When did you decide to study STEM major in university? Tips for my daughter?

[MRC01]

... You may be a well rounded genius but if your resume says you graduated from "lesser known school," you're going to have to work that much harder to get that competitive interview or job. And if you're a goofball that comes from an Ivy, people automatically assume you're worth looking at. These may be bad assumptions but it's the truth.
... I wouldn't diminish the value of those network connections. ...

The value of this, and of those connections, varies from one field to another. In computer science it's relatively less important than it is in other fields.

 

[CMOT]

Well sure. Lower tier schools are going to have some brilliant successful students, and elite universities are going to have some screwups. And we all know specific people that fit both description. And each time we're surprised - how did so-and-so graduate from THERE. And that's kind of my point actually. You may be a well rounded genius but if your resume says you graduated from "lesser known school," you're going to have to work that much harder to get that competitive interview or job. And if you're a goofball that comes from an Ivy, people automatically assume you're worth looking at. These may be bad assumptions but it's the truth.

I wouldn't diminish the value of those network connections.

Yes and which do you suppose is more helpful for grad school - the letter of recommendation coming from the lesser known professor at a lesser known institution or a letter from the professor who wrote the textbook and knows everybody in the field including the chair at the grad program you're interested in? Oh and he'll make a phone call for you too.

This is where I am, in turn, confident disagreeing with you. The standards for the exact same calculus class can and does differ, particularly in how the same material is examined for letter grades.

Um. I have started a company and I have admitted many graduate students. I could care less if the letter writer wrote the text book (in fact, that is a red flag that they aren't doing much research...). I look for students that have demonstrated, through hard work, that they are committed to working in their chosen field. Students from small schools with strong letters often stand out much more than the "factory" letters I see from R1 schools that churn students through. Many of our best PhD students came from small school backgrounds where they pursued work with individual faculty who wrote stellar letters. Which we take seriously. As a opposed to the nth student from a larger, "famous" lab but who each have about the same letter. And goofballs from Ivies have to trade on network connections - what you actually did does matter in industry and grad admissions. But here is the caveat - many of the prestige schools have figured out that keeping their customers happy is critical. So the median grade at Harvard, Brown, etc. is an A. Essentially grades are almost meaningless if you try. This isn't true at all R1 schools, but it is at others. So how do you evaluate a student from Harvard who hasn't bothered to pursue individual lab work, etc? It is near impossible. Yes, networking among professors/advisors does happen, but less and less. Equity is a major emphasis at most schools, so we are doing more and more as bias-free as possible.

The world is changing quickly, so I think the world you describe is fading fast for both admission to graduate programs and for many companies. It is still there, but less and less.

 

[CMOT]

The article doesn't say if the numbers are raw, or normalized by school size/population. If the former, it's of course misleading, favoring the bigger schools. The text says, "SHL calculated the number of graduates from each institution working at 15 of the world's largest tech companies." and that wording suggests they did indeed make this mistake.

They aren't normalized. It favors larger schools. But this is a measure of hiring "engineers" - many of whom are masters students. It doesn't measure how many students from schools did their own startups or joined a startup. By some metrics, going into an engineering job at a big tech company is less desirable in CS/ECE these days. You can do it and it pays well, but the hours are long and the work is often less than inspiring. Sort of the the massive migration to Wall Street in the late 90's - kids could get highly paid, long hour jobs, but they often burnt out and it wasn't very rewarding.

 

[CMOT]

The value of this, and of those connections, varies from one field to another. In computer science it's relatively less important than it is in other fields.

Agreed. One, CS is a younger field. Two, CS is very results oriented. Fewer intangibles.

 

[MRC01]

They aren't normalized. It favors larger schools. But this is a measure of hiring "engineers"...

From the perspective of the student, the key question is, "How likely am I to get a good job in my field when I graduate?" It's the percentage, not the absolute numbers, that answers this question.

