percentage of talented students of color. The diversity of the Columbia student body is a plus for some, a minus for others.

Neither has a really quantifiable prestige advantage, though if you choose to go to graduate school in the US or go right to work in the US, Columbia may be more useful to you than Oxford, esp. given the contacts you will make here and the internship opportunities in NY. Conversely, if you want to become more viable in Europe, Oxford may be more appropriate.

The point is, quantifying the prestige differential of schools at this level is akin to counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. A completely useless exercise, unless you really are simply shallow and are looking for a “name,” rather than for an appropriate education to achieve your goals. The real issue is the curricular distinction between them: four years of one subject, or four years of engineering within the context of a well-rounded liberal arts core.