The Anxious Freshman Going To Georgia Tech Thread

[beer]

Originally posted by: Mookow

College is entirely what you get from it. How do you know you're going to make it through CompE in the first place? Most of the executives that I see (the guys making $250K a year) were neither engineers nor MIT grads. MIT grads lack social skills. Four years of living with people who never leave flourescent lighting will do that to you.

Get over yourself.

Word. Do you really want to be that nerd who still hasnt gotten laid by the time he is 40, still living with his parents, but, hey, his 401K looking nice?

Hey, if you really want to do chip design, go for it. But try to get a life while you're at GT. Find a kegger. Get laid. Go rappelling off a school parking garage. Quit trying to control your entire life. Give up a little control, go for it. DO SOMETHING. Successfully complete OPERATION: GROW SACK at some point.

Very good point. Also the US News Ratings are bullsh!t. You probably don't even know how they tally the results - how do you KNOW that Stanford is a better school than Georgia Tech? What if they emphasize 'money spent per student' (which is directly relational to admissions fees) and not 'professor research experience'?

FURTHERMORE, you say:

That's not a lot of companies, less than 30 in all. I just feel that head to head, if I had a graduate from Georgia Tech vs a graduate from CalTech, Berkeley, or Stanford, I would hire the California graduate.

You're not in HR. YOu have never taken a class in HR. If hiring employees was all about test results they wouldn't give you profile analysis sheets, they'd ask for your SAT score.

Again, it's funny how you seem to think you can judge the mindset of how everyone else sees you, without actually knowing a damn about what they're looking for!

Sorry to be harsh...you need to be put in your place.

 

[AsukaStrikes]

How many companies can there be developing this stuff? IBM, Intel, AMD, ALi, SiS, VIA, nVidia, ATI, TI, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and maybe 15 more. That's not a lot of companies, less than 30 in all. I just feel that head to head, if I had a graduate from Georgia Tech vs a graduate from CalTech, Berkeley, or Stanford, I would hire the California graduate.

dont worry, if this economy keeps up, they wont be hiring, ever

 

[Kipper]

It's all up to the match with the student. I wanted to go to Carnegie-Mellon and major in CS, got rejected. Same story with Cornell Engineering. I ended up at William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Surprise. I ditched CS after three months in the intro course. I'll be declaring a Philosophy major at the end of the next semester.

Surprise! I'm at a liberal arts college/university instead of an Engineering school. Worked out perfectly for me. As far as I'm concerned, the rankings can suck it. I wouldn't like to be anywhere else than where I am now.

 

[Mani]

Originally posted by: qIat
I hate Georgia Tech so much. I hate it for not being a better school. I hate being in Ohio so that I was too far away to go to any of the California schools. I hate it all.

I'm an incoming freshman to Georgia Tech. I will be a CompE major. I want to design processors, be they CPU, GPU, or DSP. However, I imagine the market for this is quite small. How many companies can there be developing this stuff? IBM, Intel, AMD, ALi, SiS, VIA, nVidia, ATI, TI, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and maybe 15 more. That's not a lot of companies, less than 30 in all. I just feel that head to head, if I had a graduate from Georgia Tech vs a graduate from CalTech, Berkeley, or Stanford, I would hire the California graduate.

I would work for my uncle's companies (he's on the IEEE board, used to work for IBM, now has 2 startups: Freedb and Dynago) if it weren't for the fact they are software companies (don't ask me how software + IEEE go together, I have no idea)

Of course, this is all assuming I don't go to graduate school, which is kind of silly, since a Ph.D is basically required for what I want to do.

In that case...I suppose Georgia Tech is a good stepping stone to MIT.

How many people are there that want to do this stuff? I imagine there aren't too many employables, but then again, the market doesn't seem that large either.

BTW, in the US News Undergraduate Engineering rankings, Stanford, Berkeley, and CalTech are #2-4, respectively.

Georgia Tech is #6.

It's always funny to see how arrogant HS grads are when going into college, it always proves to be a humbling experience for them in the end. You'll see what I mean soon enough.

