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Monday, September 13, 2010

Hard To Top BYU's Final Product. (Or: BYU produces great students.)

BYU is a second tier school in the US News rankings. (And I'm not going to argue they should be ranked any better in that ranking as it is a reflection of what US News values.)

However, when we get past the academic mumble jumbo and find how well BYU does at producing students people in the real world actually wants to hire and employ, it is hard to beat BYU.  The Wall Street Journal polled the US's top employers, corporations, government agencies, etc... and asked them what schools they most wanted to recruit students from to hire.

And the results: BYU is #11 in the nation.

According to the entities polled, the top schools in this poll:

1.  Had the most well rounded students.
2.  Had students who were the most academically prepared.
3.  Had students with the most relevant training for the real world workforce.

So, given BYU was my Alma Mater I must say I am impressed how well the school is preparing students for the real world.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, go BYU!

    Ironically, having a degree from a school that prepares students for the real world, I live in the happy-fairy land that is grad school.

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  2. Hey Nick, that is ironic. That is awesome that BYU is ranked so highly! When I also saw that UIUC is ranked at #3, I also had the thought that I guess the work we are doing now helps to shape this. (I'm just hoping I don't mess things up during the next few years I am here.) Even though we are living in grad-school limbo / la-la land, what we are doing is making the difference for the students that will actually go on to get real jobs. It helps keep things in perspective.

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  3. Well, I'm feeling pretty good about this. Michigan is #6 on the WSJ report, and BYU #11. I guess I should infer from this that people will be knocking on my door to hire me when I'm done. Am I right??

    Seriously though, I don't care what the rankings are, I think BYU does an EXCELLENT job in their undergraduate education. And they should since undergraduate education is the goal of BYU (at least IMHO). I will say, however, that at least in Aerospace, BYU is EXTREMELY well known (I know it sounds strange). The MAGICC lab at BYU has a very strong reputation in the community. Seriously, I still get asked about it anytime I go to a conference.

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  4. jmb275,

    That's interesting about BYU being known for aerospace stuff. I've never heard of MAGICC. What is it?

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  5. Interesting, in the US News ranking UNC-CH come in at #30, and NC State comes in at #111, but in the WSJ ranking NC State is tied for #19 (with the University of Virginia) and UNC-CH ties for #25 (with Washington State).

    It is also interesting to note the differences between the two lists. I guess it all depends on what you consider to be important, and it appears that people who are hiring really don't care how your school is ranked by US News.

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  6. Multiple AGent Intelligent Coordination and Control. We were the BYU EE lab that flew UAVs around? We were featured in the Deseret News? http://magicc.byu.edu/

    I pretty much do the same thing here at UMich, though my research now is Controls, rather than UAV application as it was in the MAGICC lab.

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