Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my career permanently?

Re:Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my ca... by benwr on Saturday May 28, 2011 @07:35PM (#2595461)

I'm very nervous about this. I'm a rising sophomore at Virginia Tech (best in-state engineering school for ECE), and, while it's not a diploma mill, it's also certainly not "top-tier". I wonder whether my job prospects (or, worse, my education) suffer because of it. I take it your advice would be to get moving on the OSS/Company-starting as soon as possible? What other methods might make me a more impressive candidate?

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Re:Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my ca... by rdl on Saturday May 28, 2011 @07:56PM (#2595491)

I really wouldn't worry if you're at Virginia Tech; it's not MIT/Stanford/CMU but for ECE I'd say it's in the top 10 and definitely top 20.

You should do the same thing someone at Stanford would do to be as impressive as possible -- independent projects, maybe try to do a startup, open source, etc.

I think the difference between MIT and Virginia Tech, at least for undergrad, is that the 50th percentile MIT student is going to probably be better than the 50th percentile Virginia Tech student; the 95th percentile at each is going to be very good. Just make sure you're one of the best graduates and anyone reasonable will evaluate you on your merits.

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Re:Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my ca... by SwellJoe on Saturday May 28, 2011 @09:52PM (#2595681)

Virginia Tech is far from a diploma mill or a community college, and is probably on Google's accepted school list. It's not Stanford or Caltech or MIT, but it's not a problem you need to fret about.

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Re:Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my ca... by nostrademons on Sunday May 29, 2011 @03:59AM (#2596250)

Actually, one of the most productive programmers I know at Google is a Virginia Tech alum...

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