Regardless, if what you want to do chip design, that's a pretty broad field. There's plenty of jobs available. I graduated out of Umich late last year and almost every VLSI/DSP guy I knew got employed straight out of college, even in this crappy economy. The only thing is, you'll be another dime-a-dozen wanna-be chip designer. There's tons of you out there, with this notion that it's a glorious field where you'll be designing intel's next chip architecture or Nvidia's Geforce 9. In reality, unless you have years of experience and probably a PhD, the best thing you'll get to design would be a mux, or maybe part of a register if you're lucky. Many "chip design" jobs end up being mundane layout work, where you get to tinker around in CAD at all hours drawing bus lines and connecting dots. Oh, and not to mention lots of verilog and/or assembly coding. I'm speaking from experience here, I've taken VSLI and DSP design courses, both held in very high esteem by the companies you listed at our university.

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
if you're live in the dorms, why should it matter how far away the school is from your home?

The problem lies in the cost of transportation to and from California each year, including breaks. That's basically the only reason I didn't apply. How big of a problem is it? According to my FAFSET, my expected family contribution is $3,000 and change each year. The only reason I'm able to go to Georgia Tech instead of Ohio State is they gave me a fairly decent amount of money.

Originally posted by: Mani
It's always funny to see how arrogant HS grads are when going into college, it always proves to be a humbling experience for them in the end. You'll see what I mean soon enough.

Regardless, if what you want to do chip design, that's a pretty broad field. There's plenty of jobs available. I graduated out of Umich late last year and almost every VLSI/DSP guy I knew got employed straight out of college, even in this crappy economy. The only thing is, you'll be another dime-a-dozen wanna-be chip designer. There's tons of you out there, with this notion that it's a glorious field where you'll be designing intel's next chip architecture or Nvidia's Geforce 9. In reality, unless you have years of experience and probably a PhD, the best thing you'll get to design would be a mux, or maybe part of a register if you're lucky. Many "chip design" jobs end up being mundane layout work, where you get to tinker around in CAD at all hours drawing bus lines and connecting dots. Oh, and not to mention lots of verilog and/or assembly coding. I'm speaking from experience here, I've taken VSLI and DSP design courses, both held in very high esteem by the companies you listed at our university.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm being arrogant...simply dissappointed that I didn't go to a better school (although I didn't even apply to the Cali schools). Of course, my perspective is probably entirely skewed. As for getting my ass put in its place, I expect that it won't be easy. However, in my course of taking university classes (at the school with the #2 composite engineering program in the country and at a typical Divison 1 school) it certainly has been tougher than high school courses, but nothing I couldn't handle. The way I see it, I'm still a math whore, and I can do whatever gets thrown my way. As long as I can stay awake in class

And by our university am I to assume you are a grad student at Georgia Tech?

I don't think Georgia Tech is a bad school. I'm just in a bit of a transitional crisis right now and I always thought I'd be going to Stanford for school (I was a reasonably rounded high school student). Although Stanford seems to be more of a liberal arts school than an engineering one, and in my opinion, I would rank Georgia Tech above Stanford in the engineering department.

And yes, I've mellowed out quite a bit in the last 18 hours.

 

[flot]

Have fun at Tech. It's gonna chew you up and spit you out.

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: flot
Have fun at Tech. It's gonna chew you up and spit you out.

I certainly hope so. I don't want to waste 5 years of my life sitting around doing nothing

(*5 years because I'm planning to co-op)

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: qIat

Originally posted by: gotsmack
if you're live in the dorms, why should it matter how far away the school is from your home?

The problem lies in the cost of transportation to and from California each year, including breaks. That's basically the only reason I didn't apply. How big of a problem is it? According to my FAFSET, my expected family contribution is $3,000 and change each year. The only reason I'm able to go to Georgia Tech instead of Ohio State is they gave me a fairly decent amount of money.

Originally posted by: Mani
It's always funny to see how arrogant HS grads are when going into college, it always proves to be a humbling experience for them in the end. You'll see what I mean soon enough.

