Thanks for all of the great responses so far! As an added, bonus question, if you don’t mind: How much does what you do now match up with what you studied in school?
Pretty closely, to be honest, but I suspect I’m an outlier.
I work in market research; it’s the field I had chosen by the end of my freshman year at Madison (I had a work-study job in the field). I had stayed at Madison for my master’s degree to help get a job in the field (and, I’d been incredibly fortunate to be already attending one of the few schools which offers a graduate program in market research). I’ve worked at a couple of consumer-products companies, at an advertising agency, and now at a research supplier, but the core of what I’ve done has always been market research.
As far as coursework goes, I had to take a pretty broad assortment of business classes, particularly as an undergrad; while accounting or finance doesn’t come up as often in my day-to-day job, it’s an important foundation for being in business. I also had to take a number of “breadth” courses, as well as electives…while those aren’t really directly applicable to what I do, they definitely helped make me a better-rounded, more “educated” person.
It’s still, by far, the coolest place I’ve ever lived. 
Another Wisconsin grad here. A lot of Big Ten alums here, aren’t there? I love Madison and the UW, played baseball for the school, and support it in every way. That said, it is huge and it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. I don’t keep in touch with many old classmates at all. We all moved on pretty quickly. Those that I still talk with all live out of state. One is in Portland, one in Maine, and another in Sydney, Australia.
I majored in Meteorology but never worked a day as a meteorologist. I became fascinated with the technology world that was exploding at the time (Mid 80’s) and got into tech sales. It was a good move.
My oldest is at Colorado, and to be honest I would go there if I had to do it again. The school and the town are smaller, and CU students rule the town. Madison is the state capitol and that competes for attention. Boulder has all four seasons, but winter is a lot shorter and a hell of a lot warmer. My kid is loving life and getting a great education. A CU prof won the Nobel Prize in Physics last year.
In 1942, right after the Japanese forces captured Bataan and Corregidor, in the Philippines, all young Filipino military officers were rounded up and interrogated for possible inclusion into the Japanese armed forces. One question asked to all of them was, “Who in your opinion is the greatest living Filipino?” A loaded question; meant to test their loyalty. The two main choices where President Manuel Quezon, who fled to the US; and chief justice Jose Laurel, who was appointed President by the Japanese military. So, is it the president in exile or the president under the Japanese occupation?
One young officer answered, “The greatest living Filipino is my father, Vidal Tan.” When asked who his father was, he answered, “Dean of engineering, University of the Philippines.”
I went to the University of Central Florida. It’s really, really big.
You’re a civil engineer, right? Was Newmark still around when you attended?
Another Big Ten alum here: undergrad and M.A. from Michigan State, most of a doctorate from OSU.
For undergrad, I’d recommend MSU over OSU because I think they do a better job of giving you a feeling of belonging. There are several excellent residential colleges, it’s a gorgeous campus, lots of strong programs.
The town has less character and variety than Ann Arbor and it’s more of a party school (so is OSU, for that matter), but I think both of those aspects aren’t all that relevant since there are always interesting things on campus and she’ll find friends who share her interests and type of partying no matter where she goes.
The other really marvelous thing about MSU is the variety and number of international programs. I participated in 3 different programs, 2 as an undergrad and one as a grad. From what I can tell, international programs have only gotten better and more varied over time.
In my opinion, your undergrad degree isn’t too meaningful anymore unless you’re in a very specialized, technical field. In most situations, you’re going to need a graduate degree to really get into a career track.
And sometimes, as in my case, your academics and career aren’t directly related. I’m one of many liberal arts types who wound up in business analysis/ project management/ etc. I use skills I learned in college every day, however (editing, analyzing, writing, etc.).
My recommendation would be for her to think about what programs might interest her, start looking at which schools have solid programs (but also have other programs that might interest her so that she doesn’t have to transfer because they don’t offer her new field of interest).
She should also think about what part of the country (world?) she wants to be in, how big of a school, etc. I agree that campus tours probably have limited value, but they might give you an overview of the school and give you a feel for campus culture. Talking to professors, visiting classes, meeting students in her prospective major at the school would probably be more helpful. (Those last 2 paragraphs aren’t really part of your poll, though, are they?)
Looking forward to hearing about her decision process.
What is she thinking of studying? Schools are usually strong in some subjects while weak in others. I can tell you the U of Hawaii is in the upper grade for horticulture and marine biology, as you would imagine, but also electrical engineering. And IIRC, it offers degree programs in more languages than any other US university.
University of Tulsa was a splendid choice for me. Private college, small classes with faculty devoted to teaching, yet quite affordable, in what I at the time considered a large city. I felt like I got a spendid education, all the benefits of a full college experience with plenty of extracurriculars, on a campus small enough that I could pursue whatever interested me, from student government to radio to newspaper. Very pleasant campus, reasonably cosmopolitan and international. Only drawback was that it doesn’t really have a nationwide reputation, so outside the Southwest people don’t know it or just assume it’s a cow college.
I did my undergraduate work at the University of Toronto.
It is an old school by Canadian standards, being established in 1827. But as far as I was concerned, its age added to its charm. Ivy-covered stone buildings, lots of history, plenty of distinguished alumni, and rumours of a ghost in one of the campus buildings. (Poor guy was killed in a duel over a girl and to get rid of the evidence, his body was walled up in one of the more prominent buildings on campus–his ghost supposedly haunts that building to this day.)
