SwissAgg said:
one MEEN Ag said:
Look I hate to burst some bubbles here, but aspiring engineering students need to go to the biggest brand school they can get into.
I help out with university recruiting for the fortune 100 company I work for. Recruiters only have so much time and manpower to go make offers. They start with big brand schools in each state that are known for engineering. A&M in itself, has enough interest from students to fill basically every job opening. Now multiply that by 50-80 some odd other schools across the country.
There are a lot of schools with engineering programs that don't get visits from recruiters. Those kids can apply online but their chances aren't as good and probably field engineering positions.
Not saying your specific kid can't find success in a smaller school, but unless it's an elite smaller school - in a game of averages smaller schools with lesser brand lose.
I say this to help your families make good decisions about their kids future. If anyone wants to talk to me personally about my perspective I'm happy to talk over the phone.
I've seen how the sausage is made. During undergrad I helped out the MEEN office give facility tours (and got buddy buddy with counselors), during grad school I TA'd for engineering ethics, and in my professional career I volunteer to recruit college kids.
My nephew is currently looking to major in Civil Engineering which, I think is good. A&M and Texas are both really good schools, but he wants to try to get into Rice. So the top schools now are texas, A&M, and Rice. This is a junior though so things can change. He also wants to look at Ga. Tech and Purdue. Our friend coordinates the Ga. Tech engineering visits.
Many students are wanting to go into Robotics and AI, which are good as well, but there are definitely other engineering disciplines that I think will be underserved including Civil and Chemical.
Those are all good schools and good majors. I would recommend undergrad students choose a general engineering major over a specific one. Don't do ocean engineering or petroleum unless their hearts are dead set on those things. They're too industry specific and lock people in to one field. It's tough to get a petroleum engineering job with a mechanical degree, but it's impossible to get a mechanical job with a petroleum degree. Mechanical, Civil, Chemical, Electrical are all good traditional degrees that allow a huge breadth of industries to choose from. Computer engineering/comp sci isn't ever going away and will be in the highest demand for the foreseeable future. But it isn't like other engineering degrees/potentially not even an engineering degree. AI and machine learning are cool and sexy right now. There's a lot of hype, but at the masters/phd level is some incredible stuff.
My recommendation is to start general and move more specific with a masters.
Civil is a good major that will always be in demand, but I don't think there's an industry civil can rely on to pay a super premium though. No civils in OG or Tech companies. But, pay isn't everything and civil is good solid work and a good solid career. I wouldn't think of any degree being 'underserved' nowadays. Engineering programs pump out so many kids each year it's a buyers market.
Ocean engineering at A&M, by the way, was a dichotomy of either super dedicated 4.0 GPAs who want to save the world or 2.0 slackers who got tossed in there as a last ditch effort to graduate with a degree from the college of engineering.