Regardless, if what you want to do chip design, that's a pretty broad field. There's plenty of jobs available. I graduated out of Umich late last year and almost every VLSI/DSP guy I knew got employed straight out of college, even in this crappy economy. The only thing is, you'll be another dime-a-dozen wanna-be chip designer. There's tons of you out there, with this notion that it's a glorious field where you'll be designing intel's next chip architecture or Nvidia's Geforce 9. In reality, unless you have years of experience and probably a PhD, the best thing you'll get to design would be a mux, or maybe part of a register if you're lucky. Many "chip design" jobs end up being mundane layout work, where you get to tinker around in CAD at all hours drawing bus lines and connecting dots. Oh, and not to mention lots of verilog and/or assembly coding. I'm speaking from experience here, I've taken VSLI and DSP design courses, both held in very high esteem by the companies you listed at our university.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm being arrogant...simply dissappointed that I didn't go to a better school (although I didn't even apply to the Cali schools). Of course, my perspective is probably entirely skewed. As for getting my ass put in its place, I expect that it won't be easy. However, in my course of taking university classes (at the school with the #2 composite engineering program in the country and at a typical Divison 1 school) it certainly has been tougher than high school courses, but nothing I couldn't handle. The way I see it, I'm still a math whore, and I can do whatever gets thrown my way. As long as I can stay awake in class

And by our university am I to assume you are a grad student at Georgia Tech?

I don't think Georgia Tech is a bad school. I'm just in a bit of a transitional crisis right now and I always thought I'd be going to Stanford for school (I was a reasonably rounded high school student). Although Stanford seems to be more of a liberal arts school than an engineering one, and in my opinion, I would rank Georgia Tech above Stanford in the engineering department.

And yes, I've mellowed out quite a bit in the last 18 hours.

LOL. had the same attitude when I went to college. I was considered one of the brightest at my high school. Everyone "knew" I was going to do well in college. Guess what. I took the same attitude you did into college. Never in my life had I struggled with Math or any course for that matter. I ended up with a 1.33 GPA after my freshman year. Wanna know why? I took the same approach as in high school. I figured that I could pass the classes without any extra work. That sure as hell didn't work. You need to realize that college is a whole different ball game and it doesn't matter how smart you are or what you did in high school. It matters how much work you put into it.

 

[SirDante]

I bought the textbooks a few weeks before Midterms and did fine. Didn't go to most classes. The key is to finding out what the easy classes/profs are. And not being stupid. This applies to liberal arts but not sciences...Sciences you have to be both smart and hard working....right? 3.8, Poli Sci at CAL which means absolutely nothing in the real world.

Now grad school = forced curves in ALL my classes =

 

[quirky]

you seem like you are more concerned with rankings and how ppl percieve of you than genuinely and modestly bettering yourself through education. quite obvoiusly the problem is not georgia tech, its you.

edit: your sig reinforces my belief that you are a snotty little brat

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: quirky
you seem like you are more concerned with rankings and how ppl percieve of you than genuinely and modestly bettering yourself through education. quite obvoiusly the problem is not georgia tech, its you.

edit: your sig reinforces my belief that you are a snotty little brat

Actually, my sig refers to my s/n on Hard|OCP forums. People often are skeptical that I am the real qlat.

If you want to know why this even matters, make a post on Hard|Forums asking who qlat is.

/edit

And it's not a matter of me being concerned with rankings. I'm just...unsure as to the calibre of the engineering program at Tech. That's all. Considering the field I would like to go into and the work involved in that field, I'm not going for glamour or glory in any way.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: qIat

Originally posted by: quirky
you seem like you are more concerned with rankings and how ppl percieve of you than genuinely and modestly bettering yourself through education. quite obvoiusly the problem is not georgia tech, its you.

edit: your sig reinforces my belief that you are a snotty little brat

Actually, my sig refers to my s/n on Hard|OCP forums. People often are skeptical that I am the real qlat.

If you want to know why this even matters, make a post on Hard|Forums asking who qlat is.

/edit

And it's not a matter of me being concerned with rankings. I'm just...unsure as to the calibre of the engineering program at Tech. That's all. Considering the field I would like to go into and the work involved in that field, I'm not going for glamour or glory in any way.

I graduated from Clemson University which is in the ACC with Ga Tech. Clemson is not as good an engineering school as Ga Tech but it is indeed a very good school. I have many friends that graduated with a Comp E. degrees or EE degrees. One of them turned down and offer from the NSA. Another turned down and offer from Intel. Both of these guys could go to any grad school they wanted coming out of Clemson.

You are too concerned about Ga Tech not being good enough for you but I think the opposite might be true because you seem to be an idiot if you think that just because a college is in Cali that it is better.

 

[beer]

I find it convenient how you have yet to answer anything I have asked you in any one of my numerous responses.

