how do YOU and YOUR family compare two university programs? BSEE advice especially welcome

[prairiewindmomma]

Ds ended up spending another year at community college. Everything was remote instruction here, and tuition was cheaper.  He's now transferring to a university to finish out his electrical engineering degree.

He's got two good offers and everything looks roughly equivalent.

Both are ABET accredited programs.

Both are similar financially.

Both place most of their students with companies here and there is high demand for his degree because of the tech stuff here. The pools for some internships are the same because both universities are localish.

Both say they will be open for in-person classes in the fall.

Electives/specializations are slightly different between the two---one has an optics lab and the other has a different cool area of specialty. Both are appealing to him.

Today I've been helping him make a spreadsheet of the grad plans for courses required for each university to graduate. (He's finishing up a physics final at the LCC and we have to decide in the next 48 hours as fall enrollment is open now at both---so I'm doing some crunch work for him.)

I don't know that there's a bad choice here, but he's wanting advice on how to decide. What else should we be considering?

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Social life, housing options

Academic, professional, or social clubs

Are required courses equally available 

Available minors that might be of interest 

If commuting, the ease of the commute and cost of parking. 

[Arcadia]

Class size

postgraduate options

are the classes more hands-on or theoretical

My husband has been interviewing EEs, mostly with PhDs and only one out of many passed the technical interview. The one that passed thinks California is too expensive to relocate here from Utah. 

[MamaSprout]

Can he live off campus? Is there on-campus housing that's suitable for upperclassman?

[Lanny]

What is the cool option in the 2nd school you mentioned?   Does one of the schools require a Semester Abroad of Engineering students?   Do both of them require that?  Are the courses he will need to take given every semester or every school year? 

Both sound good based on the limited information in the OP.   I would like to know more about the interests of the DS and how each school might fulfill his goal of learning more about those subjects.

How are those schools ranked among schools for EE Majors?  (USNEWS, etc.)

If I had the names of the schools I might be able to offer more specific advice, but without the names of the schools it is just generic.

Good luck to him! 

[RootAnn]

If both schools have Reddit pages, I'd check those out. Also, I'd have him read Ratemyprofessor for the EE profs - at least the ones for his possible fall classes if not the whole department.

If he can, see how open the classes are for the fall that he will want to take. Full with waitlists? Or still pretty available?

[Clarita]

22 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Electives/specializations are slightly different between the two---one has an optics lab and the other has a different cool area of specialty. Both are appealing to him.

Honestly in this case I would go with whichever specialization he's willing to do. Like look through the classes and see the job opportunities available to those specializations and would you want to go for those careers (does that job only need a BS or is MS necessary; what do you actually do for a job in that field sit and type at a computer, do you design actual things, do you do more like bunny suit lab work or electrical circuits lab work, is it more research type work...). Studying in the specialty might give you a leg up in getting a job, but also I never had a job doing what my specialty in college was as an EE. 

The other important thing I would look at is how long it would actually take me to graduate from either program. What are the requirements to graduate? How many of those classes are covered by community college and which ones you are going to have to take again (even though you already took them)? How often do they offer those classes? Essentially, fill out your class schedule until graduation and see how long it would take, look at current-2 year old class schedules. Look at how often the classes that you want are offered.    

My only other piece of advice is once you graduate with a BSEE get a job. After you start working then go back for your Masters or Ph.D or whatever. 1) A lot of companies will pay for your masters (no strings attached afterwards) and 2) you will know better what jobs and specialties you actually like. 

[Arcadia]

19 hours ago, Clarita said:

 My only other piece of advice is once you graduate with a BSEE get a job. After you start working then go back for your Masters or Ph.D or whatever. 1) A lot of companies will pay for your masters (no strings attached afterwards) and 2) you will know better what jobs and specialties you actually like. 

This is going to be very YMMV. I went for full time postgraduate after a year of working and my pay doubled (more than double if bonuses are included). So basically I broke even a year after postgraduate. It also opened a lot more doors for jobs as well as more promotions prospects. 

My husband’s pay went up by 1.6 times (before bonuses) and his Ph.D. was what helped land him the H1B visa and we received our green cards very fast. He had a scholarship for his full time PhD so he was basically being paid to study at about the same pay as his BEng (EE) job. He skipped masters and had his phd completed in 3 years. He actually went back for his Ph.D. because his career prospects were stalled with his BEng. His ex-classmate went directly from BEng to Ph.D. (EE) without working. Her pay was 2.5 times his BEng pay when she started work. 

