I agree with the two main points of your post regarding the importance of:
- being forced to learn difficult problems
- being surrounded by very smart people
In the long run it really helps to be forced to learn difficult ideas. If you aren't forced to learn them then you are unlikely to put forth the effort necessary. This is why it is a nice benefit to be in a class where they expect you to do hard problems and you have the pride to not want to let them down. As you stated, big state universities cater to a lower common denominator so the focus on difficulty is not as extreme.
Anyone that is reasonably intelligent and very self-motivated can conquer the hard problems students go through in top Computer Science programs. They can also network in a similar, although not as easy, fashion as done at top-tier universities by doing open-source. So, while a top-tier university does make things easier, it isn't a requirement. This is doubly true for Computer Science.
I do think that your experience at Microsoft was purely anecdotal as you stated. The part where those from top-tier schools were always better than those from a lower-tier is very far from a universal truth. Following that train of logic in the real world will get you burned.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they were ALWAYS better. It was just very rare (I think 1 person) for someone not CMU/MIT/Waterloo to be on the same tier. Again, I think this is likely due to the fact that we were all in school, and we had learned things they had never even heard of. It was like comparing a college senior to a freshman. Over time after leaving universities I'm sure things will balance out. Those that continue learning will keep ahead. Those that don't will fall behind.
It does even out after a few years. When I think of the half a dozen or so people I know at the Googleplex who I would most want on my team for a startup, they graduated from: Virginia Tech, UT Austin, UMich Ann Arbor, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and perhaps Brown.
I've noticed that the MIT interns are noticeably ahead of interns from other schools, and that fresh grads from top tier schools tend to be ahead of other fresh grads (actually, fresh grads from state schools tend not to end up at Google - nearly everyone above except the Brown & Stanford grads came to Google after work experience elsewhere). But that advantage fades after a year or two, and the long-term top performers are often folks who blew off college or went on tour with their punk-rock band.
- being forced to learn difficult problems
- being surrounded by very smart people
In the long run it really helps to be forced to learn difficult ideas. If you aren't forced to learn them then you are unlikely to put forth the effort necessary. This is why it is a nice benefit to be in a class where they expect you to do hard problems and you have the pride to not want to let them down. As you stated, big state universities cater to a lower common denominator so the focus on difficulty is not as extreme.
Anyone that is reasonably intelligent and very self-motivated can conquer the hard problems students go through in top Computer Science programs. They can also network in a similar, although not as easy, fashion as done at top-tier universities by doing open-source. So, while a top-tier university does make things easier, it isn't a requirement. This is doubly true for Computer Science.
I do think that your experience at Microsoft was purely anecdotal as you stated. The part where those from top-tier schools were always better than those from a lower-tier is very far from a universal truth. Following that train of logic in the real world will get you burned.