Is harvard engineering (Biomedical especially) famous?

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<p>Yeah because the people doing the laughing are jerks. I already explained this. </p>

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<p>If that’s really true, then there’s no reason to laugh. So why laugh? </p>

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<p>Look, I already said that I believe that Michigan grad engineers are better than Harvard grad engineers. When did I say otherwise? So what are we arguing about? </p>

<p>What I am asking is why should people feel the need to laugh? Again, if the Michigan grad engineer is really better off than the Harvard grad engineer, then he should feel no reason to laugh. Like I said, to me, laughter is really a sign of lack of confidence. If you’re sure that you’re in a better position than somebody else, then you should not have to laugh at them. Do rich people go to the ghetto to laugh at poor people? I don’t think so. Rich people already know that they have a better life than poor people do, so what’s the point of laughing? </p>

<p>And take Wayne Rosing. Sure he got experience before. A lot of it, specifically at Sun and then at Apple. But how? He didn’t have a degree back then just like he doesn’t have a degree now. So how was he able to get hired at Apple in the very beginning? Why didn’t Apple just look at his lack of degree and laugh at him and throw his application away? Here you are saying that people with Harvard grad eng degrees won’t be hired over people with Michigan grad engineering degrees, yet in the past, Rosing got hired with no degree at all. Explain that. Was Apple being stupid? </p>

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<p>And how long do you really think a guy who is a jerk is going to last in a management position anyway? I would argue not very long. And he’s certainly going to lose out on key talent.</p>

<p>For example, if that same jerk was working at Apple, he probably would have refused to hire Wayne Rosing. Rosing would have then worked for somebody else. Believe me, there are PLENTY of brilliant high-tech employees with degrees from only mediocre schools, or no degree at all. Larry Ellison got his start at Ampex despite having no degree. Bill Gates and Paul Allen used to work at Honeywell part-time despite having no degrees at the time (and still not having any). After dropping out of Reed College, Steve Jobs got hired at Atari, and after dropping out of Berkeley, Steve Wozniak got hired at Honeywell. Were Atari and Honeywell stupid to have hired these guys with no degrees? </p>

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<p>3-5 years to become a principal engineer? I don’t know about that. That would make you 25-28. Most engineers of that age are nowhere even close to being a principal engineer making 150k. Heck, I know plenty of engineers who are twice that age (and thus have ~30 years of experience) who are still not making 150k. </p>

<p>Since you wanted links, you got 'em.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm[/url]”>http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As you say, you want an apples-to-apples comparison. So think about an engineer with an MBA, doing tech management. How many of them have a shot at making the kind of money that a similar bulge-bracket banker can? </p>

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<p>Moore and Page, yes. But Lee? No. Is he a billionaire? I don’t think so. </p>

<p>Moore and Page had great careers not because they were engineers, but because they were ENTREPRENEURS. Moore didn’t just rise out of the realms of engineering. His great move was that he was one of the so-called Traitorous Eight that left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild and then left Fairchild to found Intel. If he had stayed at Shockley, do you really think he’d be a billionaire?</p>

<p>I have always agreed that being an entrepreneur is a great way to go. But that’s a far cry from saying that you want to be an engineer. The question is, if you don’t have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and you have the choice to work as a banker or an engineer, what would you do?</p>

<p>Think of it this way. Like I said, plenty of MIT and STanford engineers get offers to be bankers and consultants (and get into law/med school or whatever). Many of them take those offers instead of becoming engineers. Not all, but many. You’re saying that it doesn’t really matter because these people are ‘better’ than the average engineer, so they would enjoy success either way they go. Are you really sure about that? </p>

<p>Look, the truth is that it is strongly perceived that those other career paths give you greater room to shine. A star investment banker/consultant tends to have more opportunities than a star engineer. Even if that’s not true in reality, the perception of it is out there. That’s why lots of elite engineers tend to drop engineering in favor of banking/consulting.</p>