Hi!
For the past semester I have taken a LOA from carnegie mellon university. In that time I’ve applied and gotten accepted to multiple state schools that interest me, but don’t have the same prestige-factor that cmu does. I don’t want my pride to get the best of me, but I do worry that if I transfer to an average state school, future employers will totally disregard my time at cmu and only pay attention to my time at whichever school I transfer to. I don’t really want to delve into all the reasons I want to leave cmu, but I would like to know what future employers will think of this college transfer. Will getting into grad school be harder? (FYI I plan on pursuing arts/theatre post-grad) Thank you!
My 2 cents on this @West5656 - future employers may well “totally disregard your time at CMU”. CMU won’t even be on your resume unless you have show credit or training you want to include. For the most part a resume doesn’t list all of the schools you attended, only the one you graduated from. If you feel your training at CMU is worth including, then the professors you studied under go on your resume under training. if you’ve done work at CMU in your major that you want to include as work experience then they will see that. I think the important question to ask yourself is - are you leaving behind a good reputation at CMU? If you transfer and include the work/training you’ve done there on your resume you need to be prepared for your professors at CMU to get contacted for informal references by anyone who reviews your resume. Theatre (like so many other industries) can be a small world and many people “know people”. Getting into grad school may or may not be harder - again, it depends upon your record. Better straight As and stellar recommendations from State School X than a 2.0 from CMU with weak recommendations - but if grades and recommendations are the same CMU will look better on an application.
Thank you for the response. I’ll take your advice into account. I’ll be leaving CMU with good grades, and I’ve maintained relationships with a few teachers there. Hopefully that will help me out if I ever need to use them for references.
Your diploma will be from the university you graduate from and in my experience, that’s going to be what stands out the most to both employers and for grad school… My $.02 is the weight CMU will have is not only based on what you include on your resume, but also how long you were there.