re: What does the nation outside of Louisiana say about LSU?

I live in the Philadelphia area. Much like most posters said the first thing that gets brought up is football, alligators, and food.

Academics doesn't get mentioned at all and that includes at job interviews. They see your degree field and experience and that gets you the interview. From there it's on you. As a hiring manager, I tend to look for candidates who graduated from larger state schools (PSU, Rutgers, Maryland, LSU, whatever) or private schools with a reputation for engineering (Drexel, Lehigh, Bucknell) etc. I put all of those schools in both categories on the same level. Holding all else equal, I discount small state schools like an SLU, USL, or McNeese. The question I ask myself when looking at a resume is "Did the candidate want to attend the best school in his area?" Once the interview starts, I couldn't care less anymore about pedigrees, 5 minutes of Q & A and I will have sized him/her up.

In a large city, there is so much diversity relative to college attendance it's not like there are one or two large cliques of a predominant alumni base.

When it comes to social settings, they think it's neat I went there and ask a lot of questions about the usual stuff.

But going back to academics, since I've moved up here I've never, and I mean not once been thought of as inferior because of my college (for other reasons, perhaps..).