[Lanny]

On 6/4/2021 at 12:23 PM, RootAnn said:

If both schools have Reddit pages, I'd check those out. Also, I'd have him read Ratemyprofessor for the EE profs - at least the ones for his possible fall classes if not the whole department.

If he can, see how open the classes are for the fall that he will want to take. Full with waitlists? Or still pretty available?

Possibly one can find some interesting information about some of the courses on Coursicle?  https://www.coursicle.com/

I agree with reading the sub Reddits for both schools.  Occasionally, I read the sub Reddit for the school DD attends and frequently I mention something that I read there to her.

[RootAnn]

@prairiewindmomma Was he able to make a decision?

[Clarita]

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

My husband’s pay went up by 1.6 times (before bonuses) and his Ph.D. was what helped land him the H1B visa and we received our green cards very fast.

If you have immigration status to contend with or wouldn't be able to land a job anyways, those would be other considerations. It's always going to be hard to compare what might have been had this or that been done differently. I just felt I got more out of my Master's (education-wise) while I was working than I would have otherwise. 

As to improvement in my financial situation (::shrug::), since the market went sour months after my graduation and we were in the "great recession" afterwards my salary was stagnant for a few years. I was working for a start-up at the time, so the company "paid" me in stock options  to make up for not giving me pay on-time and not giving me raises; that was great later. At the company that I started with bonuses based on patents and occasionally overall company bonuses (which were based by salary). I guess also I do not feel in my area people who have the highest degrees get the most money, it seemed people were paid by rank which was achieved either by work experience, schooling or charisma. 

So, perhaps I am tainted by having graduated so close to a bad economic time.

[AEC]

when selecting a college for an engineering program, you might ask which companies recruit there. Or, if there's a target job/company, you might ask them if they recruit there.

 

re: pay increase for an MS or PhD...._right now_ (and frankly right now is a bit of a weird time for hiring engineers as the market is super hot) at big tech. I can't say anything about how this compares to startups or smaller tech companies, or locations outside the US.

- a new BS(EE|CS|CSE|etc) gets hired as an L4 at Amazon or L3 at Google. Most get promoted 1 level in 2-3 years.

- a new MS(EE|CS|CSE|etc) usually gets hired as an L4 at Amazon or L3 at Google, at essentially the say pay as the BS, but they generally get promoted in a year. There are rare exceptions if you've done your MS in something directly relevant to where you're getting hired and you had a hands-on enough graduate degree.

- a new PhD igenerally get hired as an L5 Amazon, L4 google. so, in comparison to what you'd get (say) 5 years post your BS, this is probably lower and of course you took on debt rather than getting paid over those 5 years. Yes, it's more than what a new grad BS gets by probably 1.5-2x, but the new grad probably got raises amounting to that or more over the same time period.

OTOH, the fraction of Principal Engineers that have an MS or PhD is much higher than the general population. Note that most people do not ever get promoted to Principle, however. If it matters, levels.fyi appears to be fairly accurate for compensation at levels where there are enough datapoints to be meaningful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

On 6/6/2021 at 6:48 PM, AEC said:

 

OTOH, the fraction of Principal Engineers that have an MS or PhD is much higher than the general population. Note that most people do not ever get promoted to Principle, however. If it matters, levels.fyi appears to be fairly accurate for compensation at levels where there are enough datapoints to be meaningful.

No wonder we tend to talk past each other 🙂 I do the taxes and so look more at W2 wages which includes the bonuses and stock options. My husband is in the hardware division.
I am surrounded by PhDs in my social circles, majority foreign born. I heard it takes a long time to earn a PhD in US which might contribute to why companies make use of the convenience of H1b. My husband’s PhD scholarship was enough to pay mortgage and me not working. Five years with student debt would not be feasible. It’s really YMMV. 
 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Arcadia
Typo

[Arcadia]

On 6/3/2021 at 4:27 PM, prairiewindmomma said:

 

Electives/specializations are slightly different between the two---one has an optics lab and the other has a different cool area of specialty. Both are appealing to him.

