Frustrated

[AlwaysWorried]

Whenever I read articles in magazines or newspapers they always seem to quote someone from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT. I applied to these schools and got rejected. I worry that I won't have a successful career without going to one of these three schools. I know this view is somewhat silly, but I find it hard not to get upset.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

[was1984]

Whenever I read articles in magazines or newspapers they always seem to quote someone from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT. I applied to these schools and got rejected. I worry that I won't have a successful career without going to one of these three schools. I know this view is somewhat silly, but I find it hard not to get upset.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

That's because as far as the mainstream media is concerned those are the only 3 places you can go to college and be an engineer. How many movies have you seen where the genius programmer or astronaut went to somewhere other than those three schools? What do you think reality is?

[boneh3ad]

FWIW, Neil Armstrong was a Boilermaker and an Illini invented the first plasma display among many many many many many other things from many many many many many other schools.

[blah2009]

I'm at stanford and can tell you firsthand, some of the people here are dumb as shit. Society has an inflated sense of how impressive the people are here. I, along with most people here are not geniuses. I just worked hard in undergrad, but that doesn't necessarily make me smart or anything. You can definitely succeed if you have a strong work ethic. Make sure to find a good advisor.

[twocosmicfish]

My last $70 million program? We went after two guys from UCF and one from Michigan.

Every school produces experts in some areas, and no school covers everything. The only real advantage of the big schools is that their name and resources allow you to tackle more widely applicable problems - no guarantee you will succeed.

Go whereever you get excited. That is the path for success.

[vannik]

Whenever I read articles in magazines or newspapers they always seem to quote someone from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT. I applied to these schools and got rejected. I worry that I won't have a successful career without going to one of these three schools. I know this view is somewhat silly, but I find it hard not to get upset.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

It depends on what you call a successful career. Becoming an allstar in academia may require you to work under an allstar. I have no interest in that though; I just want to work 40-50 hours a week and have a solid job that isn't my entire life. Getting a degree from one of those schools won't guarentee you anything either. Working for a company is about how well you work with others to solve problems quickly. Many PhD's will go into management of some sort. My undergraduate school was Northeastern in Boston. Do you think these are successful positions? You might not know these people's names, but they get their work published all the time in the wall street journal.

Intel: Vice President, Teradyne CEO, Lycos Founder, Napster Founder, EMC Corp Founders {one of which is part owner of the Pittsburg Penguins}, Analog Devices CEO, ect ect ect.

[chi0]

AlwaysWorried said:

Whenever I read articles in magazines or newspapers they always seem to quote someone from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT. I applied to these schools and got rejected. I worry that I won't have a successful career without going to one of these three schools. I know this view is somewhat silly, but I find it hard not to get upset.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I was 0/3 among those three programs, but I'm not getting upset about it. I'm deciding between two top-25 programs, emphasis on the "25" because they're certainly not ranked much higher than that. My supervisor at work has a PhD from Mississippi State, and I look up to and respect him more than most others around here. He's not getting quoted in any newspapers, but he's had a great career for himself. Take a look at some ME department websites and note where the professors got their degrees... sure there's a bunch of MIT, Stanford, Caltech and the like, but also plenty of successful academics from WashU, Rochester, and RPI ... as long as you find a program you're excited about, you'll forget all about your former "top choice" school once you get involved in your education and research.