How important is the reputation of your university?

[deathbow2134]

How important is the reputation of your university? How much will it affect your chances at getting a job or going to graduate school? Is it important to try to go to a more prestigious CS school like U of T or Waterloo?

Also, how prestigious is Dalhousie's computer science program?

[wtd]

It's about what you do with the time, and if one offers you more opportunities to make a name for yourself, then go there, but...

Let's put it this way: if you have a lackluster academic career, even if you get all A's but don't stand out, then saying you graduated from the most prestigious university in the world is not going to save you.

[jbking]

While there is some importance on the reputation, this shouldn't be a huge factor in any decision, IMO. There may be some impact on getting a job though I do wonder how many grads have a situation like I had, where I got the job I did after graduating because someone else was from the same city as me originallly and went to the same university.

As for trying to get into a prestigious school, I'd recognize that for some people they may be better off understanding whether or not those large big schools would work well for them or not. Some people may well do better at a smaller school. What good is there to go to some top school and do mediocre if one could do an awesome job at a smaller school?

I'm not too familiar with school's reputations but I would suggest looking at MacClean's annual ranking of schools as a way to see which schools have what kinds of reputations.

[Tony]

It matters if there's nothing else to judge your character and/or potential for abilities. Doing a summer internship or contributing to open source projects will have a higher impact on employability than University's reputation alone.

[Brightguy]

If you want to go to grad school it helps if those who wrote your letters of recommendation are known to those reading your application (or so I've heard). In that sense it might be better if your university has a good research reputation.

[Insectoid]

IMO, a degree is a degree, and you're more likely to get that degree at a less prestigious (and often less demanding) school, potentially with much higher marks (unless you're a genius (or do your homework) and can get straight As at UW, quite unlike myself).

You'll learn more at UW than Guelph but you can easily learn that stuff yourself in your spare time*

*This is all from the point of view of a sophomore who hasn't even set foot in his school yet.

[Brightguy]

You do not need to be a genius to do well at UW. You need to put in effort. University is mostly effort. Time management is also helpful, or you might run out out of time to put in the necessary effort.