<p>BTW, you don’t really need an undergrad degree either to actually do the work people do as an I-banker.</p>
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<p>I was guessing “potty waste management.”</p>
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<p>Maybe not, but the PWM guy in the OP is still bragging about his job. ;)</p>
<p>D has a summer internship in PWM. She’s an undergrad from Stanford, and the other two kids are from Harvard. There’s also an MBA intern from Stern. So they don’t exactly hail from low-priced publics…</p>
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<p>Good. 'Cause hailing from a low-priced public is MY gig. </p>
<p>/ AnneHathawayRollsEyes.gif goes here</p>
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<p>Not an upper-level class, but my son took a Music History class at Harvard (usually sophomores take this). At the end of the school year he spent a weekend in NYC with friends who were attending Julliard. One of the roommates was studying for her exam in the *exact same course<a href=“at%20least%20according%20to%20its%20description”>/i</a>. My son laughed that the Julliard student had about 20 hours of required listening, while his Harvard course required about 150 hours of required listening. I recognize that Julliard is not known for its academics, but this was a music course after all.</p>
<p>“Good. 'Cause hailing from a low-priced public is My gig.”</p>
<p>Very funny!</p>
<p>Well, Hat, I hope your son did not actually laugh in the poor Julliard kid’s face.</p>
<p>Perhaps that was because the Juilliard student spent the other 130 hours actually mastering the repertoire your son was listening to. After all, it IS a music school.</p>
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Civil Engineering is not actually a very large major at MIT (sub 80 students) and I wouldn’t consider its course map to be demonstrative of what the average engineering major there does. Even if you were to look at a larger course like MechEng, which has almost 500 undergrads and is the largest engineering major, course roadmaps are not actually indicative of what students do or of what is actually expected of them. I don’t think there is any course roadmap that mandates that students come to MIT with credit for Calc I, but most do, and professors expect that:
[AP</a> Credit Received by Freshman Class - The Tech](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N39/freshmantests/ap.html]AP”>http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N39/freshmantests/ap.html)</p>
<p>Even the minority of freshmen who do not have credit for Calc I mostly choose to take not plain Calc I, but instead take 18.01A, which covers both single and multivariable in one semester and assumes prior experience: [Fall</a> 2008 Enrollment Percentages](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/214/sipser_pie_pop.html]Fall”>Fall 2008 Enrollment Percentages) Overall, 20% of freshman take some variant of introductory calculus (18.01 or 18.014). 80% take something that requires prior calc experience. </p>
<p>Sure, roadmaps don’t actually say students must be at this level, but students who aren’t often feel that they are behind their peers and, due to professors’ expectations, find less success in pursuing internships and research positions.</p>
<p>^ The [url=<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/214/sipser.html]document[/url”>Rethinking the Math Core]document[/url</a>] that the above pie chart comes from actually discusses the fact that it is becoming rarer and rarer for MIT students to take Calc I at the school and proposes changing the math requirement to accomodate that:</p>
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[…] the de facto calculus course requirement ends up being less than two full subjects taken at MIT. […] Today, calculus has moved into the high-school curriculum for many of our students. That shift frees up some of their time at MIT.
