Graduating In May, Time to Make Decisions.

notaznguy
Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:32:49 +0000

1) If you go to a good school, then many good employers/companies will recruit from your school. If you’re not doing OCR, an engineering degree is just an engineering degree, although certain school names will stand out (i.e. Cal Tech and MIT). Georgia Tech isn’t one of them, but I think GT is a good regional school, so you shouldn’t have any problems with reputation if you’re planning in working in Atlanta. If you’re trying to move to SF, it might be more difficult because there is bias for Berkeley and Stanford grads. Nobody knows what GT is in the West Coast.

You will not have a bargaining chip for your salary based on your school. You only have a bargaining chip if you actually had prior work experience and were paid in your previous job or were offered multiple job offers with comparative salaries.

2) No. A 3.0 at GT is probably infinitely better than a 3.4 at the local community college, but a 3.4 at GT by someone else is even better.

3) I don’t know about structural engineering, but in San Francisco and Los Angeles, most of my engineering friends had entry level salaries that ranged from 45k to 70k. The median was 50k.