 

[cmdavid]

I just finished my 2nd year at Georgia Tech.. if you've got any questions let me know.. believe me there are a lot of people who feel the same way you do.. but believe it or not, Tech is ranked up there when it comes to most undergraduate and graduate engineering majors... its ranked in the top 10 for many of the majors... rankings according to US News... and this is for overalll...
Ranked 2nd for Aerospace/aeronautical
Ranked 8th for Biomedical.. which may I add only started 2 years ago...
Ranked 12th for Chemical Engineering
Ranked 3rd for Civil Engineering
Ranked 12th for Computer Engineering.. not the best, but still decent.. especially for the in-state price... too bad you're not paying in-state
Ranked 7th for Electrical
Ranked 6th for Environmental
Ranked 1st for Industrial
Ranked 10th for materials
Ranked 5th for Mechanical.. (my major)

overall its a decent school.. but you better be ready to work hard.. its not a walk in the park, even for valedictorians and 1500+ SAT scorers.... bottom line, it isnt high school.. you're gonna get fed up w/ how they run things..

and if you wanna talk about graduate rankings.. georgia tech is #4 overall....... ranked higher than Cal Tech, but not berkeley or stanford, or MIT...

ok, thats enough boasting about georgia tech for now.. and yes i know, these are only the US News rankings but people do look at these things...

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: Elemental007
I find it convenient how you have yet to answer anything I have asked you in any one of my numerous responses.

These questions?

Originally posted by: Elemental007
College is entirely what you get from it. How do you know you're going to make it through CompE in the first place? Most of the executives that I see (the guys making $250K a year) were neither engineers nor MIT grads. MIT grads lack social skills. Four years of living with people who never leave flourescent lighting will do that to you.

Get over yourself.

Originally posted by: Elemental007
Very good point. Also the US News Ratings are bullsh!t. You probably don't even know how they tally the results - how do you KNOW that Stanford is a better school than Georgia Tech? What if they emphasize 'money spent per student' (which is directly relational to admissions fees) and not 'professor research experience'?

FURTHERMORE, you say:

That's not a lot of companies, less than 30 in all. I just feel that head to head, if I had a graduate from Georgia Tech vs a graduate from CalTech, Berkeley, or Stanford, I would hire the California graduate.

You're not in HR. YOu have never taken a class in HR. If hiring employees was all about test results they wouldn't give you profile analysis sheets, they'd ask for your SAT score.

Again, it's funny how you seem to think you can judge the mindset of how everyone else sees you, without actually knowing a damn about what they're looking for!

Sorry to be harsh...you need to be put in your place.

One would assume the questions to be rhetorical, but if you really want me to answer them, as you apparently do, I have no problem obliging.

do you know you're going to make it through CompE in the first place?

I don't know that I'm going to make it through CompE, I also don't know that I'll be alive tomorrow. But there's not reason to believe that I won't be alive tomorrow, and there's no reason for me to believe I won't make it through CompE.

Most of the executives that I see (the guys making $250K a year) were neither engineers nor MIT grads.

I'm not in it for the money. If I wanted to be in it for the money, I would've become a programmer. I also don't want to be an executive. I want to do the actual R&D. Executives usually aren't MIT grads as you say because the MIT grads are doing the actual work.

Also the US News Ratings are bullsh!t. You probably don't even know how they tally the results - how do you KNOW that Stanford is a better school than Georgia Tech? What if they emphasize 'money spent per student' (which is directly relational to admissions fees) and not 'professor research experience'?

I agree that ratings are often skewed, and that many excellent schools refuse to participate in such rankings. Nonetheless, it's still something to nag at me. As for Stanford being a better school than GT, I have already addressed that:

I don't think Georgia Tech is a bad school. I'm just in a bit of a transitional crisis right now and I always thought I'd be going to Stanford for school (I was a reasonably rounded high school student). Although Stanford seems to be more of a liberal arts school than an engineering one, and in my opinion, I would rank Georgia Tech above Stanford in the engineering department.

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: Codewiz

You are too concerned about Ga Tech not being good enough for you but I think the opposite might be true because you seem to be an idiot if you think that just because a college is in Cali that it is better.

"Not being good enough" for me doesn't exactly have the proper connotation as to how I feel. "Not the best facilitator of learning and productivity" has the connotation I would prefer.

And I refer to Stanford, CalTech and Berkeley as "Cali schools" because they are the big 3 California engineering schools. I am by no means saying a school located in California is better than a school located elsewhere, especially one school in Massachussettes.

