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Bottom of your class, and you're an art history major?? Probably hard.

Top of your class and you're an engineer? Probably not as hard.

Business School? Thank you for the response

Undergrad business degrees are a dime a dozen. No one at Goldman Sachs is gonna hire you for M&A if that's what you're looking for.

Your first job will be doing Excel for some small company. Then you just work your way up from there. If you're a pleasant person, you work well with others, and you are good at making friends, you'll do fine.

I graduated with highest honors with a biology degree from UMO. Had difficulty getting a job. I was told a master's would help. Eventually I got a job at lab and worked my way up, now I'm high up at a different place, making great money. After that first job, no one cares about where you go to college

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Unfortunately, Masters are the new bachelors, especially with a major like Business.

The real question is probably how competitive you’ll be for admission to a good MBA program.

A business degree alone won’t get you many promising interviews immediately after graduation. Get an internship (or two) while still in school. Try to do some part time work relevant to the field you hope to get into. I have a business degree from USM (2015) and now am fortunate enough to have a director level role with a large company in Southern New England (HQ’d in a city). If you want to be in Boston, yeah I think your suspicion is right that you may get overlooked for resumes with larger schools. Maybe take a gig for a year and a half in a smaller market and leverage that experience into a Boston opportunity.

Why Boston? Tons of great jobs in Maine for bright graduates.

With a business degree, most important is figuring out what to specialize in. Knock it out of the pro and work harder than your peers. Volunteer for the hard projects to learn. You’ll be fine.

Agreed - unless you have a strong reason to stay in Boston and have a devout interest in a specific career path, get a degree at whatever school and go explore. I have an undergrad in Public Administration which worked well in the DC area as an entry point (Political / Legal), bounced to Cincinnati and then Delaware doing various things but here I am working in beer in Maine. Over time, unless you are in a specific profession, degree focuses don’t matter.

I have hired probably 2000 professionals or more in my lifetime. Which means that I have probably perused 100,000 or more resumes. I have never once taken note of where someone graduated from.

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It’s not just the degree, it’s you. If you coast after school you’ll meander around. If you have drive and focus you’ll go farther. Don’t let the best degree you can afford define you.

This, and same. More like 200/10000 for me, but undergrad school and even really major just don’t matter once you get a couple years experience.

Undergrad is about learning how to learn, how to prioritize, how to finish projects, and almost most importantly building a network. Do you get a better network coming out of an Ivy? Sure, but work with what you’ve got

Spend 100k then go work for free for 2 years and maybe you get to land into middle-class America as long as you have no health issues. Merica! Sure for the first 15 years of your life after college you will make what a Mcdonald's worker makes a month. But after you are 40 you might be able to buy a house. Long as you have no kids.

Hey just wanted to be real before you buy.

FWIW all business degrees read to me as "I'm a boring and intellectually dull person who doesn't want to work very hard but also get rich", but you do you.

I don’t like the fact that the system is designed to keep certain people indentured servants - most jobs can be done without college degrees but employers add it as a stipulation, forcing kids to go to uni, get loans, graduate with crushing debt and remain beholden to government and big businesses

Honestly, most employers aren't looking at where you went to school, but what degree you received and if it's relevant to the job.

I think people are waking up to the ivy leagues being nothing special. Super hard to get into for sure, but really no different when it comes to a basic undergrad once you're there. You're basically paying for the brand, and perhaps connections once your there.

Same with an MBA. They’re typically a dime a dozen milquetoast candidates

This. My wife is an administrator in medical research: they see degrees as prerequisites but what gets qualified employees hired is relevant experience and interviewing. From what I've read, more prestigious schools help build more contacts in a social/professional sense, and some may give you more professional exposure to your field of study. IMO, contacts and experience can be gained without spending a small mortgage on student loans too!

In case you didn't know this. People get jobs, not degrees.

Not everyone wants to find new and exciting ways to drink the cream off the top of the pitcher that working men filled. But too many do.

>relevant experience and interviewing

and connections. Harvard, MIT, etc help because of the alumni connections. This is a path that UMaine hasn't taken full advantage of, at least in the past. Graduates need to talk to the alumni office and their dean's office and find the connections with alumni that work in the field of interest.

Yes, which is what I went on to describe in a general sense as "contacts". However, those connections should only get you leads or the proverbial "foot in the door", not get you hired... That would be nepotism.

Nepotism is hiring family or friends over more qualified people. Getting an interview for the job is what we're talking about here. If there is an interesting job opening, first step should be (aside from determining if you qualify) is to see if any alumni work in the company. If so, contact them, introduce yourself, and ask about their experience in the company, telling them you were considering applying but would appreciate their inside take. If you still like the idea of working there, and are feeling a vibe, you can ask for advice on the application process. None of that is nepotism.

I am fully aware of what nepotism is. If you hire someone simply because they are fellow alumni you have engaged in nepotism. You are talking about getting the interview. I literally said "...what gets qualified employees hired is relevant experience and interviewing". I also literally went on to say that more prestigious schools get you contacts to get your "proverbial foot in the door", as-in an interview. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills over here.

Nope. I got a job easily. BS in Civil. No one asked my GPA

A lot of the time people get into those school because their parents are wealthy. Have never found someone who cares what school you went to.

It is valued, like the other New England state schools (UVM, UNH (ew), UMass campuses, URI, and UConn) they all provide a very good education in many fields.

I would be surprised to see and HR department look down on almost any state school nowadays, especially a New England one.

Usually they are only on the look out for known degree mills.

I have two degrees (BA & MA) from UMaine and they've done absolutely nothing for me so far, but they're econ based and there isn't much of a market around here, even as an economist at UMaine.

I talked to some of the department people at the flagship school in Orono and was told a PhD might get me considered, but probably not a PhD from a Maine school.

Good for you Billy

Maine is a good Engineering school

Better than the universities the OP listed?

Maine Maritime Academy degree has more value on paper..

Maine is great in so many ways but let's not shy away from the fact that it's not easy here for bright young graduates. Boston will have a better pay:CoL ratio, more networking opportunities, more jobs, more things to do for young people, and they can always easily visit on the Downeaster. That's probably why they said Boston.

I disagree with a lot of what you wrote. Sure, Boston has more companies in the area. Spoiler: most of them aren’t technically in “Boston”.

However, competition is also higher.

If you are young and bright and want to build a career in anything from advanced material manufacturing to defense technology to biotechnology there are more than ample opportunities.

If you want to build a career in the trades, it’s literally free now except for some elbow work getting established.

There are tons of companies in both Boston and the GBA... Not sure what your point is. Not surprised you ignored the biggest point which is that the pay is significantly lower and especially with current Portland rent, definitely not anywhere near a CoL difference. We are last in New England by far. You asked: why Boston? I think you're a bit out of touch of with what the average graduating person is facing right now. You can't just wave your hand and say that the competition is more when the reality is the numbers still favor their job market. It didn't use to be this way necessarily, but it is what it is. I choose to live here and love it but I realize that someone who is trying to break into the business world is going to have a better time there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_median_wage_and_mean_wage

Look at the alumni in your field of interest-that might help…

The more a college is known, the better. It is really competitive depending on your degree. The bigger the college especially when you make connections, the better. I’m graduating with an art degree from LSU and I got a job here in Maine instantly after that with the advertisement and management team. I would say, as long as you have a degree and you have connections, you’ll get a job. But the main thing is it’s all about your connections. Best of luck out there and I’m sure you’ll get a good job!