Choose the university with good “superficial” brand.Hey guys. So as a 19 y/o kid I got accepted in one of the best universities in my country for the faculty of economics.
I've read a thousand threads about "is college worth it" but, don't worry, this is not the question I want to ask you today.
I also know getting a degree in economics most likely makes me a corporate slave for the rest of my life, unless I decide to start a business on my own. I already own a "business", even though I can't call it like that yet, as I'm still working on building its system.
Anyways, I got recently accepted in two universities:
Now, I was wondering. How much do these rankings truly matter?
- One is ranked top 3 for "Economics" in Italy. The problem? This university is in a small city (100k inhabitants) and I'm concerned about the lack of entertainment I'll enjoy there.
- The other university is in an 800k city (always in Italy), but it is not ranking very well (top 15).
Should I say "F*ck you" to the bigger, and more entertaining city and instead opt for the other University in the smaller city?
I'm sure my future comes first when talking about this kind of decisions, but I was wondering how much these rankings truly matter at the end of the day.
Should I completely forget about women and entertainment and opt for the university that will bring me a slightly better future?
What's your experience? Thank you guys.
In other words choose the “Harvard” equivalent in your country if there is such a strong brand.
Because since everything actually “doesn't matter”, only the brand lasts forever. You can be a joker who actually did engineering in Harvard instead of doing it in MIT. Who cares? Who knows about the details? Once you step out of the academia only the brand lasts. Harvard still smells better and no matter care about Harvard’s engineer department’s reputation vs MIT’s engineering department. Don’t worry about whose Economics department is better if you have a “harvard brand” in your country. And no matter where you study Economics you will be studying U.S. text book material so it makes little difference in the quality of education. You will be studying the great work of Keynes, Friedman, Ricardo, Lucas, Samuelson and “celeb pundit” like Paul Krugman. If you have passion in the subject like I do you will enjoy it no matter where you study it.
I did Economics degree. It is an academic subject. It is not a job friendly discipline like computing or engineering. Even if you do finance jobs it is just treated like a general degree like business. People with more quantitative background can actually open more doors in finance.