 

[Azraele]

Sounds to me like you are assuming an awful lot for an incoming freshman. If you feel the same way next year come back and rant.

BTW, a large part of life is what you make of it, not what school you went to.

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: Azraele
Sounds to me like you are assuming an awful lot for an incoming freshman. If you feel the same way next year come back and rant.

BTW, a large part of life is what you make of it, not what school you went to.

I am assuming a lot for someone who hasn't taken a single class at the school yet, but anxiety is unavoidable, y'know?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: sandigga
I just finished my 2nd year at Georgia Tech.. if you've got any questions let me know.. believe me there are a lot of people who feel the same way you do.. but believe it or not, Tech is ranked up there when it comes to most undergraduate and graduate engineering majors... its ranked in the top 10 for many of the majors... rankings according to US News... and this is for overalll...
Ranked 2nd for Aerospace/aeronautical
Ranked 8th for Biomedical.. which may I add only started 2 years ago...
Ranked 12th for Chemical Engineering
Ranked 3rd for Civil Engineering
Ranked 12th for Computer Engineering.. not the best, but still decent.. especially for the in-state price... too bad you're not paying in-state
Ranked 7th for Electrical
Ranked 6th for Environmental
Ranked 1st for Industrial
Ranked 10th for materials
Ranked 5th for Mechanical.. (my major)

overall its a decent school.. but you better be ready to work hard.. its not a walk in the park, even for valedictorians and 1500+ SAT scorers.... bottom line, it isnt high school.. you're gonna get fed up w/ how they run things..

and if you wanna talk about graduate rankings.. georgia tech is #4 overall....... ranked higher than Cal Tech, but not berkeley or stanford, or MIT...

ok, thats enough boasting about georgia tech for now.. and yes i know, these are only the US News rankings but people do look at these things...

Thank you, Chris! Tech has a GREAT rep for engineering, but it also has a pretty good business school too. The Dupree College of Management is ranked in the top 20 in the US.

If you think that GA Tech is a walk-in-the-park compared to those other, "name-brand" schools, think again. 85% of in-state Tech freshmen lose their HOPE scholarship after their first year. You will call home several times your first year, crying to your mom because you got your first "D" or "F" in a class. The second that you treat Tech lightly is the day that it eats you for breakfast. You have to struggle to keep up from day #1! Did you know that the average GPA is only a 2.7? Did you know that most struggle to make a 3.0, the minimum GPA required for the Dean's List? Did you know that it takes an average of 5 years to graduate with some needing as many as 6-8 years? Did you know that GA Tech is home to one of the best and largest Christian Campus ministries in the world? (A lot of people seek refuge at GT CCF.)

Not only are the academics hard, but the campus is just crazy competitive. You compete for on-campus housing after your first year, you compete for a parking space; dealing with academics is sometimes the easy part compared to all the other crap. No, Tech is certainly no party school. Yes, the male to female ratio is 3:1, and those women who are h0t are usually complete biatches too. We call this TBS or Tech Biatch Syndrome. Yes, many of the students are nerdy introverts. (This is good if you like to play CS.)

Did you know that GA Tech is home to the largest optional co-op program in the country? You can get a co-op job with anyone from Delta Air Lines to Coca Cola, from Intel to AMD, from SIEMENS to Motorola, from Honda to BMW. Did you also know that Tech's yearly Fall career/job fair is the largest in the country for a college or university with hundreds of companies in attendance?

If nothing else, GA Tech does prepare you for the real world. It's certainly not always fun or fair, but that's just life. If you do well at Tech, you can certainly get into any grad. school and into just about any company for that matter.

 

[Azraele]

I am assuming a lot for someone who hasn't taken a single class at the school yet, but anxiety is unavoidable, y'know?

I know, but try to relax.

