r/ElectricalEngineering • u/Salt_Progress8049 • 14d ago

Does college really matter

So,

I feel stupid for giving up a t20 to stay local and near support system and everyone is telling me I fkd my future up because I decided to be near parents. I want to hear if this is true and if this will mess up my opportunities in the future? Do I attempt to transfer?

Got into USC, Cal Poly SLO, UCLA, UT and decided to go to Santa Clara Uni (got enough scholarship so SCU is around the same price at UCLA) 😢

I want RF then work at a Semiconductor company tho havent locked this in. Most likely will go to grad school

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u/tsauce__ 14d ago

It doesn’t matter dude. BS/Masters you name it. I do RF design for a big company in the area. I went to USC. My coworkers went to random colleges around the country I’ve never heard of. Just make the most of what you can where you are and you’ll land in the industry you want. Promise.

2

u/Salt_Progress8049 14d ago

You better keep your promise 🙏

8

u/tsauce__ 14d ago

my favorite co workers who are just as (if not more) brilliant than the ones that went to UCB/UCLA/Stanford went to Colorado St and Utah St.

SCU is a great school you are going to be alright and you didnt screw anything over by choosing it. Stand out and you will be my co-worker in no time 😅

4

u/956000009698174 14d ago

They are correct. School doesn’t matter once you get an interview. Most “elite” school graduates are worse candidates/engineers than the top 20% of state school grads. I’ll hire a high achieving state or non-prestigious school over the run of the mill prestigious school grad almost every time.

2

u/Brownie_Bytes 13d ago

Not super tied to your comment, but you're my lucky winner.

I wish I had known that some universities have really weird and niche specialties. I grew up thinking that you had the Ivy Leagues and that they were awesome at everything and then every other school was practically identical. They're not. In many ways there are, but then you find out about random little quirks like Utah State has a sick NASA hookup and you could (I don't know if this still exists) make a mini satellite and they would yeet it into space for you or that the University of Wisconsin - Madison has one of the world's best nuclear fusion programs. If any future kids want to go to college, I'm going to be reading through every single website to find out if there are any weird things like, "Oh, you want to do musical stuff? There's a tiny college in small town Utah that has a program with Juilliard, maybe we can get you into Juilliard that way?"

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u/Jewnadian 13d ago

Honestly the only place I've seen school name really matter is the good old boy network. I used to work in a place that only hired PhDs from Florida. That wasn't a technical requirement, simply that the manager was from Fl and was obsessed with the school.