After what you just said, color me skeptical. I went to a state school and got an average-ish CS degree with average-ish internships and research, how far behind am I?

I don't know you, so I have no idea. Your employer and colleagues could give you a better assessment. But I can say that an average grade taking the top classes at school is much better than average grades in the minimum-to-graduate classes.

Education doesn't stop with the degree. Good engineers never stop studying to expand their expertise.

I've been working for several decades with other engineers. It's not too hard to see who are the good ones and who aren't. The "aren't" are the ones who solve problems using trial and error, and when they get it to work they don't bother figuring out why it's working.

The "are" engineers will do whatever is required to find out what is actually wrong, work to understand it, and will do a targeted fix.

What kind of engineer you want to be is entirely up to you.

One thing you can do is take the youtube MIT CS courses. It's free. I've taken some of them to fill in gaps in my education.

You're already far behind due to your insecurities or Will an internet forum really guide your life ?

An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad. You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap. There is no moving past this point no matter who you ask. And no the amount of hard work you do doesn't matter. Everyone of the "elite" school students work hard.

> An MIT grad will always have more gates open than an NCSU grad.

In the immortal words of Amy Klobuchar “are you calling me dumb?”

> You need to do other things in your career to lessen the gap.

Such as what exactly?

I stated a fact. You implied it meant you were dumb. The average MIT kid may as well be smarter than the average NCSU kid. But there sure may be NCSU kids smarter than some MIT kids. All of this is relevant to a certain degree. You keep on harping over the same points.

If you had admits from MIT and NCSU, both full rides, which one would you choose ? Let's see what cognitive dissonance you concoct now.

That wasn’t my question

Answer my question too, what would you choose between the two ? Would brand and prestige play a role in your decision ?

All your posts here disparage higher "brands" than what you have.

I’m not disparaging anything. Only you seem to...

That's neither here nor there really. I'd appreciate an answer!

1. I'm not calling you dumb. 2. It's prestige you're after. It's clear from your answers you want some validation from society. There are brands you can chase - BCG for consulting, Google (no Amazon doesn't carry the same weight), Rhodes scholar etc..

If you're saying Amazon doesn't carry the same weight, you seem to be calling me dumb.

No I am just stating a fact. Also if someone perceives another person to be "better" than you, that doesn't make you dumb. There will always be people smarter than us. If you're chasing validation you can keep going and chasing degrees + institutions.

And now please answer MIT vs NCSU ? If you reply with NCSU then we're done here. No point even discussing with someone who is lying.

I don't see the relevance of this question

Why can't you answer it ?