 

[CMOT]

One other thought. I think "prestige" is more important when coming out of PhD program - jobs are much more scarce and connections really matter. There was a paper in Science a few years ago that showed how much MIT dominated people teaching STEM across the US. I both know faculty who went to interesting small schools or big state schools undergraduate, but many of them "migrated" to the higher prestige institutions for their PhDs. It is not impossible to get a good job post-PhD from a smaller school, but being from the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, plus big state schools such as Cal, Illinois, etc is usually a big leg up in the academic job market - and I suspect in tech hiring as well (although I have fewer concrete examples).

 

[preload]

Um. I have started a company and I have admitted many graduate students. I could care less if the letter writer wrote the text book (in fact, that is a red flag that they aren't doing much research...). I look for students that have demonstrated, through hard work, that they are committed to working in their chosen field. Students from small schools with strong letters often stand out much more than the "factory" letters I see from R1 schools that churn students through.

Absolutely and I don't seem to understand why you think a student at a top university isn't capable of performing meaningful research and obtaining a strong, supportive letter? Or are you trying to say that given two equally supportive letters, you wouldn't care if the writer is someone very well known in the field and perhaps someone you know vs someone relatively unknown in the field? Perhaps that's the case in your particular field (which you haven't shared so it's hard to comment) but it certainly doesn't generalize to other fields, stem or non-stem.

So the median grade at Harvard, Brown, etc. is an A. Essentially grades are almost meaningless if you try.

Grades in general are meaningless when applying for a job. But for many competitive professional schools, perhaps not in your field, a 3.7 GPA at Harvard is not the same as a 3.7 at [unknown school]. You can rationalize it all you want, this is just the reality. And if you think obtaining a 4.0 at say, a community college reflects the same level of course mastery and effort as a 3.7 at, say, MIT, you're not fooling anyone.

The world is changing quickly, so I think the world you describe is fading fast for both admission to graduate programs and for many companies. It is still there, but less and less.

That may be the case in your line of work, but elsewhere, the cache of the top universities is still alive and well.

 

[BrEpBrEpBrEpBrEp]

My daugher is a highly motivated hard working student and she is well rounded. 4.0 gpa so far. Just got almost perfect SAT score (in 99+ percentile). Black belt in martial art. Just completed the highest level in-state piano test in flying color.

She is thinking maybe she will just follow her brother's footsteps. But, she does not have any specific passions for STEM......She can try applying for schools like MIT, but she worries that she will hate it.

We basically told her that she can attend a good in state school and take different 101 courses in different arts and science majors during the first year or two to see if she could find her passions. Then, maybe transfer to a great university to complete her study.

If you graduated from STEM major, did you know you want to study STEM while in high school?

For the E in STEM, I'd recommend being relatively sure you enjoy the practice of Engineering. Otherwise, it tends to be a very difficult program and students who don't enjoy the application of the principles end up feeling a sort of imposter's syndrome.

If she enjoys tinkering/disassembling/building things, then it's likely she'll enjoy engineering - especially if she joins student groups.

 

[CMOT]

Absolutely and I don't seem to understand why you think a student at a top university isn't capable of performing meaningful research and obtaining a strong, supportive letter? Or are you trying to say that given two equally supportive letters, you wouldn't care if the writer is someone very well known in the field and perhaps someone you know vs someone relatively unknown in the field? Perhaps that's the case in your particular field (which you haven't shared so it's hard to comment) but it certainly doesn't generalize to other fields, stem or non-stem.



Grades in general are meaningless when applying for a job. But for many competitive professional schools, perhaps not in your field, a 3.7 GPA at Harvard is not the same as a 3.7 at [unknown school]. You can rationalize it all you want, this is just the reality. And if you think obtaining a 4.0 at say, a community college reflects the same level of course mastery and effort as a 3.7 at, say, MIT, you're not fooling anyone.



That may be the case in your line of work, but elsewhere, the cache of the top universities is still alive and well.