It is pass 48 hrs so your son probably has made a choice. 

However if he hasn’t decide and If both his interest is hardware related, can he go tour the lab facilities? 

[prairiewindmomma]

On 6/5/2021 at 3:08 PM, RootAnn said:

@prairiewindmomma Was he able to make a decision?

That is the question of the week. So, we did the course plan for each school and it turns out the school without an optics lab would allow him to graduate at least two trimesters earlier. It’s also an easier commute. It also turns out that one of the key professors moved from the optics lab school to the non-optics lab school. 
 

He decided to enroll for summer coursework at the cc to knock out a couple more classes to line up himself with course tracks at either school. He registered for fall classes at the optics lab school where he has scholarships but is considering asking the non-optics school for a year’s deferrel and actually going to take a gap year working in one of the semiconductor facilities here. He’d only make about $16-18/hour as a wafer tech, but he’d figure out if he can handle being in a bunny suit that long and see if he likes being in a fab. He thinks this will help him sort out career path. 
 

He’s 19. Smart but clueless. I think some life experience might be helpful so I am supportive. I do think grad school is in his future, whatever he decides. I would also rather see him change tracks now rather than deep into his studies. He knows he loves math, hates dealing with people, and is still trying careers on mentally.

[Arcadia]

16 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

He registered for fall classes at the optics lab school where he has scholarships but is considering asking the non-optics school for a year’s deferrel and actually going to take a gap year working in one of the semiconductor facilities here. He’d only make about $16-18/hour as a wafer tech, but he’d figure out if he can handle being in a bunny suit that long and see if he likes being in a fab. He thinks this will help him sort out career path. 

…

He knows he loves math, hates dealing with people, and is still trying careers on mentally.

My husband used to work for AMD and then GlobalFoundries (AMD spin-off) until their wafer fab moved to Malta, NY.  My husband loathe the bunny suit but he was only in it for labs. 

Has your son looked into being a lab tech (quality control/reliability) instead of wafer tech? Not much human interaction required, unfortunately not much math required either. They run the labs and my husband analyzes the data. 

Or could he do an internship with job rotation? That way he can learn more about career suitability and internships can pay more than $18/hr. 

[prairiewindmomma]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

My husband used to work for AMD and then GlobalFoundries (AMD spin-off) until their wafer fab moved to Malta, NY.  My husband loathe the bunny suit but he was only in it for labs. 

Has your son looked into being a lab tech (quality control/reliability) instead of wafer tech? Not much human interaction required, unfortunately not much math required either. They run the labs and my husband analyzes the data. 

Or could he do an internship with job rotation? That way he can learn more about career suitability and internships can pay more than $18/hr. 

Good thoughts! He missed the summer application window for this summer for internships because he hadn’t planned on this direction.

Lab tech was open around January but not now. Neither is great for future career development, but both would resolve whether he can handle a bunny suit and whether he wants to be in a fab or whether he wants to go into a completely different direction. 
 

Part of this is that he can work 3 12hr shifts over the weekend and still have his schedule open during the week for his summer classes. 
 

It’s all still really fluid—just ideas he is tossing about. He has finished his physics and engineering finals and final labs but won’t be done with his math one until tonight so these have mostly just been quick convos.

[Arcadia]

10 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 He missed the summer application window for this summer for internships because he hadn’t planned on this direction.

 

I was thinking of internships instead of working as a wafer tech for the gap year. I wasn’t being clear.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Lab tech was open around January but not now. Neither is great for future career development, but both would resolve whether he can handle a bunny suit and whether he wants to be in a fab or whether he wants to go into a completely different direction. 

I actually got my specialty in IC design and fabrication for my BSEE. I've never worked in exactly that field. So, if he is sure about EE just not the exact specialty I don't think it maters so much for a bachelors. My first job I did power supply control systems (then got my MSEE in control theory and did a project in Micro Inverters); then changed jobs to work in electromagnetics. So don't stress too much about the specialty go with what looks interesting in class. Usually PhDs specialty are in the jobs they get, but I feel like the bachelors and masters are not always. 

4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

He knows he loves math, hates dealing with people, and is still trying careers on mentally.

Totally the reason I chose EE when I was 17 too. Those are great reasons. Although as an engineer you do at some point have to "deal with people", especially as you move up in rank.