Edison State Univ vs. Thomas Edison

[tesu-acct-student]

Hi all,

I would like to share a thought I've had, to see what you all think. I was thinking that it might good for us to drop the "Thomas" in Thomas Edison when referring to the university. This way, we would be saying Edison State, or Edison State University. I think it would place the emphasis on the State part of the name. It doesn't matter to those of us here, because we already know it is a state university. But others don't. 

Do you think that when you use "Thomas Edison State University," with people, that the "State" part is clear enough to them? I just wonder if the name of "Thomas Edison" is what they remember, rather than "Edison State." 

I always use Edison State University on my resume, employment documents, etc. I want it to be super clear that this is a state school. I don't want people's minds getting stuck on the "Thomas Edison" part.

Does any of this make sense??? Of course, I'm not talking about pushing to change the actual name. Just to change the name that we use when talking about the university with others. What do you all think? Have you ever wondered about this?

[MNomadic]

The problem is if they look it up they may find Edison State College instead which is a community college. I don't know the official consensus but I would think it's deceptive if listed as "Edison State University" on resumes or other documents. It wouldn't be an issue if stated that way conversationally but on paper I believe you should use the actual name, especially the first word in the name. What if someone looks up "ESU"? They will find at least 2 different schools which aren't TESU. Then they may be liable to think you lied about it.

I understand the desire for emphasizing the "state," since the full name is a little wordy. Heck my dad always asks how my degree at "Thomas Jefferson" is going. But I believe it's my job to accurately portray the name of the school on my resume. If someone can't remember the "state" part of the name(or says Jefferson instead of Edison), or mistakenly thinks it's TESC(which it used to be), that's not really my fault or problem if I accurately communicated the name of the institution and I'm always available to clarify the name if someone should ask.

That's my position on it anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter to some employers, but my background always demanded accurate documents and logs. I can only assume that future employers would similarly demand my accurate portrayal of information.

 I want it to be super clear that this is a state school

I personally would prefer someone be super clear about the actual name of the school especially if I wanted to look it up.

[natshar]

Hi all,

I would like to share a thought I've had, to see what you all think. I was thinking that it might good for us to drop the "Thomas" in Thomas Edison when referring to the university. This way, we would be saying Edison State, or Edison State University. I think it would place the emphasis on the State part of the name. It doesn't matter to those of us here, because we already know it is a state university. But others don't. 

Do you think that when you use "Thomas Edison State University," with people, that the "State" part is clear enough to them? I just wonder if the name of "Thomas Edison" is what they remember, rather than "Edison State." 

I always use Edison State University on my resume, employment documents, etc. I want it to be super clear that this is a state school. I don't want people's minds getting stuck on the "Thomas Edison" part.

Does any of this make sense??? Of course, I'm not talking about pushing to change the actual name. Just to change the name that we use when talking about the university with others. What do you all think? Have you ever wondered about this?

I went to a resume workshop and one thing I remember hearing:
"If you misspell where you went to school, I will immediately throw your resume out and won't consider you."

After that, I made a point to look at people resumes for wrong school names and it amazed me how many people couldn't get the name of their school right. Examples include serious misspellings and adding the word "community" to a college that although it is a community college, never ever had the work community in its name and putting the school name as two words when it is a compound word.

They also told me most employers do quick google search of where the person they want to hire went to school. Nothing fancy, but if it isn't something they've heard of, they just want to make sure it is a legit accredited school. 

Personally, I think changing the name of a school and a resume is a bad idea. But what do I know?

[dfrecore]

I'm going to continue to refer to it as TESU or Thomas Edison State University. Leaving off any part of it seems silly and unnecessary. No one except people from NJ (or close to the school) will have heard about it anyway.

Here in CA, we have 23 "state" schools (as opposed to our UC schools, which are also state schools but more prestigious and don't have "state" in the name). Most people don't know all 23 - all they know is that when they hear a school with "state" in the name, they understand that it's part of the state university system, and are fine with that. I'm going to assume they feel that way about all of our states.

[jsd]

I've always thought that "Yale" sounds better on my resume than "Thomas Edison State," so that's what I use

[sanantone]

I think I've only come across a couple of private schools with "state" in their name. They referred to state nicknames i.e. Mountain State University. Mountain State University closed years ago. Thomas Edison is not a nickname for any state, so I think it's obvious that it's a public university. If anyone is unsure, with the full name provided, they can find a Wikipedia article on TESU.

What I like about the TESU homepage is that they don't give any hints that they're an online school.

---

Sort of related...former Governor Chris Christie considered merging TESU with Rutgers and making TESU the online division. Imagine having a Rutgers degree all of a sudden. LOL.

That scared me, though, because there would be the possibility that Rutgers wouldn't be as flexible.

[zzzz24]

Obviously TESU isn't Harvard, but it is still a legit state university, so I would not be altering the name one bit.

Would I prefer it had a more condensed name? Sure, but there are schools with even longer names.
It is what it is. If you want the prestige, there are other schools out there to consider.

[sanantone]

It could be worse. There's California University of Pennsylvania and University of Maryland University College.

[tesu-acct-student]

A lot of great discussion here. As far as the resume is concerned... I was curious about what alums do who attended Stanford University, because the full name is Leland Stanford Junior University. I found a resume from Sergey Brin, and he puts it as Stanford University, not the full name. If an employer is going to get upset with me because I put Edison State University instead of Thomas Edison State University, then they better feel the same way if they have a Stanford applicant who puts Stanford University and not the full name. If not, then what? Is that elitism?

https://www.businessinsider.com/sergey-b...gle-2017-9

[allvia]

---

A lot of great discussion here. As far as the resume is concerned... I was curious about what alums do who attended Stanford University, because the full name is Leland Stanford Junior University. I found a resume from Sergey Brin, and he puts it as Stanford University, not the full name. If an employer is going to get upset with me because I put Edison State University instead of Thomas Edison State University, then they better feel the same way if they have a Stanford applicant who puts Stanford University and not the full name. If not, then what? Is that elitism?

https://www.businessinsider.com/sergey-b...gle-2017-9

The difference is that Thomas Edison State University does not refer to itself as "Edison State" - where as Leland Stanford Junior University does call/market itself as "Stanford University"

With this thinking do we start calling COSC "Oak State"? I believe it would be a disservice to call it anything other than "Thomas Edison" or TESU.