But it was huge. As I recall, there were 40,000 students when I was there. The campus existed in a number of buildings and grounds in downtown Toronto, as well as a couple of satellite campuses in the east and west ends of the city. There were a number of Arts and Science students (I was one) in a number of federated colleges (U of T was built on the Oxford model); as well as Medical, Dental, Law, Engineering, Forestry, Architecture, and Theology students. How to find oneself in such a big and intimidating place?
It was difficult, but I managed. The key, I found, was to get involved in the clubs and activities that were pan-university. For example, I got involved in varsity sports, where my teammates were from all A&S colleges and professional disciplines. I took, just for fun, art classes offered by the student centre; and again, I got to know all kinds of people from across all disciplines. I got to know certain members of the faculty; and so (among other treats), I could spend frosty February afternoons sipping coffee among the palm trees of the Botany building’s greenhouse. For all that it seemed big, scary, and impersonal when I began my studies; by the time I was finished, I had fallen in love with it. It was my home.
Perhaps it still is. I always visit the campus when I am back in Toronto. I visit the places I knew so well, and find that they have little changed–but enough change has occurred to let me know time is passing. I can still find my name on the wall, as a varsity athlete, though many have come since. I get some coffee from the place where I got so many coffees as an undergraduate, and I go outside, and watch the campus go by. Though it has been ages since I was a student, it is nice to find that I still have a home at U of T.
Sam, while I am asking for our edification, I didn’t really want to make this thread specifically about her needs since I thought the answers here might then be useful to a broader audience. Anyway, I think in a lot of respects she’s pretty wide open right now, and this is okay, IMHO.
UW-Madison from '89 to '93 here.
Massive school but my department was small. Only six of us graduated in my major that year, yet my academic adviser never seemed to recognize me even though we met every semester and he taught one of my classes!? Classes were so huge that I did not know one of the other students graduating in my major.
My dorm had almost as many residents as there were students that attended my high school. There were two other dorms about the same size within one block. I would only get to really know the 60 or so students living on the same floor of the one tower of my dorm. I had the (mis)fortune of having parents willing to pay for housing but only if I lived on campus (living on campus was such a great experience for them at their small bible college!) so I had four years of dorm life. In that four years, just from our one floor, we had 1 suicide jumper, 2 fires, and 1 flood. Alcoholism and racism were rampant.
Madison is/was liberal to the point of intolerance. There was no option to hear differing viewpoints and be taught to think for yourself. Guest lecturers were shouted down prior to being able to speak if they were known for having a view that countered the campus liberal orthodoxy. And that orthodoxy was dogmatic. Perhaps the earliest sign was during the mandatory orientation sessions during the summer before my freshman year when one of the speakers stood on a chair and shouted to the room, “each and every one of you males are rapists.” She must have forgotten to add, “Welcome to UW.”
Note, my concern is with the dogmatic nature of the learning environment. College should, in my mind, be a place for a student to be exposed to competing ideas. But if only one set of ideas is presented it is an incomplete learning experience. As an example, I would have rather been able to listen to Rabbi Meir Kahane speak and decide for myself what I think of his ideas, even if I end up thinking he was full of shit. Instead he was shouted down and threatened.
Social scene provided numerous opportunities, some of which did not revolve around getting blind drunk. I sometimes say the most important things I learned in college were scuba diving, juggling, sailing, and rollerblading. I’ve used those skills more than my degree. That said, I did use my degree for one year.
I would hope things have changed for the better over the last 20 years. Not sure they have.
In my case, the undergrad degree ( Chemistry ) does not really apply to my current job responsibilities. My graduate studies ( Petroleum Engineering and Geophysics ) are more applicable to what I am doing today. I suspect that is the case for many people.
I went to Purdue like someone else above and I loved it. It is a large school with all the resources and advantages that entails but after making some friends, it feels small so you get the best of both worlds. I met so many people I never would have met otherwise. I didn’t end up getting a career in what I studied but I never regretted my time there for a second.
I attended U. T. Austin for two years, wound up graduating from Texas State University in San Marcos (before the name change; back then, it was Southwest Texas State University).
I loved it. Great campus, great instructors, great students. The degree plan that I graduated under was exactly what I needed for my career and I have beaten that degree into three trips around the world.
No worries. Onemore thing: It’s difficult to imagine finding a more multicultural environment than the community of the U of Hawaii.
Nope, Computer Science. Hung around in the old, original DCL.
It matches up in the sense that I’m still working with computers. But nearly everything I learned in college is obsolete now, and most stuff I work on now did not exist back then. I did a massive specialty shift when I left grad school because I thought the area I had worked on was dying (I was right) and have done several similar ones since.
A lot of companies want colleges to teach the specific stuff that the company needs today. Resist any college falling for this. A kid needs to learn the basics of the field, and how to learn more and teach himself.
I studied psychology in the late eighties in the Netherlands, Utrecht.
The college was absolute atrocious. There was no numerus fixus, so 800 students were crammed in a college room to attend a lecture. The smaller work groups were taught by students that had less then five years on us. to save money. The books were bad. The guidance was pretty much non-existent. The organisation of the courses changed every three months or so and no-one understood it.
They gave out degrees to cover it all up, but all the people who graduated with me know how worthless that piece of paper is.