Colorado
I've worked in Tech for almost 30 years. Prior to that, I did technical recruitment for a fortune 50 company. What was true then, is true today if you are speaking of IT type of Tech. CERTIFICATIONS are KING KING KING. Here's the deal with a 4 year degree (I have a 4 year and two masters so I'm not against it), by the time a person graduates after 4 years much of what they learned in year one is getting obsolete. here are some great career paths....each of which are somewhat easy to navigate between when one is rising up the latter. Developer (only as an entry point --- stay away from things like Web Development as those are a dime a dozen), Network Engineer, DBA, DA, Architect (data, enterprise, or DW), Network Security, and IT Security in general. With a few certifications the newbee is getting started. A few years later with a little bit of experience he or she can write their own ticket.
I'm going to disagree - though of course it varies. Most tech people I've talked to see certs (and certs only) as huge red flags of "IT Bootcamps" where people can (maybe) pass a test but have no idea how to actually do the job. The last place I talked to that cared about certs was "The Geek Squad" - not exactly a career highlight.
That is not luck. The main movers and the right levers may not be 100% obvious, but it is easy to remove it from "luck".
Caltech engineering? Something must have changed. I applied to Caltech. A Caltech assistant prof showed up at my HS in MA on a cold February (I think it was) day. Cold. Caltech guy was wearing surfer-dude clothes, incl open-toe sandals. He looked like a cross between Weird Al Yancovich & that guy ?Spiccoli? in that movie ...
There was no mention of engineering in the initial question.and the cherry on top being that "Technology" is such an interesting word. Being a geek from way-back, I sometimes go down the rabbit hole when I hear people use the word in questionable ways. Sometimes it is defined far too broadly, but other times far too narrowly. Example: here is the 1st sentence from wikipedia's page on "Technology". "Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way."
I was working as an infrastructure engineer for a start-up that had a hard paper ceiling. We knew that the job could be done by an experienced non-degreed technician, but we were forced to hire a candidate with a degree.
www.eas.caltech.edu
When I chose my program at Purdue, the school was AE&ES - Aeronautical Engineering & Engineering Science. The next year, Engineering Science was moved to Interdisciplinary Engineering and the school became A&AE - Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering. I was initially drawn to Engineering Science but decided against it because the career prospects for Engineering Science (Interdisciplinary Engineering) was not as well defined as other branches of engineering.
My oldest went to RPI. He is doing really well. That was an expensive place at the time (20 percent or so was covered by grants and scholarship, the rest fell on us) and likely still is. Meanwhile the school president (or what ever her title was) was one of the highest paid in the country while the school had a reputation of not giving money to its students.