Nearly every EE I graduated with, including me, had to give up on our dream of being a hardware engineer because nearly zero hardware companies will hire an EE grad from a mid-level school. They either refuse to hire new grads or only recruit at CMU/Purdue job fairs.

Then you take a software job that's available but not interesting, and you get pidgeonholed into that field. It's not retail but it doesn't seem great for EEs who didn't go to a top-10 school. I'd be very interested to hear any other EE grad's perspective though.

I'm an EE that went to a mid-level state school and got a hardware engineering job out of school; I got lucky that there was a hardware company in town that did a lot of hiring from my school. I had a similar experience applying to other companies before I graduated though, the company I eventually started working for was the only one to ever give me a call back and I think that was only because I was already working there as a software engineering intern ;)

This is absolutely true which is why I went back and got a masters from CMU.

How'd you like it/would you recommend it? I've heard really good things about that program specifically, other than it can be hard to graduate from it.

It is as hard as you want to make it. You have near absolute freedom in the classes you choose to take. I would say it was definitely a worthwhile experience.

It’s a fair point, but colleges also adjust program sizes based on what students chose to study. Just compare CS graduates in 1990 and how fast that grew and shrunk over time.

Not to nitpick but it's spelled "college"