ILX SANDBOX PRETENTIOUS NON-IVY PRIVATE COLLEGE FUXX THREAD

Maybe this time will be different...

My husband was an English major in college. The job he has is a direct result of his student work job in the college's computing center.

*Fun Fact: Deej's alma mater

KIDDING!

Where I do think it seems to matter most is in your first few years out of school (excluding people who go straight to grad school). When I was doing the internship thing in NYC I saw that Columbia, Brown, and even NYU kids had a definite leg up in media jobs.

It wasn't just that the school looked good on paper, it was that their schools were helping them get internships (NYU has a whole office that does this, apparently), and that they had more contacts from school, and they were more likely to have done something fantastic while in school (worked on a documentary film in Senegal or something), although that may have had more to do with the individual's financial means than the school itself. And I guess they generally seemed to be more likely to have "cultural capital." (as opposed to a public where even the very bright students around you are probably less likely to be into French New Wave cinema and hipster literary quarterlies).

I've also heard that the Ivies give you a big leg up in the entry-level finance positions, but that's not to say you can't ultimately work your way into that world starting with a non-Ivy degree.

It depends on the size of the school, I suppose: if you're a really engaged student at a small school, you're likely to wind up with firsthand connections and hand-picked placements into really good starter positions. If you're anything less than engaged at a big enough school -- no matter how good it is -- there's a decent chance you can just plop anonymously out of it; you'd certainly have an edge over those from "lesser" schools when applying for the same jobs, but it might turn out that you're scanning the classifieds where that "lesser" grad already has a clear shot at something better.

This is kind of a long-winded way to say something exceedingly obvious: that where you wind up has a lot to do with what you work for, what opportunities you take, how engaged you are with the whole process. It's just weird to me that those undergrad years seem like a really critical time for that, and yet that's not often talked about. No matter what school you go to, the difference in results between "I go to class, get Bs, go home" and "I'm totally engaged, up in yr office hours, up in yr committees, etc." -- that's gonna be massive.

i've also seen good people get teaching jobs for a year through career services, and then be unable to get another one after that contract runs out.

I went to a new ivy and now work for one. Working for a private university = best deal ever.

xpost my school was TERRIBLE with job placement help outside of the few big firms that recruited there

My fiscal situation demanded that I had to work off-campus back when minimum wage was $3.30 and that's all they were willing to pay for work/study jobs on campus. I didn't want to go to grad school because of the cost involved; besides, in the kind of journalism/belles lettres/whatevs I make my living at people are terribly impressed by my college. It is tiny but full of international, well-connected students and alums and if you think I didn't know that when I chose it, your arse is still bruised from falling off that turnip truck.

Sort of. Except if you're a school with a giant medical center, where their staff gets $400 xmas bonuses, and the lowly academic sides gets a free turkey.