Hey guys,
So I'm transferring soon and I'm trying hard to get into UC Berkeley, but it's tougher and tougher each day. In the chance (it's really a coinflip at this point, I'm directly in correlation with their average acceptance, maybe slightly below with the GPA but higher on the extracurriculars) that I don't get in, my backup is UC Davis.
However, I'm in this puzzle - it seems from the way transferring works, if you don't get into a top school you're basically going to be struggling to survive in the real world afterwards. I know this is clearly wrong, but I wonder how wrong it is as applied to my major - software engineering / applied mathematics.
Should I be fine with UC Davis, or am I pretty much screwed if I don't get into a top ranked school? How many of you are doing just fine out there without a top ranked school degree?
ID:1022438
 Oct 19 2012, 11:28 pm
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I graduated from a small private college in Virginia Beach, Virginia called ECPI in 2011. They had an accelerated program that let me finish in 2.5 years, which was good because I wanted to get that over and done with. it wasn't anything special really, but it got the job done.
Although you're likely to get paid more by going to a prestigious school, it's not really required if you want a job in the field. What most of the employers that I interviewed with were looking for variety in your skills and basic knowledge in your field, especially with troubleshooting. A vast majority of what you'll be taught will be the basics and intermediate stuff, since everything afterwards builds on that. The rest you will learn on your own or through on the job training. Despite going to a nothing special college (though I did graduate cum laude, just .3 points shy of magna cum laude), I had no problems finding interviews and getting the job I have now. I'm currently working as a database administrator making +40k a year at an entry level position. And I only took 3 database classes throughout my college life. Presentation during interviews and a well put together resume are musts. My cousin, who went to the more prestigious WPI (Worcester Polytech Institute), is making about 50% more than I do because of where he went. Which somewhat proves the point that I'm trying to get at. TL;DR - You'll probably get paid more if you go to Berkeley, but it's not the end-all be-all. You'll be fine elsewhere. | |
I graduated from the University of Southampton, with an MEng Software Engineering. While being in the UK probably means my situation doesn't 100% reflect yours, it should probably give you a sense of how things are.
Having done the interviewer side of graduate job interviews, as well as the interviewee side, I can tell you that employers see a lot of candidates, but they also see a LOT of really bad candidates. We essentially focused on testing competence, and exploring the university / degree an applicant studied through interview just to establish how rigorous or not the education was. Things like establishing roughly what "Advanced Databases" as a module covered for example. A better university usually covers a more extensive array of topics, we find, and so the graduate probably picks up new tasks we give them a bit quicker, and so, becomes a useful and productive team member quicker. The course title did matter a bit too, as Information Technologies for example, usually carries a fairly poor software engineering focus, and that means a less capable candidate for us. Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Computing were the four core names you basically just took as-is, with specialisms mostly being ignored unless they met an immediate company need (like Computer Science with Computer Graphics). If you had one of those core name course titles, from a university that was anything other than complete junk, you basically got your 1st interview with us. At that point, your foot is in the door, and the rest is kind of up to you and your capability. | |
Employers only care about where you went to college and your GPA in determining who to give interviews to out of a sea of similarly qualified applicants. And that's really only the case for new graduates with almost no experience. As long as you don't go to some terrible for-profit college you'll be fine. You should still do something like volunteer work to separate yourself from other candidates to help get that first interview though.
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Real men go to community colleges.
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I think you're fine so long as you attend a school that is geographically close to the industry.
I don't think having the brand name of a top school is vital for your success. I have a few friends who are attending UC Berkeley as Computer Science majors, and they all tell me the same thing about Berkeley's quality of education: >90% of the learning they do is on their own time through google and through assigned reading, and that they do so little learning during class that they consider Berkeley to be a school with a fancy name where you pay tuition for a degree and not an education. I suspect it is not dissimilar for other schools, so I wouldn't go in expecting to have brilliant professors and enlightening lectures simply because of the school's brand name. If I were you, I would select a school whose campus, culture, and atmosphere is most compatible with who you are. I'm in a similar boat as you are; I'm currently applying to transfer, though I'm a Mechanical Engineer with a focus on Mechatronics rather than a Computer Scientist or Software Engineer. I am likely going to transfer to SJSU for a multitude of reasons regardless of the brand name of the school (My main reasons are geographical and tuition cost). I have heard that UCs do not necessarily provide superior job prospects over CSU, despite the fancier UC brand name; an overwhelming % of friends of mine who are studying Computer Science at UC Berkeley failed to obtain internships and "entry-level" jobs over the past few years. And then lastly: I really dislike the town of Berkeley, and had the quality of education been higher for UC Berkeley, I would have backed you in this endeavor to get in. Visit the campus and town, if you can, for every college you are considering so that you know that you will be comfortable with living there after your transfer. You may end up living there for work after you graduate if it isn't a college town. I also find it hard to believe that your eventual pay will factor in which school you attended. | |
In school I was lazy, my scores were below average.
We have exams at the end of 12th grade, I scored average or above average.
Managed to get into Vilnius University to study Informatics. I'm not sure how they calculate acceptance score, but mine was a little over minimum, some student's score is twice higher than mine.
I'm still being lazy and I'm in top 20% of students in our 50 student group (my score is 86%).