I think we have a misunderstanding here. Students at top universities can and do perform meaningful research. But going to a top university isn't a guarantee of that. As for letters, if I received two equally supportive letters, I would try to treat them equally. But my point is really that if I received a strong letter from a small school, by someone I didn't know, but who detailed the work the student did and their perseverance etc, I would weight that more highly than the sort of "cookie cutter" letters I sometimes see from R1 places where labs have 10 or even 20 students all working on little bits of projects. Some R1 researchers are too casual and think their notoriety and prestige should be enough. I want to know what the student did and why that student is being recommended. But any sort of letter can come from any school. It is just that an R1 school does not ensure a student will have that sort of positive experience. My field is computational cognitive neuroscience. I think this does generalize to CS and engineering. As another poster said, CS and related fields tend to have less bias and "networking". I can't speak for many fields, but for the fields I know, the younger the field and the more concrete the discipline in terms of results, the less bias towards prestige seems to exist.

Anyone who takes a 3.7 from Harvard as better than a 3.7 from, say, Michigan, is fooling themselves given the median grades. On the other hand, MIT gives "real" grades. I don't know what the median is, but I am sure it isn't an A. It might be a low B. Again, freshman year first semester is P/F to ameliorate grade stress. So a 3.7 at MIT is worth way more than a 3.7 from Harvard. And we weren't talking community colleges, but larger state institutions (which are very different from CC's). But if a student from a CC had embedded themselves in a lab and had demonstrated perseverance, scientific thinking and acquired research skills, plus they had a 4.0, I would be foolish to not consider them seriously. But I am not suggesting people should consider CC as an alternative to the prestige schools, just that they should look more broadly - there are superb 4 year colleges without research portfolios and wonderful state schools that all produce super successful and impressive students. And many students - depending on their personal style would be better off at one of those rather than at a prestige school. So cast one's net widely and consider many other dimensions beyond "prestige" and research profile. Places like MIT are superb institutions and people there do incredible things. But it isn't for everyone. It is much better that a student find a place where they will thrive, be happy and find their passions. Many students at prestige schools burn out. It isn't healthy and we need to rethink our metrics for why students go to college and what they should get out of college.

The cache of top universities is definitely still alive and well. But it doesn't serve every student at such places well. And, indeed, it might be a negative for them depending on their own personality. So, again, just like audio, don't buy into cache. Do research and look at relevant "measurements" and make an informed decision based on your own preferences and budget.

 

[Helicopter]

I usually hire state school grads because they usually have a decent education and expect to earn everything they get by working hard after they land the job.

Since I got an MBA no one has cared about my undergrad. People often incorrectly assume I am an engineer, but I was actually an aircraft mechanic/inspector before I went into management.

 

[Pdxwayne]

For the E in STEM, I'd recommend being relatively sure you enjoy the practice of Engineering. Otherwise, it tends to be a very difficult program and students who don't enjoy the application of the principles end up feeling a sort of imposter's syndrome.

If she enjoys tinkering/disassembling/building things, then it's likely she'll enjoy engineering - especially if she joins student groups.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[mohragk]

One other thing: business courses. I make sure that everyone in my research group can read a balance sheet, generate a cash-flow statement, and knows how to set up a P&L. Again, this is something that will put a tech person ahead of the pack of nerdy specialists competing with her or him.

Not if you're simply better at engineering than the other guy. You think baseball players that also know how to do math have an adventage over the others? Of course not.
Also, specializing yourself has a clear adventage when you're one of the few that has. Someone who has a deep knowledge about biochemical engineering in subnautical environments will be THE guy to hire when your project is about that. Would you care if that person could create a balance sheet?

Now, having said that, there is value in polymaths as well. Those are the people who can "connect the dots" and can be very valuable to any project. I assume Steve Jobs was one. I like to think of myself as one. I know a lot about a lot of things and can be very helpful to bring a project together and ground it in reality. It also helps with creativity and thinking outside the box.

But stating that every engineer should be multi facetted is simply untrue. There need to be specialist as there need to be generalists.

 

[mansr]

If she enjoys tinkering/disassembling/building things, then it's likely she'll enjoy engineering

This is important. @Pdxwayne, has your daughter ever taken things apart just for the fun of it, to see how they work? I've met some engineers who said they never did such things, and they were average at best. We often think of engineering as building things, but it's just as often the reverse. A lot of time is spent figuring out just what the guy before you was thinking. This is especially true in software.

