Princeton for PhD in EE?

frank10
Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:19:20 +0000

unless there is a very particular professor you cannot live without, i would advise against going to princeton for graduate school for the simple reason that success in graduate school depends in no small measure on having a life outside of graduate school, and such a thing is unfortunately not available at princeton. there is a very small graduate population housed in crappy dorms and apartments so far from campus that a shuttle is needed, not to mention the fact that you’re stuck in a boring, conservative, and incredibly expensive suburban village with a bunch of pharmaceutical executives. princeton is not a good college town like ann arbor or madison where there are actually things to do off campus. new york is an hour and 10 minutes by train, but trust me, that isn’t that close, and if you want to come back late at night it’ll take you twice as long.

princeton is a great school and they’ll offer you a ton of money if you get accepted, but i don’t think any of the programs is good enough to justify the sacrifice you have to make living there. whatever your field, you can find a program just as good–if not better–at another school in a nice town (harvard, berkeley, columbia, nyu, mit, chicago, michigan, ucla, stanford with a car, hell even new haven looks downright electrifying compared to princeton!)