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: sandigga
I just finished my 2nd year at Georgia Tech.. if you've got any questions let me know.. believe me there are a lot of people who feel the same way you do.. but believe it or not, Tech is ranked up there when it comes to most undergraduate and graduate engineering majors... its ranked in the top 10 for many of the majors... rankings according to US News... and this is for overalll...
Ranked 2nd for Aerospace/aeronautical
Ranked 8th for Biomedical.. which may I add only started 2 years ago...
Ranked 12th for Chemical Engineering
Ranked 3rd for Civil Engineering
Ranked 12th for Computer Engineering.. not the best, but still decent.. especially for the in-state price... too bad you're not paying in-state
Ranked 7th for Electrical
Ranked 6th for Environmental
Ranked 1st for Industrial
Ranked 10th for materials
Ranked 5th for Mechanical.. (my major)

overall its a decent school.. but you better be ready to work hard.. its not a walk in the park, even for valedictorians and 1500+ SAT scorers.... bottom line, it isnt high school.. you're gonna get fed up w/ how they run things..

and if you wanna talk about graduate rankings.. georgia tech is #4 overall....... ranked higher than Cal Tech, but not berkeley or stanford, or MIT...

ok, thats enough boasting about georgia tech for now.. and yes i know, these are only the US News rankings but people do look at these things...

Thank you, Chris! Tech has a GREAT rep for engineering, but it also has a pretty good business school too. The Dupree College of Management is ranked in the top 20 in the US.

If you think that GA Tech is a walk-in-the-park compared to those other, "name-brand" schools, think again. 85% of in-state Tech freshmen lose their HOPE scholarship after their first year. You will call home several times your first year, crying to your mom because you got your first "D" or "F" in a class. The second that you treat Tech lightly is the day that it eats you for breakfast. You have to struggle to keep up from day #1! Did you know that the average GPA is only a 2.7? Did you know that most struggle to make a 3.0, the minimum GPA required for the Dean's List? Did you know that it takes an average of 5 years to graduate with some needing as many as 6-8 years?

Not only are the academics hard, but the campus is just crazy competitive. You compete for on-campus housing after your first year, you compete for a parking space; dealing with academics is sometimes the easy part compared to all the other crap. No, Tech is certainly no party school. Yes, the male to female ratio is 3:1, and those women who are h0t are usually complete biatches too. We call this TBS or Tech Biatch Syndrome. Yes, many of the students are nerdy introverts. (This is good if you like to play CS.)

Did you know that GA Tech is home to the largest optional co-op program in the country? You can get a co-op job with anyone from Delta Air Lines to Coca Cola, from Intel to AMD, from SIEMENS to Motorola, from Honda to BMW. Did you also know that Tech's yearly Fall career/job fair is the largest in the country for a college or university with hundreds of companies in attendance?

If nothing else, GA Tech does prepare you for the real world. It's certainly not always fun or fair, but that's just life. If you do well at Tech, you can certainly get into any grad. school and into just about any company for that matter.

Well, someone who is supportively critical. Muchas gracias.

I would like to see the survey data for that GPA information. Trust me, I believe you, I would just like to see a breakdown and within which groups the GPA numbers fall.

As for everything being competitive, I've heard all too often from all too many people "Tech will screw you over in ways you couldn't imagine". So I expect to get screwed over. At least it'll be old hat.

As for the co-op program, I filled out my application today, gonna drop it off at the co-op office when I get on campus. However, I would think that if you wanted to do undergrad research your junior and senior years, co-oping would conflict with the research. Is this true?

 

[GTaudiophile]

As for the co-op program, I filled out my application today, gonna drop it off at the co-op office when I get on campus. However, I would think that if you wanted to do undergrad research your junior and senior years, co-oping would conflict with the research. Is this true?


No. You can "burn" major-specific elective requirements by taking Independent Research classes with professors. You can do this during your "school" semester as opposed to your "work" or co-op semester. You can still study abroad too as a co-op. Simply take classes at Georgia Tech Lorraine in France (or any other program: LBAT, Oxford, Brussels, Pacific Rim) during one of your summer "school" semesters.

Things you can't do as a co-op: take any semester-long breaks during summer. As a co-op who has not yet finished his minimum of four work rotations, you have to be either in school or at your co-op job. You also cannot be a freshmen peer leader (PL) or community advisor (CA) as a co-op.

[I added another link to my previous post that may be of interest.]

 

[Spac3d]

GTaudiophile: I am glad at least you mentioned TBS. I didn't learn it till the second week it became very clear that TBS is rampant and does exist. The girls are nice for 1 week...

I still don't know how the management school is ranked top 20 - I trasnferred from GA Tech to switch to business and I have had to interview people in the field for one of my classes and they do not regard GA Tech as a reputable business school at all....

M-Train is not local to tech, some people in Ohio have heard about M-train.... its what all the athletes take at tech (or at least the ones that stick around). You know all about the M-Train... I would disagree with those other rankings, but don't make Dupree sound like its reputable.

