michzx

I will get my B.S. degree in computer science this June and have decided to further my study in graduate school.

So far I have been admitted by USC, Penn and Columbia. I also applied Cornell, Duke and NYU but have not got any messages yet.

I will definitely not pursue a PHD degree after my graduation and want to do jobs like IT-consulting or become an analyst in financial companies. Doing developing work in IT companies is OK for me but it is not my first choice.

Would you please give me some advices on these programs?

USC - MS in Computer Science (Admitted)
Cornell - MEng in Computer Science
Columbia - MS in Computer Science (Admitted)
Penn - MS in Computer and Information Science (Admitted)
NYU - MS in Computer Science
Duke - MS in Computer Science

Thanks in advance.

pearlygate

if I were you I'd go to cornell if not USC

jessiehl

Since you want to work for financial companies, and it's a master's rather than a PhD, I'd go for prestige. A very prestigious school (you seem to have plenty of those) with strong connections to the financial industry (don't know which those are, since that's not an industry that I care about, but others might).

Heliosphan

I think Cornell is the highest rated of all those schools, for Computer Science.

tasteomycheese

Hey guys,

I'm in a similar situation. I'm a MS Electrical/Computer engineering student, and here are the three choices I'm choosing between:

1) UW-Seattle. RA with $2k/month stipend + tuition waiver

2) Columbia - most likely no funding

3) USC - most likely no funding

The choice is probably fairly straightforward, but I don't want to look back 20 years from now and regret losing my chance at experiencing the ivy league education.

BedHead

I would've thought UW is a better school in this field than the other two. Are you from Washington? If not, go to Seattle. Otherwise, maybe being in NYC would be faaaabulous.

tasteomycheese

Is it? I went by the engineering rankings and USC/Columbia are ranked slightly higher. Maybe it's different for EE/CE programs.

I am from Seattle and I do enjoy the environment here. I have to admit the biggest draw from Columbia, besides being in NYC, is the name.

pearlygate

UW CSE ranking is higher than columbia / usc. Also UW's paul allen center is one of the most comfortable, modern, nice, <insert all superlatives> CS building I've ever encountered.

ivy league education especially in engineering is overrated

jmilton90

^ lol... i have to agree.

herenow

Graduate school programs aren't uniform across specialties within a department. So overall rankings aren't that meaningful and it really depends on what area you're interested in. For financial-related work, Columbia or NYU will open up many opportunities just by being in NYC. Columbia also has a strong financial engineering program.