I would also suggest flipping through The Tinkerer's Handbook (8 pages). It's a joke, but there's a lot of truth about engineering in there too.

 

[mansr]

polymaths

Or in plain English, jacks of all trades.

 

[SIY]

Not if you're simply better at engineering than the other guy. You think baseball players that also know how to do math have an adventage over the others? Of course not.
Also, specializing yourself has a clear adventage when you're one of the few that has. Someone who has a deep knowledge about biochemical engineering in subnautical environments will be THE guy to hire when your project is about that. Would you care if that person could create a balance sheet?

Now, having said that, there is value in polymaths as well. Those are the people who can "connect the dots" and can be very valuable to any project. I assume Steve Jobs was one. I like to think of myself as one. I know a lot about a lot of things and can be very helpful to bring a project together and ground it in reality. It also helps with creativity and thinking outside the box.

But stating that every engineer should be multi facetted is simply untrue. There need to be specialist as there need to be generalists.

The famous Heinlein quote comes to mind:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

And specialization is a dangerous and temporary game in technology. Your specialty will inevitably be obsolete or shipped off elsewhere. Imagine being a true expert in CRTs. Or CFLs. Or linotypes. Or the types of coding or manufacturing which are now outsourced to low wage countries. Or as inevitably you get older and more expensive and there's younger and cheaper folks who can be hired into your position. You'd better be broad-based and versatile if you want to change and adapt as the world evolves and you progress in your career.

The one constant is something you alluded to: businesses exist to make money. The better you understand how that works, the more valuable you will be, and you'll be better prepared as demand shifts. Or if you want to move up in an organization- a technologist had better be very comfortable making business cases if he or she wants to be anything above a grunt-level engineer. In my job, I routinely work with top technologists for multibillion dollar companies (Dow, Honeywell, Chemours, Exxon...), and the one thing all of them have in common is a deep understanding of business and quantitatively how their work impacts it.

I'll also mention that my highest net worth friends are extremely sharp technologists who transferred their quantitative and analytical skills to finance, but that's a story for a different day.

 

[mansr]

And specialization is a dangerous and temporary game in technology. Your specialty will inevitably be obsolete or shipped off elsewhere. Imagine being a true expert in CRTs. Or CFLs. Or linotypes.

You can be a specialist without being tied to a specific product.

 

[SIY]

You can be a specialist without being tied to a specific product.

Indeed, as long as you don't care about the long run. My specialty at one time was printed electronics materials and processes; I would still modestly claim to be pretty darn skilled in that area. I'm glad I was able to move out of that before everything bounced off to Asia.

 

[Raindog123]

“A good engineer must know something about everything and everything about something.”

 

[mansr]

“A good engineer must know something about everything and everything about something.”

That I can agree with.

 

[Pdxwayne]

This is important. @Pdxwayne, has your daughter ever taken things apart just for the fun of it, to see how they work? I've met some engineers who said they never did such things, and they were average at best. We often think of engineering as building things, but it's just as often the reverse. A lot of time is spent figuring out just what the guy before you was thinking. This is especially true in software.

I would also suggest flipping through The Tinkerer's Handbook (8 pages). It's a joke, but there's a lot of truth about engineering in there too.

Thanks!

Hmm.....So far I have not seen her taking apart things just for fun....

My son also did not really take physical things apart for fun while in high school....Like many kids, he spent most his time playing computer games.
: )

My son likes games like Minecraft...Which virtually breaks and builds stuffs...I guess that kind of count? He is now having fun studying Electrical Engineering and still doing fine in his second years.

My daughter, on the other hand, does not like to play any computer games. She prefers spending time working on getting good grades in school. Her school work alone already taking up most of her time. Even for this coming summer, she said she will be very busy preparing for all the subjects for her Senior year. She is a hard worker who plans way ahead and willing to sacrifice funs to achieve her goals.