4 ms·

How much worse off is someone going to UMass by your calculation?

jawzz 6y ago
Not the OP, but as I’d say that subjectively speaking, you’re better off going to MIT, but only if you have the passion and drive to succeed at a place like that (which you probably do if you got into MIT). But for Boston College, Boston University, or Northeastern? You’re probably going to end up paying more than MIT and get an education that’s indistinguishable from UMass, quite possibly worse in some respects. What people have been saying in this thread is not incorrect (though should be nuanced): the ivy leagues are worth it for the caliber of the student body and reputation; otherwise, go to a (Tier 1) public school. Unless, of course, you don’t want to and can easily afford otherwise.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  Maybe I should be more clear - I didn't go to a Tier1 public school, didn't get into an elite school, how screwed am I?
  - borski 6y ago
    You're fine. There are a ton of reasons MIT and UMass Amherst would help, but they are not for everybody, and I saw plenty of folks struggle at MIT and gain nothing out of it (even not graduating). What matters a lot more than the name of the institution on your degree is experience; getting that experience may be a bit tougher at a small school (you don't have FAANGs or huge biotech firms recruiting there), but it is certainly not impossible. Three of the last four engineers I hired had no formal CS degree (but they had gone to bootcamps).
- thehappypm 6y ago
  BC, BU, and Northeastern are all excellent schools. Boston is a weird place.. any of those three schools would be a top tier private school in just about any other city in the country, but in Boston they're seen as second tier just because of the ludicrously good schools in Massachusetts. They're all in the top 50 according to US News.
- bsder 6y ago
  > Northeastern Isn't Northeastern still a big cooperative education school? I assure you that those of us in engineering know the difference between a student with work experience and one with only academic experience.
lumost 6y ago
Umass opens doors, MIT opens more - in 2010 when I graduated, my friends who went to MIT and did ok landed at 90k/yr in comp-sci fields, my friends from Umass who did ok made 40-70k in comp-sci fields. Given that everyone was living in Boston post-graduation and the base CoL is somewhere between 40 and 50k per year. The MIT folks had somewhere between 2 and 20x the disposable income at graduation. Meaning their debt burden was much lower.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  A huge fraction of the college educated people in MA have been to Umass. It's not an exclusive club. Umnass opens doors in MA the way smoking pot makes it easier to make friends in college. You instantly have some token thing in common with a sizeable minority of the people around you and that gets you a head start on developing relationships.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  Maybe I should be more clear - I didn't go to a Tier1 public school, didn't get into an elite school, how screwed am I?
  - lumost 6y ago
    I specifically mentioned doing 'ok' as a frame of reference. Those who do 'well' in a comp sci program tend to cluster in the top companies straight from college and the top companies only negotiate ~20k on a 150-250k entry level offer. I did ok in college and very well in the private sector. I started as a sysadmin for a small finance company and am now a senior software engineer at Amazon Alexa working on ML for search. Hard work always pays off as long as your in the right field ( comp-sci is a great field ).
  - polka_haunts_us 6y ago
    Let's put it this way. I couldn't find a job out of college, despite having a CS degree. I ended up settling for a very shit job that pays 21 hourly, 40 hours a week. Because the dev team is very small, I ended up with my hands in literally every piece of the programming pie. I put all that info on my resume and took even more lessons from this crap job to interviews in the past couple of weeks, and I just signed an offer from a lucrative tech company for about $140k annually, over a 200% raise. Once you've done something in the industry, almost no one is going to give a hoot about what school you went to, they're going to care about what you've done in the industry, but at the start at least, you may have to settle for something a little shittier.

Not the OP, but as I’d say that subjectively speaking, you’re better off going to MIT, but only if you have the passion and drive to succeed at a place like that (which you probably do if you got into MIT). But for Boston College, Boston University, or Northeastern? You’re probably going to end up paying more than MIT and get an education that’s indistinguishable from UMass, quite possibly worse in some respects. What people have been saying in this thread is not incorrect (though should be nuanced): the ivy leagues are worth it for the caliber of the student body and reputation; otherwise, go to a (Tier 1) public school. Unless, of course, you don’t want to and can easily afford otherwise.

akhilcacharya 6y ago
Maybe I should be more clear - I didn't go to a Tier1 public school, didn't get into an elite school, how screwed am I?
- borski 6y ago
  You're fine. There are a ton of reasons MIT and UMass Amherst would help, but they are not for everybody, and I saw plenty of folks struggle at MIT and gain nothing out of it (even not graduating). What matters a lot more than the name of the institution on your degree is experience; getting that experience may be a bit tougher at a small school (you don't have FAANGs or huge biotech firms recruiting there), but it is certainly not impossible. Three of the last four engineers I hired had no formal CS degree (but they had gone to bootcamps).
thehappypm 6y ago
BC, BU, and Northeastern are all excellent schools. Boston is a weird place.. any of those three schools would be a top tier private school in just about any other city in the country, but in Boston they're seen as second tier just because of the ludicrously good schools in Massachusetts. They're all in the top 50 according to US News.
bsder 6y ago
> Northeastern Isn't Northeastern still a big cooperative education school? I assure you that those of us in engineering know the difference between a student with work experience and one with only academic experience.

lumost 6y ago

Umass opens doors, MIT opens more - in 2010 when I graduated, my friends who went to MIT and did ok landed at 90k/yr in comp-sci fields, my friends from Umass who did ok made 40-70k in comp-sci fields. Given that everyone was living in Boston post-graduation and the base CoL is somewhere between 40 and 50k per year. The MIT folks had somewhere between 2 and 20x the disposable income at graduation. Meaning their debt burden was much lower.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
A huge fraction of the college educated people in MA have been to Umass. It's not an exclusive club. Umnass opens doors in MA the way smoking pot makes it easier to make friends in college. You instantly have some token thing in common with a sizeable minority of the people around you and that gets you a head start on developing relationships.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
Maybe I should be more clear - I didn't go to a Tier1 public school, didn't get into an elite school, how screwed am I?
- lumost 6y ago
  I specifically mentioned doing 'ok' as a frame of reference. Those who do 'well' in a comp sci program tend to cluster in the top companies straight from college and the top companies only negotiate ~20k on a 150-250k entry level offer. I did ok in college and very well in the private sector. I started as a sysadmin for a small finance company and am now a senior software engineer at Amazon Alexa working on ML for search. Hard work always pays off as long as your in the right field ( comp-sci is a great field ).
- polka_haunts_us 6y ago
  Let's put it this way. I couldn't find a job out of college, despite having a CS degree. I ended up settling for a very shit job that pays 21 hourly, 40 hours a week. Because the dev team is very small, I ended up with my hands in literally every piece of the programming pie. I put all that info on my resume and took even more lessons from this crap job to interviews in the past couple of weeks, and I just signed an offer from a lucrative tech company for about $140k annually, over a 200% raise. Once you've done something in the industry, almost no one is going to give a hoot about what school you went to, they're going to care about what you've done in the industry, but at the start at least, you may have to settle for something a little shittier.