Meirrin

Truth

It looks way better to industry if you do more for your MS than just take classes. The non-thesis option IS NOT for the benefit of industry, it's for the benefit of the university so they can take in tons of maintenance free money. A thesis MS is more work for the university, they would rather not give a crap about you and make you take classes. Do the research and get the thesis, you won't regret it.

UCSD is in a way nicer area and has the beach. There is no difference in academics or reputation in CA. San Diego and Los Angeles are so close anyway, so job opportunities in the area WILL NOT be limited to which school you went to. Any company that hires from UCLA will also hire from UCSD. People are saying the same thing about San Diego becoming the next "Silicon Valley". People say this about New York, LA, SD, Austin, the list goes on... I would take this with a grain of salt because people claim this about every city. And if any part of Southern California becomes like this, you can bet both UCSD and UCLA will be amazing schools to attend. Trust me when I say that every tech company in CA knows UCSD, UCLA, and Berkeley. The only reason non-tech people might not know UCSD as well is because they have no football team. You will NEVER find that you won't get great opportunities because you chose UCSD over UCLA. Qualcomm (which is in SD, not SV) prefers to hire from UCSD, but also hires from UCLA. UCSD is gaining a lot of popularity now that enough time has passed (UCSD is only like 50 years old); I wouldn't be surprised if they become a top 10 school in little time. Anyone who claims UCSD or UCLA is better just has a bias for that school so it is pointless to ask. Just pick based on temporary location/specific program. I would go with whichever area you like more.

I think I agree with LanoTech. People who earn degrees in the US are going to want to hire other people who earned their degrees in the US, despite what the people claim about rankings. If you plan on going for a PhD, I think ETHZ's reputation would matter. I don't think ETHZ's reputation would be worth a damn to most American's who currently work with and want to work with American's in the future. And by "American", I am also including foreigners who received US degrees. I think you will find that you won't be discriminated against in the US as an engineer for being from another country, as long as you have an American degree. I think that if you don't want to be excluded from being in the US in the future, you should go with Texas.

La Jolla is a little more expensive, but you can live in single graduate housing on campus for like $450 per month.

UCs aren't running out of money I guarantee. If you want analog/RF, UCSD hands down. Their relationship with Qualcomm is excellent for their grad students. If you want to ever work in CA, UCSD has amazing RF connections and faculty.

San Diego and Los Angeles have A LOT of RF opportunities too, this isn't a limiting factor. Silicon Valley has a ton of UCSD and UCLA alumni. The two biggest RFIC designers are in Southern California (Qualcomm/Broadcom). Any RF company in California will be very familiar with the higher quality RF programs at UCSD and UCLA. If you plan to move far away from California, Stanford will just be more recognized in general. Since UCSD and UCLA are heavy RF schools, the RF coursework will be more abundant and robust than Stanford's. I am not sure how the cost compares, but I would imagine Stanford would charge unreasonably more. The only person who won't be able to tell that your UCSD/UCLA RF MS degree is more valuable than Stanford's is your mother; RF companies will know the difference because they are the ones hiring from California universities. Considering the biggest RF company in the world just built UCSD a new engineering building, I'm going with UCSD. UCSD>=UCLA>Stanford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_M._Jacobs http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Apr/02/Qualcomm-honored-by-University-of-California-SD/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Samueli Where are you from KENfP?

Surely Stanford supports RF classes and has some research, but not like UCSD, UCLA, and other schools not mentioned in this topic. If you want Stanford for the name, that's perfectly fine considering you might be doing a terminal MS. If you are interested in research to any degree in RF; however, UCSD and UCLA clearly outshine Stanford. Top 5 schools like MIT and Stanford are not always the best choices for every sub-field in EE (Berkeley just so happens to be great for RF though). Perhaps UCSD and UCLA do offer MS fellowships that I haven't heard of, it's worth looking into.

PhD Are you asking if its possible to get into a group in order to become a non terminal MS (thesis option)? If so, a professor at UCSD told me it does happen if the student does well and lets the professor know of their interest in their group, despite being an MS student. I was told by an admissions coordinator that the electronic circuits and systems division has around 70 MS admits per year, but only 1-3 go for the thesis option. I was also told this is mainly due to the fact that many MS admits are international students who are afraid of the thesis option because of poor language skills. Keep in mind that if you just keep your head down and pound out the coursework, you can finish the terminal MS early; it just depends on what your goals are.

Lol'd hard. Yea sorry arty13, it seems like you've done all this to yourself. Why would Berkeley want some punk who won't even take theiir classes seriously. Sounds like you just want to show up, ignore them, then abuse their equipment.

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely you will receive funding at UCLA and UCSD too. I've talked to professors from both schools for RF, and have been informed that funding opportunities usually go to the PhD students (it is very difficult to get a TA position as an MS student for example). Stanford overall has a big name in EE, but UCSD and UCLA are way better schools for RF. The only real difference between UCSD and UCLA is whether or not you like San Diego or Los Angeles more, although UCSD in general has a stronger reputation in engineering and science. This might be worth a read: http://hsic.ucsd.edu/Admissions.html In addition, UCSD is regularly recruited by Qualcomm (which is based in San Diego), while UCLA goes with Broadcom. Qualcomm has been dominating the market lately, so UCSD may be the better choice in the current state and future. I got admits from UCSD, UCLA, and Georgia Tech; I'm definitely going with UCSD. And yea, Stanford seems to have the reputation that they only bring in a ton of MSEE students for the quick and easy bucks. UCSD treats its EE students very well in comparison to both Stanford and UCLA.

UCSD is the better choice (USC isn't a bad choice by any means though - great school too). UCSD has an extremely strong and reputable circuits program, especially its RF Communications. UCSD has also been gaining positive reputation as of late, so its reputation is likely to grow even more in the future. In addition, there are a lot of great companies (like Qualcomm) that regularly recruit from UCSD. Luckily UCSD is close to USC, so I doubt location would be an issue for you if that is what your worrying about.