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<p>So, the point that GFG brought up in post 208 is actually quite piercing. I’ve heard from friends at some state schools that engineering there is standardly a 5yr course, though I’ve not seen any documentation about this. If it’s the case, perhaps this is how schools whose students enter with differing levels of math experience can all produce engineers of similar quality.</p>
<p>My kids both went to “state schools” in engineering and both graduated with honors in 4 years with no problem. Also, the implication that state school kids do not enter college with high levels of math, physics ,etc. is often not true. One of my kids did (aced BC calculus, AP Physics,etc in high school). Went to a state school because it was an excellent fit and the price was right. Other kid had AP Physics in high school but just didn’t want to take calculus even though he was on track to do so. Nevertheless, aced all the math in college and just graduated Magna Cum Laude. It can be done. And he is starting a full time job soon with some of the kids he interned with last summer, including kids from Yale and Cornell.</p>
<p>^If you know of any statistical reports on the engineering students at flagship/sim public universities vs those at the premier privates for engineering as concerns math level upon matriculation, time to graduation, etc., I would love to see them. I have no doubt that other schools can produce fine engineers; my father went to a college nowhere close to being a flagship state and had a stellar career at a fantastic company. If my posts implies that I feel otherwise, please excuse that (along with my failure to quote properly!). If you’d like to point out the places where I’ve made that implication, that would be appreciated. But anecdotes are not data.</p>
<p>I tried to find reports for my home state’s flagship and then for those in a few other states, but didn’t see anything. 4 and 6 year graduation rates are easy to find, but I don’t see them broken down by major. AP credit numbers are harder to find. Even when I find them, schools don’t have them broken down by major and have differing standards for offering credit anyway.</p>
<p>Millancad,The implication was from GFG’s #208 post which you cited, not yours. That kids that do not have high levels of math in HS go off to state schools to study engineering. Well, the reality is that MOST kids still go off to their state schools. Many kids with high levels of math and science do end up at their state schools. My husband is a CMU engineering grad but had no problem with his kids going to state schools. The tech type privates were just not their cup of tea. Luckily, engineering tends to be more egalitarian than something like PWM or investment banking, where the pedigree seems to matter a lot more. The company my son interned with last year has about 30 interns each summer from all over. Over the years, they’ve had many interns from MIT, Cornell. working along side kids from state schools like Georgia Tech, UVa and Virginia Tech.</p>
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<p>In some cases, the total number of credits to graduate in a major like mechanical engineering exceeds the usual number of credits to graduate from the school. For example, at California State University - Los Angeles, 180 quarter credit units are normally required to graduate, but the mechanical engineering major requires 193 quarter credit units of courses, mapped out into a twelve quarter (four year) plan:
<a href=“http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/ecst/me/pdf/Undergrad/Sample%20ME%204yr%20roadmap.pdf[/url]”>http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/ecst/me/pdf/Undergrad/Sample%20ME%204yr%20roadmap.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/ecst/me/pdf/Undergrad/MEBS.curriculum2012.Guillaume%202[1].22.pdf[/url]”>http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/ecst/me/pdf/Undergrad/MEBS.curriculum2012.Guillaume%202[1].22.pdf</a>
Obviously, this means that students intending to graduate in twelve quarters but with no AP or other credit coming in need to take higher course loads than the normal 15 credit units in many quarters. However, given the relatively low selectivity of CSULA, and the likely presence of part time, non-traditional, or other students who have to work significant hours while attending school, it would not be surprising if many of the students take lower numbers of credit units per quarter than the plan lists, resulting in needing more than twelve quarters to graduate from frosh start (or more than six quarters to graduate from junior transfer start).</p>
<p>Yes, in engineering, more credits are needed to graduate. My kids did have some AP credits and also semesters with more than 15 credits were not unusual (but they had the luxury of being able to go to school full time). Engineering is tough , that’s for sure.</p>
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Great, do you want a cookie?</p>
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Your link was interesting and informative. Apparently, MIT has considered but not enacted proposed degree requirements (in probability and statistics) based on the fact that so many of its students are able to replace currently required math courses with electives or reduced credit load.</p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by “engineers of similar quality” ???</p>
<p>Ivy or not. Doesn’t matter. It’s brilliance that matters most. You cannot teach original thinking. Late Steve Jobs never made it to college but had one - if not the most - of the most prolific metal outputs the world has known.</p>
<p>Of course, an Ivy League Diploma may increase your prospects but is not a guarantee.</p>
<p>Jobs did make it to college (Reed) but officially attended for only one semester (it was too expensive, even back in 1972), although he audited courses for some time after that.</p>