Precisely. I actually have another comment to make, though, which is about the impedance mismatch between Engineering School culture and Ivy League culture.
I graduated Caltech in 2005. Caltech may be the best example of a school with extremely high academic standards but mediocre credibility with the "white shoe" crowd. Many of my fellow Caltech alums are descended from parents who are highly educated and moderately affluent, but also immigrants and/or Asian and/or Jewish and/or from less fashionable parts of the US (say, Idaho). On top of that, many of us display personality types most easily described as "geeky."
Caltech alums end up in many industries, but everywhere they tend to converge on rather specialized, analytical work. I know two who went into politics... to do statistics for campaigns. I heard of one that went to law school... and became a patent attorney. The ones in finance tend to do quantitative modeling or computer systems. Many, of course, ended up in private sector R&D (biotech, computer programming, engineering, what-have-you). And about half of us went to grad school, often to pursue a career in academia.
Now one reason for this pattern may be that white-shoe firms are not interested in hiring eccentric geeks as much as they are in attracting "well rounded" Ivy League folks. But an equally important reason is that the eccentric geeks are often not very interested in "white shoe" jobs, or at least don't look down on more specialized work.
That may be hard for the "white shoe" recruiters to understand. I recall talking to an acquaintance for whom being a McKinsey consultant would be the epitomy of career and life success, surpassable only by joining the Dutch foreign service... and who was almost offended at the idea that I was not in the least interested in such prestigious occupations.
I can easily imagine this attitude rubbing the white shoe folks the wrong way. "What, you are actually considering a career in kernel hacking (or genome hacking, or whatever) as a viable alternative to joining our glitzy band of Masters of the Universe? You must be, like, arrogant or something."
I graduated Caltech in 2005. Caltech may be the best example of a school with extremely high academic standards but mediocre credibility with the "white shoe" crowd. Many of my fellow Caltech alums are descended from parents who are highly educated and moderately affluent, but also immigrants and/or Asian and/or Jewish and/or from less fashionable parts of the US (say, Idaho). On top of that, many of us display personality types most easily described as "geeky."
Caltech alums end up in many industries, but everywhere they tend to converge on rather specialized, analytical work. I know two who went into politics... to do statistics for campaigns. I heard of one that went to law school... and became a patent attorney. The ones in finance tend to do quantitative modeling or computer systems. Many, of course, ended up in private sector R&D (biotech, computer programming, engineering, what-have-you). And about half of us went to grad school, often to pursue a career in academia.
Now one reason for this pattern may be that white-shoe firms are not interested in hiring eccentric geeks as much as they are in attracting "well rounded" Ivy League folks. But an equally important reason is that the eccentric geeks are often not very interested in "white shoe" jobs, or at least don't look down on more specialized work.
That may be hard for the "white shoe" recruiters to understand. I recall talking to an acquaintance for whom being a McKinsey consultant would be the epitomy of career and life success, surpassable only by joining the Dutch foreign service... and who was almost offended at the idea that I was not in the least interested in such prestigious occupations.
I can easily imagine this attitude rubbing the white shoe folks the wrong way. "What, you are actually considering a career in kernel hacking (or genome hacking, or whatever) as a viable alternative to joining our glitzy band of Masters of the Universe? You must be, like, arrogant or something."