I would have liked to bring out the rankings from PrincetonReview.com where it bashes GA Tech... but they are preparing 2003's rankings and I cannot find 2002

Spac3d

 

[qIat]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
As for the co-op program, I filled out my application today, gonna drop it off at the co-op office when I get on campus. However, I would think that if you wanted to do undergrad research your junior and senior years, co-oping would conflict with the research. Is this true?


No. You can "burn" major-specific elective requirements by taking Independent Research classes with professors. You can do this during your "school" semester as opposed to your "work" or co-op semester. You can still study abroad too as a co-op. Simply take classes at Georgia Tech Lorraine in France (or any other program: LBAT, Oxford, Brussels, Pacific Rim) during one of your summer "school" semesters.

Things you can't do as a co-op: take any semester-long breaks during summer. As a co-op who has not yet finished his minimum of four work rotations, you have to be either in school or at your co-op job. You also cannot be a freshmen peer leader (PL) or community advisor (CA) as a co-op.

[I added another link to my previous post that may be of interest.]

Okay, say I drop my application off on the 16 after FASET, then I go through the whole process, I anticipate beginning my sophomore year. Does this mean that every summer thereon I will have to either work or take classes? Working isn't a problem, that means money. But taking classes could be a problem...no financial aid during the summer=no money to pay for tuition...

/edit

The CCF isn't a consideration of mine. I'm an atheist (lost my faith when I was 13, long story)

 

[SuperTool]

I'm an incoming freshman to Georgia Tech. I will be a CompE major. I want to design processors, be they CPU, GPU, or DSP. However, I imagine the market for this is quite small. How many companies can there be developing this stuff? IBM, Intel, AMD, ALi, SiS, VIA, nVidia, ATI, TI, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and maybe 15 more. That's not a lot of companies, less than 30 in all. I just feel that head to head, if I had a graduate from Georgia Tech vs a graduate from CalTech, Berkeley, or Stanford, I would hire the California graduate.

I didn't go to a CA school, and I got hired fine. Although it's tougher now, because companies don't want to pay for long travel for candidates.
I work for the #2 CPU design house in the world, which you forgot to list up there

I would work for my uncle's companies (he's on the IEEE board, used to work for IBM, now has 2 startups: Freedb and Dynago) if it weren't for the fact they are software companies (don't ask me how software + IEEE go together, I have no idea)

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get. A lot of people start in one field and end up doing something totally different.
A few people at my company have PhD's in physics and are doing CPU design. Other people I know have Ph D's in CS and are working as stock analysts.
A degree in E.E. says that you are smart enough to do just about anything. It doesn't mean that you have to do EE all your life.

Of course, this is all assuming I don't go to graduate school, which is kind of silly, since a Ph.D is basically required for what I want to do.

I have a bachelors degree, I am designing CPUs. I am however the only one without a masters, but masters degree is enough. PhD is an overkill unless you want to work on research.

In that case...I suppose Georgia Tech is a good stepping stone to MIT.

It is, but don't get obsessed with going to MIT. there are plenty of very good EE schools that you might overlook. Wisconsin, ASU, Purdue, UCSD, are all good EE programs depending on what field you wish to pursue. And some of the best engineers I met went to Penn-State or Wisconsin. There are plenty of good schools out there if you want to learn.[/quote]

How many people are there that want to do this stuff? I imagine there aren't too many employables, but then again, the market doesn't seem that large either.

The market is pretty small if you want to do CPU design. There has been a lot of consolidation. There is a few thousand jobs total if you want to do CPU desing. But there are more jobs in ASIC design for communications, etc. Other jobs for wireless, etc. Just learn a lot of stuff. You don't have to worry about it right now, because you won't be choosing your specialty until you are sophomore, but do try to get some internship.

BTW, in the US News Undergraduate Engineering rankings, Stanford, Berkeley, and CalTech are #2-4, respectively.
Georgia Tech is #6.

So stop b!tching. anything in the top 10 for undergrad is good enough as far as I am concerned. Take it easy. Just enjoy your time at school. Do you really want to spend your college years at CalTech? All the CalTech people I know are incredibly smart, but this type of learning environment is not for everyone. Maybe for grad school it's great, but undergrad you want to have a more well rounded education IMO.